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Файл:The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin
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CHAPTER XII
“There shall be, in England, seven half
penny loaves sold for a penny; the threehooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I
will make it felony to drink small beer;
all the realm shall be in common, and in
Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass.”
– Jack Cade.
“I do not see, sir,” I remarked, as we moved on from the last
of these pauses, “why the governors and the legislators, and
writers on this subject of anti-rentism, talk so much of feudality, and chickens, and days’ works, and durable leases, when
we have none of these, while we have all the disaffection they
are said to produce.”
“You will understand that better as you come to know
more of men. No party alludes to its weak points. It is just as
you say; but the proceedings of your tenants, for instance, give
the lie to the theories of the philanthropists, and must be kept
in the background. It is true that the disaffection has not yet
extended to one-half, or to one-fourth of the leased estates in
the country, perhaps not to one-tenth, if you take the number
of the landlords as the standard, instead of the extent of their
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
possessions, but it certainly will, should the authorities tamper
with the rebels much longer.”
“If they tax the incomes of the landlords under the durable rent system, why would not the parties aggrieved have the
same right to take up arms to resist such an act of oppression
as our fathers had in 1776?”
“Their cause would be better; for that was only a constructive right, and one dependent on general principles, whereas
this is an attempt at a most mean evasion of a written law, the
meanness of the attempt being quite as culpable as its fraud.
Every human being knows that such a tax, so far as it has any
object beyond that of an election-sop, is to choke off the landlords from the maintenance of their covenants, which is a
thing that no State can do directly, without running the risk
of having its law pronounced unconstitutional by the courts
of the United States, if, indeed, not by its own courts.”
“The Court of Errors, think you?”
“The Court of Errors is doomed, by its own abuses. Catiline
never abused the patience of Rome more than that mongrel
assembly has abused the patience of every sound lawyer in
the State. ‘Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum,’ is interpreted, now, into
‘Let justice be done, and the court fall.’ No one wishes to see it
continued, and the approaching convention will send it to the
Capulets, if it do nothing else to be commended. It was a pitiful imitation of the House of Lords system, with this striking
difference; the English lords are men of education, and men
with a vast deal at stake, and their knowledge and interests
teach them to leave the settlement of appeals to the legal men
of their body, of whom there are always a respectable num-
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THE REDSKINS; OR, INDIAN AND INJIN
ber, in addition to those in possession of the woolsack and the
bench; whereas our Senate is a court composed of small lawyers, country doctors, merchants, farmers, with occasionally a
man of really liberal attainments. Under the direction of an
acute and honest judge, as most of our true judges actually are,
the Court of Errors would hardly form such a jury as would
allow a creditable person to be tried by his peers, in a case affecting character, for instance, and here we have it set up as a
court of the last resort, to settle points of law!”
“I see it has just made a decision in a libel suit, at which the
profession sneers.”
“It has, indeed. Now look at that very decision, for instance,
as the measure of its knowledge. An editor of a newspaper
holds up a literary man to the world as one anxious to obtain
a small sum of money, in order to put it into Wall Street, for
‘shaving purposes.’ Now, the only material question raised was
the true signification of the word ‘shaving.’ If to say a man is a
‘shaver,’ in the sense in which it is applied to the use of money,
be bringing him into discredit, then was the plaintiff’s declaration sufficient; if not, it was insufficient, being wanting in what
is called an ‘innuendo.’ The dictionaries, and men in general,
understand by ‘shaving,’ ‘extortion,’ and nothing else. To call
a man a ‘shaver’ is to say he is an ‘extortioner,’ without going into details. But, in Wall Street, and among money-dealers,
certain transactions that, in their eyes, and by the courts, are
not deemed discreditable, have of late been brought within
the category of ‘shaving.’ Thus it is technically, or by convention among bankers, termed ‘shaving’ if a man buy a note at
less than its face, which is a legal transaction. On the strength
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
of this last circumstance, as is set forth in the published opinions,
the highest Court of Appeals in New York has decided that it
does not bring a man into discredit to say he is a ‘shaver!’ –
thus making a conventional signification of the brokers of
Wall Street higher authority for the use of the English tongue
than the standard lexicographers, and all the rest of those who
use the language! On the same principle, if a set of pickpockets
at the Five Points, should choose to mystify their trade a little
by including in the term ‘to filch’ the literal borrowing of a
pocket-handkerchief, it would not be a libel to accuse a citizen
of ‘filching his neighbor’s handkerchief!’”
“But the libel was uttered to the world, and not to the brokers of Wall Street only, who might possibly understand their
own terms.”
