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Sevenoaks by J. G. Holland

J >> J. G. Holland >> Sevenoaks




It was by accident that he was led out by a side passage, and there he
caught glimpses of the cells to which Miss Butterworth had alluded, and
inhaled an atmosphere which sickened him to paleness, and brought to his
lips the exclamation: "For God's sake let's get out of this."

"Ay! ay!" came tremblingly from behind the bars of a cell, "let's get
out of this."

Mr. Belcher pushed toward the light, but not so quickly that a pair of
eyes, glaring from the straw, failed to recognize him.

"Robert Belcher! Oh, for God's sake! Robert Belcher!"

It was a call of wild distress--a whine, a howl, an objurgation, all
combined. It was repeated as long as he could hear it. It sounded in his
ears as he descended the hill. It came again and again to him as he was
seated at his comfortable breakfast. It rang in the chambers of his
consciousness for hours, and only a firm and despotic will expelled it
at last. He knew the voice, and he never wished to hear it again.

What he had seen that morning, and what he had done, where he had been,
and why he had gone, were secrets to which his wife and children were
not admitted. The relations between himself and his wife were not new in
the world. He wished to retain her respect, so he never revealed to her
his iniquities. She wished as far as possible to respect him, so she
never made uncomfortable inquiries. He was bountiful to her. He had been
bountiful to many others. She clothed and informed all his acts of
beneficence with the motives which became them. If she was ever shocked
by his vulgarity, he never knew it by any word of hers, in disapproval.
If she had suspicions, she did not betray them. Her children were
trained to respect their father, and among them she found the
satisfactions of her life. He had long ceased to be her companion. As
an associate, friend, lover, she had given him up, and, burying in her
heart all her griefs and all her loneliness, had determined to make the
best of her life, and to bring her children to believe that their father
was a man of honor, of whom they had no reason to be ashamed. If she was
proud, hers was an amiable pride, and to Mr. Belcher's credit let it be
said that he respected her as much as he wished her to honor him.

For an hour after breakfast, Mr. Belcher was occupied in his library,
with his agent, in the transaction of his daily business. Then, just as
the church bell rang its preliminary summons for the assembling of the
town-meeting, Phipps came to the door again with the rakish grays and
the rakish wagon, and Mr. Belcher drove down the steep hill into the
village, exchanging pleasant words with the farmers whom he encountered
on the way, and stopping at various shops, to speak with those upon whom
he depended for voting through whatever public schemes he found it
desirable to favor.

The old town-hall was thronged for half-an-hour before the time
designated in the warrant. Finally, the bell ceased to ring, at the
exact moment when Mr. Belcher drove to the door and ascended the steps.
There was a buzz all over the house when he entered, and he was
surrounded at once.

"Have it just as you want it," shaking his head ostentatiously and
motioning them away, "don't mind anything about me. I'm a passenger," he
said aloud, and with a laugh, as the meeting was called to order and the
warrant read, and a nomination for moderator demanded.

"Peter Vernol," shouted a dozen voices in unison.

Peter Vernol had represented the district in the Legislature, and was
supposed to be familiar with parliamentary usage. He was one of Mr.
Belcher's men, of course--as truly owned and controlled by him as Phipps
himself.

Peter Vernol became moderator by acclamation. He was a young man, and,
ascending the platform very red in the face, and looking out upon the
assembled voters of Sevenoaks, he asked with a trembling voice:

"What is the further pleasure of the meeting?"

"I move you," said Mr. Belcher, rising, and throwing open his overcoat,
"that the Rev. Solomon Snow, whom I am exceedingly glad to see present,
open our deliberations with prayer."

The moderator, forgetting apparently that the motion had not been put,
thereupon invited the reverend gentleman to the platform, from which,
when his service had been completed, he with dignity retired--but with
the painful consciousness that in some way Mr. Belcher had become aware
of the philanthropic task he had undertaken. He knew he was beaten, at
the very threshold of his enterprise--that his conversations of the
morning among his neighbors had been reported, and that Paul Benedict
and his fellow-sufferers would be none the better for him.

