Pirate Gold/Part 3/Chapter 3
III.
Old Mr. Bowdoin, one morning, some time after this, stood at his window before breakfast, drumming on the pane. The gesture has commonly been understood to indicate discontent with one's surroundings. Mrs. Bowdoin had not yet come down to breakfast. Outside, her worthy spouse could see the very tree upon which cousin Wendell Phillips had not been hanged; and his mouth relaxed as he saw his grandson Harley coming across the Common, and heard the portentous creaking that attended Mrs. Bowdoin's progress down the stairs,—the butler supporting her arm, and her maid behind attending her with shawl and smelling-salts. The old lady was in a rude state of health, but had not walked a step alone for several years. As she entered, Harley behind her, old Mr. Bowdoin gravely and ostentatiously pulled out a silver dollar and put it into the hand of the surprised young man.
"Pass it to the account," said he.
Harley took the coin, and, detecting a wink, checked his expression of surprise.
"It all goes into the fund, my dear, to be given to your favorite charity the first time you are down in time for breakfast. It amounts to several thousand dollars already."
Mrs. Bowdoin snorted, but, with a too visible effort, only asked Harley whether he would take coffee or tea.
"With accumulations, my dear,—with accumulations. But you should not address me from your carriage in that yellow shawl, when I am talking to a stranger on the Common. At least, I thought it was Tom Pinckney, of the Providence Bank, but it turned out to be a stranger. He took me for a bunco-steerer."
"James!"
"He did indeed, and you for my confederate," chuckled the old gentleman. "'Mr. Pinckney, of Providence, I believe?' said I. 'No, you don't,' said he; and he put his finger on his nose, like that."
"James!" said Mrs. Bowdoin.
"I didn't mind—don't know when I've been so flattered—must look like a pretty sharp old boy, after all, though I have been married to you for fifty years."
"James, it's hardly forty."
"Well, I thought it was fifty. The last time I did meet Tom Pinckney, he asked if I'd married again. I said you'd give me no chance. 'Better take it when you can,' said he. 'That will I, Tom,' says I. 'I've got one in my mind.'"
"Really, grandpa," remonstrated young Harley.
"Don't you talk, young man. Didn't I hear of you at another Abolition meeting yesterday? And women spoke, too,—short-haired women and long-haired men. Why can't you leave them both where a wise Providence placed them? Destroy the only free republic the world has ever known for a parcel of well-fed niggers that'll relapse into Voodoo barbarism the moment they're freed!"
"James, the country knows that the best sentiment of Boston is with us."
"The country doesn't know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with hell! I hope I'll live to see him hanged some day."
"Wendell Phillips is a martyr indeed."
"Martyr! Humbug! He couldn't get any clients, so he took up a cause. Why, they say at the club that he"—
"They said at the meeting last night, sir," interrupted Harley, "that they'd march up to the club and make you fellows fly the American flag."
"It's Phillips wants to pull it down," said the old gentleman.
Mrs. Bowdoin rattled the tea things.
"Don't mind your grandma, Harley, if she is out of temper. She's got a headache this morning. She went to bed with the hot-water bottle under her pillow and the brandy at her feet, and feels a little mixed."
"James! I never took a brandy bottle upstairs with me in my life. And Harleston knows"—
"Do you suppose he knows as well as I do, who have lived with you for fifty years?"
"And I'll not stay with you to hear my cousin insulted!" Majestic, she rose.
"It's too much of one girl," chuckled Mr. Bowdoin. "No wonder men keep a separate establishment."
"James!" Mrs. Bowdoin swept from the room.
"Don't run upstairs alone; consider the butler's feelings!" called her unfeeling spouse after her.
"You're too bad, sir," said Harley.
"I'm trying to develop her sense of humor; it's the one thing I always said I'd have in a wife. Remember it, when you get married. Why the devil don't you?"
"I have too much sense of humor, sir," said Harley gravely. "What is that?" For a noise of much shouting was heard from the Common. Both men rushed to the windows, and saw, surrounded by a maddened crowd, a small company of federal soldiers marching north.
"What are they saying?" cried Mr. Bowdoin.
Every minute the crowd increased: men and women, well dressed, sober-looking, crying, "Shame! shame!" and topping by a head the little squad of undersized soldiers (for the regular army was then recruited almost entirely from foreigners) who marched hurriedly forward, with eyes cast straight before and downward, and dressed in that shabby blue that ten years later was to pour southward in serried column, all American then, to free those slaves whom now they hunted down.
"To the Court House! To the Court House!" cried the mob.
"It's that fellow Simms," said Mr. Bowdoin, but was interrupted by sounds as of a portly person running downstairs; and they saw the front door fly open and Mrs. Bowdoin run across the street, her cap-strings streaming in the air.
"By Jove, if Abolitionism can make your grandma run, I'll forgive it a lot!" cried Mr. Bowdoin.
"Do you know the facts, sir?" suggested Harley.
"No, nor don't want to," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I know that we are jeopardizing the grandest experiment in free government the world has ever seen for a few African darkies that we didn't bring here, and have already made Christians of, and a d—d sight more comfortable than they ever were at home. But come, let's go over, or I believe your grandma will be attacking the United States army all by herself!"
But the rescue was made unnecessary by the return of that lady, panting.
"Now, sir," gasped Mrs. Bowdoin, "I hope you're satisfied, that foreign Hessians control the laws of Massachusetts!"
"I am always glad to see the flag of my country sustained," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly; "though we don't fly it from our club."