“Very true; and was uttered in a newspaper that carried
the falsehood to Europe; for the writer of the charge, when
brought up for it, publicly admitted that he had no ground
for suspecting the literary man of any such practices. He called
it a ‘joke.’ Every line of the context, however, showed it was a
malicious charge. The decision is very much as if a man who is
sued for accusing another of ‘stealing’ should set up a defence
that he meant ‘stealing’ hearts, for the word is sometimes used
in that sense. When men use epithets that convey discredit in
their general meaning, it is their business to give them a special signification in their own contexts, if such be their real
intention. But I much question if there be a respectable money-dealer, even in Wall Street, who would not swear, if called
on in a court of justice so to do, that he thought the general
charge of ‘shaving’ discreditable to any man.”
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THE REDSKINS; OR, INDIAN AND INJIN
“And you think the landlords whose rents were taxed, sir,
would have a moral right to resist?”
“Beyond all question; as it would be an income-tax on them
only of all in the country. What is more, I am fully persuaded that two thousand men embodied to resist such tyranny
would look down the whole available authority of the State;
inasmuch as I do not believe citizens could be found to take
up arms to enforce a law so flagrantly unjust. Men will look on
passively and see wrongs inflicted, that would never come out
to support them by their own acts. But we are approaching the
farm, and there are Tom Miller and his hired men waiting our
arrival.”
It is unnecessary to repeat, in detail, all that passed in this
our second visit to the farm-house. Miller received us in a
friendly manner, and offered us a bed, if we would pass the
night with him. This business of a bed had given us more difficulty than anything else in the course of our peregrinations.
New York has long got over the “two-man” and “three-man
bed” system, as regards its best inns. At no respectable New
York inn is a gentleman now asked to share even his room,
without an apology and a special necessity, with another,
much less his bed; but the rule does not hold good as respects
pedlers and music-grinders. We had ascertained that we were
not only expected to share the same bed, but to occupy that
bed in a room filled with other beds. There are certain things
that get to be second nature, and that no masquerading will
cause to go down; and, among others, one gets to dislike sharing his room and his tooth-brush. This little difficulty gave
us more trouble that night at Tom Miller’s than anything we
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
had yet encountered. At the taverns, bribes had answered our
purpose; but this would not do so well at a farm residence. At
length the matter was got along with by putting me in the garret, where I was favored with a straw bed under my own roof,
the decent Mrs. Miller making many apologies for not having
a feather-smootherer, into which to “squash” me. I did not tell
the good woman that I never used feathers, summer or winter; for, had I done so, she would have set me down as a poor
creature from “oppressed” Germany, where the “folks” did not
know how to live. Nor would she have been so much out of the
way quoad the beds, for in all my journeyings I never met with
such uncomfortable sleeping as one finds in Germany, off the
1
Rhine and out of the large towns.
While the negotiation was in progress I observed that Josh
Brigham, as the anti-rent disposed hireling of Miller’s was
called, kept a watchful eye and an open ear on what was done
and said. Of all men on earth, the American of that class is the
most “distrustful,” as he calls it himself, and has his suspicions
the soonest awakened. The Indian on the war-path – the sentinel who is posted in a fog, near his enemy, an hour before
the dawn of day – the husband that is jealous, or the priest
that has become a partisan, is not a whit more apt to fancy,
conjecture, or assert, than the American of that class who has
become “distrustful.” This fellow, Brigham, was the very beau
1 As the “honorable gentleman from Albany” does not
seem to understand the precise signification of “provincial,” I
can tell him that one sign of such a character is to admire a bed
at an American country inn. – Editor.
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THE REDSKINS; OR, INDIAN AND INJIN
ideal of the suspicious school, being envious and malignant,
as well as shrewd, observant, and covetous. The very fact that
he was connected with the “Injins,” as turned out to be the
case, added to his natural propensities the consciousness of
guilt, and rendered him doubly dangerous. The whole time my
uncle and myself were crossing over and figuring in, in order
to procure for each a room, though it were only a closet, his
watchful, distrustful looks denoted how much he saw in our
movements to awaken curiosity, if not downright suspicion.
When all was over, he followed me to the little lawn in front
of the house, whither I had gone to look at the familiar scene
by the light of the setting sun, and began to betray the nature
of his own suspicions by his language.
“The old man” (meaning my uncle Ro) “must have plenty
of gold watches about him,” he said, “to be so plaguy partic’lar
consarnin’ his bed. Peddlin’ sich matters is a ticklish trade, I
guess, in some parts?”
“Ja; it ist dangerous somevhere, but it might not be so in dis
goot coontry.”
“Why did the old fellow, then, try so hard to get that little
room all to himself, and shove you off into the garret? We hired
men don’t like the garret, which is a hot place in summer.”