The business connected with the various articles of the warrant was
transacted without notable discussion or difference. Mr. Belcher's
ticket for town officers, which he took pains to show to those around
him, was unanimously adopted. When it came to the question of schools,
Mr. Belcher indulged in a few flights of oratory. He thought it
impossible for a town like Sevenoaks to spend too much money for
schools. He felt himself indebted to the public school for all that he
was, and all that he had won. The glory of America, in his view--its
pre-eminence above all the exhausted and decayed civilizations of the
Old World--was to be found in popular education. It was the
distinguishing feature of our new and abounding national life. Drop it,
falter, recede, and the darkness that now hangs over England, and the
thick darkness that envelops the degenerating hordes of the Continent,
would settle down upon fair America, and blot her out forever from the
list of the earth's teeming nations. He would pay good wages to
teachers. He would improve school-houses, and he would do it as a matter
of economy. It was, in his view, the only safeguard against the
encroachments of a destructive pauperism. "We are soon," said Mr.
Belcher, "to consider whether we will take any steps for the improvement
of the condition of the poor, now supported at the public charge. Here
is our first step. Let us endow our children with such a degree of
intelligence that pauperism shall be impossible. In this thing I go hand
in hand with the clergy. On many points I do not agree with them, but on
this matter of popular education, I will do them the honor to say that
they have uniformly been in advance of the rest of us. I join hands with
them here to-day, and, as any advance in our rate of taxation for
schools will bear more heavily upon me than upon any other citizen--I do
not say it boastingly, gentlemen--I pledge myself to support and stand
by it."

Mr. Belcher's speech, delivered with majestic swellings of his broad
chest, the ostentatious removal of his overcoat, and brilliant passages
of oratorical action, but most imperfectly summarized in this report,
was received with cheers. Mr. Snow himself feebly joined in the
approval, although he knew it was intended to disarm him. His strength,
his resolution, his courage, ebbed away with sickening rapidity; and he
was not reassured by a glance toward the door, where he saw, sitting
quite alone, Miss Butterworth herself, who had come in for the purpose
partly of strengthening him, and partly of informing herself concerning
the progress of a reform which had taken such strong hold upon her
sympathies.

At length the article in the warrant which most interested that good
lady was taken up, and Mr. Snow rose to speak upon it. He spoke of the
reports he had heard concerning the bad treatment that the paupers, and
especially those who were hopelessly insane, had received in the
alms-house, enlarged upon the duties of humanity and Christianity, and
expressed the conviction that the enlightened people of Sevenoaks should
spend more money for the comfort of the unfortunate whom Heaven had
thrown upon their charge, and particularly that they should institute a
more searching and competent inspection of their pauper establishment.

As he took his seat, all eyes were turned upon Mr. Belcher, and that
gentleman rose for a second exhibition of his characteristic eloquence.

"I do not forget," said Mr. Belcher, "that we have present here to-day
an old and well-tried public servant. I see before me Mr. Thomas Buffum,
who, for years, has had in charge the poor, not only of this town, but
of this county. I do not forget that his task has been one of great
delicacy, with the problem constantly before him how to maintain in
comfort our most unfortunate class of population, and at the same time
to reduce to its minimum the burden of our taxpayers. That he has solved
this problem and served the public well, I most firmly believe. He has
been for many years my trusted personal friend, and I cannot sit here
and hear his administration questioned, and his integrity and humanity
doubted, without entering my protest. [Cheers, during which Mr. Buffum
grew very red in the face.] He has had a task to perform before which
the bravest of us would shrink. We, who sit in our peaceful homes, know
little of the hardships to which this faithful public servant has been
subjected. Pauperism is ungrateful. Pauperism is naturally filthy.
Pauperism is noisy. It consists of humanity in its most repulsive forms,
and if we have among us a man who can--who can--stand it, let us stand
by him." [Tremendous cheers.]

Mr. Belcher paused until the wave of applause had subsided, and then
went on:

"An open-hand, free competition: this has been my policy, in a business
of whose prosperity you are the best judges. I say an open-hand and free
competition in everything. How shall we dispose of our poor? Shall they
be disposed of by private arrangement--sold out to favorites, of whose
responsibility we know nothing? [Cries of no, no, no!] If anybody who is
responsible--and now he is attacked, mark you, I propose to stand behind
and be responsible for Mr. Buffum myself--can do the work cheaper and
better than Mr. Buffum, let him enter at once upon the task. But let the
competition be free, nothing covered up. Let us have clean hands in this
business, if nowhere else. If we cannot have impartial dealing, where
the interests of humanity are concerned, we are unworthy of the trust we
have assumed. I give the Rev. Mr. Snow credit for motives that are
unimpeachable--unimpeachable, sir. I do not think him capable of
intentional wrong, and I wish to ask him, here and now, whether, within
a recent period, he has visited the pauper establishment of Sevenoaks."