"I think you misunderstand, sir," ventured Harley. "This Simms is arrested by the Boston sheriff for stabbing a man; and the Southerners have got the federal commissioner to refuse to give him up to justice."
"If he stabbed a man, it's cheaper to let them sell him as a slave than keep him five years in our state prison."
"The poor man seems to prefer it though," said Harley gently. "Have you seen him?"
"No; what should I see the fellow for?" cried Mr. Bowdoin irritably.
"I understand the State Court House is held like a fort by federal soldiers, and thugs who call themselves deputy marshals."
Mr. Bowdoin growled something that sounded like, "What if it is?"
The two started to walk down town. Tremont Street was crowded with running men, and School Street packed close; and as they came in sight of the Court House they saw that it was surrounded by a line of blue soldiers.
"Let's go to the Court House," said Harley.
The old gentleman's curiosity made feeble resistance.
"I had a case to see about this morning. Why, there's Judge Wells, the very man I want to see."
The judge had a body-guard of policemen, and our two friends joined him as they were slowly forcing a passage through the crowd. When they came before the old gray stone Court House, they saw two cannon posted at the corners, and all the windows full of armed troops; and around the base of the building, barring every door, a heavy iron cable, and behind this a line of soldiers.
"What the devil is the cable for?" said Mr. Bowdoin.
The crowd, which had opened to let the well-known judge go by, were now crying, "Let the judge in! Let the judge in!" and then, "Give him up! Give Simms up! Give him to the sheriff!" and then, "Kidnapped! Kidnapped!" Just ahead of them our party saw another judge stopped rudely before the door by a soldier dropping a bayonet across his breast.
"Can't get in here,—can't get in here."
"I tell you I'm a judge of the Supreme Court of this Commonwealth," they heard him say.
"Go around, then, and get under the chain. But the court can't sit to-day." Mr. Bowdoin bubbled with indignation as he saw the old man take off his high hat, and, stooping low, bow his white hairs to get beneath the chain.
"If I do, I'm damned," said Mr. Bowdoin quietly.
"And if I do, I'm— Drop it down, sir, and let me pass: Judge Wells, of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts."
"And I'm James Bowdoin, of James Bowdoin's Sons, and a good Democrat, and defendant in a confounded lawsuit before his honor."
"Courts can't sit to-day. Keep back."
"They can't?" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Since when do the courts of Massachusetts ask permission of a pack of slave-hunters whether they shall sit or not?"
Harley was chuckling with suppressed delight. "If only grandma were here!" thought he.
"Let them in! Let Judge Wells in!" shouted the crowd.
The soldier called his corporal, and a hasty consultation followed; as a result of which the chain dropped at one end, and the three men walked over it in triumph.
"Three cheers for Judge Wells! Three cheers for Mr. Bowdoin!" cried the crowd, recognizing him.
When they got into the dark, cool corridor of the old stone fort, "That I should ever come to be cheered by a mob of Abolitionists!" gasped Mr. Bowdoin, mopping his face. "Upon my word, I think I lost my temper."
"Oh no, sir," said Harley Bowdoin gravely. "But where is the court-room?"
"Follow the line of soldiers," replied the judge, and hurried to his lobby.
Up the stone stairs went our friends, three flights in all; soldiers upon every landing, and, leaning over the banisters and carelessly spitting tobacco juice on the crowd below, a row of "deputy" United States marshals, with no uniform, but with drawn swords.
Mr. Bowdoin started. "Harley," said he, stopping by one of them, "I know that fellow. His name's Huxford, and he keeps a gambling-house; I had him turned out of one of my houses."
"Very likely," said Harley.
"Move on there, move on," said the man surlily, pretending not to recognize Mr. Bowdoin.
"What are you doing here, sir?" said that gentleman. "Don't you know I swore out a warrant against you?"
"Who the h—l are you?"
"James Bowdoin, confound you!" answered that peppery person, and swung his fist right and left with such vigor that Huxford went down on one side, and another deputy on the other. Then Harley hurried the old gentleman through the breach into the upper court-room, where they were under the protection of the county sheriff in his swallow-tailed blue coat, cocked hat, gold lace, and sword, and a friendly judge.
"Hang it, sir, they'll be arresting you, next," said Harley.
"By Heaven, I should like to see them do it!" cried our old friend in a loud whisper, if the term can be used. "Sheriff Clark, do you know those fellows are all miserable loafers?"
"They are federal officers, sir; I can do nothing," whispered back that gorgeous official.
"Humph!" returned Mr. Bowdoin. "How about state rights? Do we live in the sovereign State of Massachusetts, or do we not, I should like to know?"
"How about the Union, sir?" whispered Harley slyly.
"Hang the Union! Hang the Union, if it employ a parcel of thugs to do its work!" said Mr. Bowdoin, so loud that there was a ripple of laughter in the court-room; and the judge looked up from the bench and smiled, for had not he dined with old Mr. Bowdoin in their college club once a month for forty years? But a low-browed fellow who was sitting behind the counsel at the table was heard to mutter "Treason." Beside him in the prisoner's dock sat the slave; not cowed nor abject, though in chains and handcuffs, but looking straight before him at the low-browed man who was his master, as a bird might look at a snake.
"Which of those two is the slave?" asked Mr. Bowdoin in an audible voice.
Again the room laughed. The clerk rapped order. The low-browed man looked up angrily, and spoke to a deputy marshal whose face had been turned away from Mr. Bowdoin before. He rose and started toward them.
"By Heaven," cried Mr. Bowdoin, "it is David St. Clair!"