“In Charmany one man hast ever one bed,” I answered,
anxious to get rid of the subject.
I bounced a little, as “one has one-half of a bed” would be
nearer to the truth, though the other half might be in another
room.
“Oh! that’s it, is’t? Wa-a-l, every country has its ways, I s’pose.
Jarmany is a desp’ate aristocratic land, I take it.”
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“Ja; dere ist moch of de old feudal law, and feudal coostum
still remaining in Charmany.”
“Landlords a plenty, I guess, if the truth was known. Leases
as long as my arm, I calkerlate?”
“Vell, dey do dink, in Charmany, dat de longer might be de
lease, de better it might be for de denant.”
As that was purely a German sentiment, or at least not an
American sentiment, according to the notions broached by
statesmen among ourselves, I made it as Dutch as possible by
garnishing it well with d’s.
“That’s a droll idee! Now, we think, here, that a lease is a
bad thing; and the less you have of a bad thing, the better.”
“Vell, dat ist queer, so queer as I don’t know! Vhat vill dey
do as might help it?”
“Oh! the legislature will set it all right. They mean to pass a
law to prevent any more leases at all.”
“Und vill de beople stand dat? Dis ist a free country, efferybody dells me, and vilt der beoples agree not to hire lands
if dey vants to?”
“Oh! you see we wish to choke the landlords off from their
present leases; and, by and by, when that is done, the law can
let up again.”
“But ist dat right? Der law should be joost, und not hold
down und let oop, as you calls it.”
“You don’t understand us yet, I see. Why that’s the prettiest and the neatest legislation on airth! That’s just what the
bankrupt law did.”
“Vhat did her bankroopt law do, bray? Vhat might you
mean now? – I don’t know.”
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THE REDSKINS; OR, INDIAN AND INJIN
“Do! why, it did wonders for some on us, I can tell you! It
paid our debts, and let us up when we was down; and that’s no
trifle, I can tell you. I took ‘the benefit,’ as it is called, myself.”
“You! – you might take der benefit of a bankrupt law! You,
lifing here ast a hiret man, on dis farm!”
“Sartain; why not? All a man wanted under that law was
about $60 to carry him through the mill; and if he could rake
and scrape that much together, he might wipe off as long a
score as he pleased. I had been dealin’ in speckylation, and
that’s a make or break business, I can tell you. Well, I got to
be about $423.22 wuss than nothin’; but, having about $90
in hand, I went through the mill without getting cogged the
smallest morsel! A man doos a good business, to my notion,
when he can make twenty cents pay a whull dollar of debt.”
“Und you did dat goot business?”
“You may say that; and now I means to make anti-rentism
get me a farm cheap – what I call cheap; and that an’t none of
your $30 or $40 an acre, I can tell you!”
It was quite clear that Mr. Joshua Brigham regarded these
transactions as so many Pragmatic Sanctions, that were to clear
the moral and legal atmospheres of any atoms of difficulty that
might exist in the forms of old opinions, to his getting easily
out of debt, in the one case, and suddenly rich in the other.
I dare say I looked bewildered, but I certainly felt so, at thus
finding myself face to face with a low knave, who had a deliberate intention, as I now found, to rob me of a farm. It is certain
that Joshua so imagined, for, inviting me to walk down the
road with him a short distance, he endeavored to clear up any
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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
moral difficulties that might beset me, by pursuing the subject.
“You see,” resumed Joshua, “I will tell you how it is. These
Littlepages have had this land long enough, and it’s time to
give poor folks a chance. The young spark that pretends to
own all the farms you see, far and near, never did anything for
‘em in his life; only to be his father’s son. Now, to my notion, a
man should do suthin’ for his land, and not be obligated for it
to mere natur’. This is a free country, and what right has one
man to land more than another?”
“Or do his shirt, or do his dobacco, or do his coat, or do
anyding else.”
“Well, I don’t go as far as that. A man has a right to his
clothes, and maybe to a horse, or a cow, but he has no right to
all the land in creation. The law gives a right to a cow as ag’in’
execution.”
“Und doesn’t der law gif a right to der landt, too? You must
not depend on der law, if you might succeed.”
“We like to get as much law as we can on our side. Americans like law: now, you’ll read in all the books – our books, I
mean, them that’s printed here – that the Americans be the
most lawful people on airth, and that they’ll do more for the
law than any other folks known!”
“Vell, dat isn’t vhat dey says of der Americans in Europe;
nein, nein, dey might not say dat.”
“Why, don’t you think it is so? Don’t you think this the
greatest country on airth, and the most lawful?”
“Vell, I don’ts know. Das coontry ist das coontry, und it ist
vhat it ist, you might see.”
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