Mr. Snow rose and acknowledged that it was a long time since he had
entered Mr. Buffum's establishment.

"I thought so. He has listened to the voice of rumor. Very well. I have
to say that I have been there recently, and have walked through the
establishment. I should do injustice to myself, and fail to hint to the
reverend gentleman, and all those who sympathize with him, what I regard
as one of their neglected duties, if I should omit to mention that I did
not go empty-handed. [Loud cheers.] It is easy for those who neglect
their own duties to suspect that others do the same. I know our paupers
are not supported in luxury. We cannot afford to support them in luxury;
but I wash my hands of all responsibility for inhumanity and inattention
to their reasonable wants. The reverend gentleman himself knows, I
think, whether any man ever came to me for assistance on behalf of any
humane or religious object, and went away without aid, I cannot consent
to be placed in a position that reflects upon my benevolence, and, least
of all, by the reverend gentleman who has reflected upon that
administration of public charity which has had, and still retains, my
approval. I therefore move that the usual sum be appropriated for the
support of the poor, and that at the close of this meeting the care of
the poor for the ensuing year be disposed of at public auction to the
lowest bidder."

Mr. Snow was silent, for he knew that he was impotent.

Then there jumped up a little man with tumbled hair, weazened face, and
the general look of a broken-down gentleman, who was recognized by the
moderator as "Dr. Radcliffe."

"Mr. Moderator," said he, in a screaming voice, "as I am the medical
attendant and inspector of our pauper establishment, it becomes proper
for me, in seconding the motion of Mr. Belcher, as I heartily do, to say
a few words, and submit my report for the past year."

Dr. Radcliffe was armed with a large document, and the assembled voters
of Sevenoaks were getting tired.

"I move," said Mr. Belcher, "that, as the hour is late, the reading of
the report be dispensed with." The motion was seconded, and carried
_nem. con_.

The Doctor was wounded in a sensitive spot, and was determined not to be
put down.

"I may at least say," he went on, "that I have made some discoveries
during the past year that ought to be in the possession of the
scientific world. It takes less food to support a pauper than it does
any other man, and I believe the reason is that he hasn't any mind. If I
take two potatoes, one goes to the elaboration of mental processes, the
other to the support of the physical economy. The pauper has only a
physical economy, and he needs but one potato. Anemia is the normal
condition of the pauper. He breathes comfortably an atmosphere which
would give a healthy man asphyxia. Hearty food produces inflammatory
diseases and a general condition of hypertrophy. The character of the
diseases at the poor-house, during the past year, has been typhoid. I
have suggested to Mr. Buffum better ventilation, a change from
farinaceous to nitrogenous food as conducive to a better condition of
the mucous surfaces and a more perfect oxydation of the vital fluids.
Mr. Buffum--"

"Oh, git out!" shouted a voice at the rear.

"Question! question!" called a dozen voices.

The moderator caught a wink and a nod from Mr. Belcher, and put the
question, amid the protests of Dr. Radcliffe; and it was triumphantly
carried.

And now, as the town-meeting drops out of this story, let us leave it,
and leave Mr. Thomas Buffum at its close to underbid all contestants for
the privilege of feeding the paupers of Sevenoaks for another year.




CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JIM FENTON IS INTRODUCED TO THE READER AND INTRODUCES HIMSELF
TO MISS BUTTERWORTH.


Miss Butterworth, while painfully witnessing the defeat of her hopes
from the last seat in the hall, was conscious of the presence at her
side of a very singular-looking personage, who evidently did not belong
in Sevenoaks. He was a woodsman, who had been attracted to the hall by
his desire to witness the proceedings. His clothes, originally of strong
material, were patched; he held in his hand a fur cap without a visor;
and a rifle leaned on the bench at his side. She had been attracted to
him by his thoroughly good-natured face, his noble, muscular figure, and
certain exclamations that escaped from his lips during the speeches.
Finally, he turned to her, and with a smile so broad and full that it
brought an answer to her own face, he said: "This 'ere breathin' is
worse nor an old swamp. I'm goin', and good-bye to ye!"

Why this remark, personally addressed to her, did not offend her, coming
as it did from a stranger, she did not know; but it certainly did not
seem impudent. There was something so simple and strong and manly about
him, as he had sat there by her side, contrasted with the baser and
better dressed men before her, that she took his address as an honorable
courtesy.

When the woodsman went out upon the steps of the town-hall, to get a
breath, he found there such an assembly of boys as usually gathers in
villages on the smallest public occasion. Squarely before the door stood
Mr. Belcher's grays, and in Mr. Belcher's wagon sat Mr. Belcher's man,
Phipps. Phipps was making the most of his position. He was proud of his
horses, proud of his clothes, proud of the whip he was carelessly
snapping, proud of belonging to Mr. Belcher. The boys were laughing at
his funny remarks, envying him his proud eminence, and discussing the
merits of the horses and the various points of the attractive
establishment.

As the stranger appeared, he looked down upon the boys with a broad
smile, which attracted them at once, and quite diverted them from their
flattering attentions to Phipps--a fact quickly perceived by the latter,
and as quickly revenged in a way peculiar to himself and the man from
whom he had learned it.

"This is the hippopotamus, gentlemen," said Phipps, "fresh from his
native woods. He sleeps underneath the banyan-tree, and lives on the
nuts of the hick-o-ree, and pursues his prey with his tail extended
upward and one eye open, and has been known when excited by hunger to
eat small boys, spitting out their boots with great violence. Keep out
of his way, gentlemen! Keep out of his way, and observe his wickedness
at a distance."

Phipps's saucy speech was received with a great roar by the boys, who
were surprised to notice that the animal himself was not only not
disturbed, but very much amused by being shown up as a curiosity.

"Well, you're a new sort of a monkey, anyway," said the woodsman, after
the laugh had subsided. "I never hearn one talk afore."

"You never will again," retorted Phipps, "if you give me any more of
your lip."

The woodsman walked quickly toward Phipps, as if he were about to pull
him from his seat.

Phipps saw the motion, started the horses, and was out of his way in an
instant.

The boys shouted in derision, but Phipps did not come back, and the
stranger was the hero. They gathered around him, asking questions, all
of which he good-naturedly answered. He seemed to be pleased with their
society, as if he were only a big boy himself, and wanted to make the
most of the limited time which his visit to the town afforded him.

While he was thus standing as the center of an inquisitive and admiring
group, Miss Butterworth came out of the town-hall. Her eyes were full of
tears, and her eloquent face expressed vexation and distress. The
stranger saw the look and the tears, and, leaving the boys, he
approached her without the slightest awkwardness, and said:

"Has anybody teched ye, mum?"

"Oh, no, sir," Miss Butterworth answered.

"Has anybody spoke ha'sh to ye?"

"Oh, no, sir;" and Miss Butterworth pressed on, conscious that in that
kind inquiry there breathed as genuine respect and sympathy as ever had
reached her ears in the voice of a man.

"Because," said the man, still walking along at her side, "I'm spilin'
to do somethin' for somebody, and I wouldn't mind thrashin' anybody
you'd p'int out."

"No, you can do nothing for me. Nobody can do anything in this town for
anybody until Robert Belcher is dead," said Miss Butterworth.

"Well, I shouldn't like to kill 'im," responded the man, "unless it was
an accident in the woods--a great ways off--for a turkey or a
hedgehog--and the gun half-cocked."

The little tailoress smiled through her tears, though she felt very
uneasy at being observed in company and conversation with the
rough-looking stranger. He evidently divined the thoughts which
possessed her, and said, as if only the mention of his name would make
him an acquaintance:

"I'm Jim Fenton. I trap for a livin' up in Number Nine, and have jest
brung in my skins."

"My name is Butterworth," she responded mechanically.

"I know'd it," he replied. "I axed the boys."

"Good-bye," he said. "Here's the store, and I must shoulder my sack and
be off. I don't see women much, but I'm fond of 'em, and they're pretty
apt to like me."

"Good-bye," said the woman. "I think you're the best man I've seen
to-day;" and then, as if she had said more than became a modest woman,
she added, "and that isn't saying very much."

They parted, and Jim Fenton stood perfectly still in the street and
looked at her, until she disappeared around a corner. "That's what I
call a genuine creetur'," he muttered to himself at last, "a genuine
creetur'."

Then Jim Fenton went into the store, where he had sold his skins and
bought his supplies, and, after exchanging a few jokes with those who
had observed his interview with Miss Butterworth, he shouldered his sack
as he called it, and started for Number Nine. The sack was a contrivance
of his own, with two pouches which depended, one before and one behind,
from his broad shoulders. Taking his rifle in his hand, he bade the
group that had gathered around him a hearty good-bye, and started on his
way.

The afternoon was not a pleasant one. The air was raw, and, as the sun
went toward its setting, the wind came on to blow from the north-west.
This was just as he would have it. It gave him breath, and stimulated
the vitality that was necessary to him in the performance of his long
task. A tramp of forty miles was not play, even to him, and this long
distance was to be accomplished before he could reach the boat that
would bear him and his burden into the woods.

He crossed the Branch at its principal bridge, and took the same path up
the hill that Robert Belcher had traveled in the morning. About half-way
up the hill, as he was going on with the stride of a giant, he saw a
little boy at the side of the road, who had evidently been weeping. He
was thinly and very shabbily clad, and was shivering with cold. The
great, healthy heart within Jim Fenton was touched in an instant.

"Well, bub," said he, tenderly, "how fare ye? How fare ye? Eh?"

"I'm pretty well, I thank you, sir," replied the lad.

"I guess not. You're as blue as a whetstone. You haven't got as much on
you as a picked goose."

"I can't help it, sir," and the boy burst into tears.

"Well, well, I didn't mean to trouble you, boy. Here, take this money,
and buy somethin' to make you happy. Don't tell your dad you've got it.
It's yourn."

The boy made a gesture of rejection, and said: "I don't wish to take it,
sir."

"Now, that's good! Don't wish to take it! Why, what's your name? You're
a new sort o' boy."

"My name is Harry Benedict."

"Harry Benedict? And what's your pa's name?"

"His name is Paul Benedict."

"Where is he now?"

"He is in the poor-house."

"And you, too?"

"Yes, sir," and the lad found expression for his distress in another
flow of tears.

"Well, well, well, well! If that ain't the strangest thing I ever hearn
on! Paul Benedict, of Sevenoaks, in Tom Buffum's Boardin'-house!"

"Yes, sir, and he's very crazy, too."

Jim Fenton set his rifle against a rock at the roadside, slowly lifted
off his pack and placed it near the rifle, and then sat down on a stone
and called the boy to him, folding him in his great warm arms to his
warm breast.

"Harry, my boy," said Jim, "your pa and me was old friends. We have
hunted together, fished together, eat together, and slept together
many's the day and night. He was the best shot that ever come into the
woods. I've seed him hit a deer at fifty rod many's the time, and he
used to bring up the nicest tackle for fishin', every bit of it made
with his own hands. He was the curisist creetur' I ever seed in my life,
and the best; and I'd do more fur 'im nor fur any livin' live man. Oh, I
tell ye, we used to have high old times. It was wuth livin' a year in
the woods jest to have 'im with me for a fortnight. I never charged 'im
a red cent fur nothin', and I've got some of his old tackle now that he
give me. Him an' me was like brothers, and he used to talk about
religion, and tell me I ought to shift over, but I never could see
'zactly what I ought to shift over from, or shift over to; but I let 'im
talk, 'cause he liked to. He used to go out behind the trees nights, and
I hearn him sayin' somethin'--somethin' very low, as I am talkin' to ye
now. Well, he was prayin'; that's the fact about it, I s'pose; and ye
know I felt jest as safe when that man was round! I don't believe I
could a' been drownded when he was in the woods any more'n if I'd a'
been a mink. An' Paul Benedict is in the poor-house! I vow I don't
'zactly see why the Lord let that man go up the spout; but perhaps it'll
all come out right. Where's your ma, boy?"

Harry gave a great, shuddering gasp, and, answering him that she was
dead, gave himself up to another fit of crying.

"Oh, now don't! now don't!" said Jim tenderly, pressing the distressed
lad still closer to his heart. "Don't ye do it; it don't do no good. It
jest takes the spunk all out o' ye. Ma's have to die like other folks,
or go to the poor-house. You wouldn't like to have yer ma in the
poor-house. She's all right. God Almighty's bound to take care o' her.
Now, ye jest stop that sort o' thing. She's better off with him nor she
would be with Tom Buffum--any amount better off. Doesn't Tom Buffum
treat your pa well?"

"Oh, no, sir; he doesn't give him enough to eat, and he doesn't let him
have things in his room, because he says he'll hurt himself, or break
them all to pieces, and he doesn't give him good clothes, nor anything
to cover himself up with when it's cold."

"Well, boy," said Jim, his great frame shaking with indignation, "do ye
want to know what I think of Tom Buffum?"

"Yes, sir."

"It won't do fur me to tell ye, 'cause I'm rough, but if there's
anything awful bad--oh, bad as anything can be, in Skeezacks--I should
say that Tom Buffum was an old Skeezacks."

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