Home as Found, James Fenimore Cooper [e novels to read .txt] 📗

indifferent to the resolutions of a meeting that had been regularly organized, with a chairman and secretary at its head, and which so unequivocally professed to be the public.

"I am reluctant to discharge this duty, Mr. Effingham, but as you insist on its performance it must be done. In the first place, they resolved that your father meant to give them the Point."

"A decision that must clearly settle the matter, and which will destroy all my father's own resolutions on the same subject. Did they stop at the Point, Mr. Bragg or did they resolve that my father also gave them his wife and children?"

"No, sir, nothing was said concerning the latter."

"I cannot properly express my gratitude for the forbearance, as they had just as good a right to pass this resolution, as to pass the other."

"The public's is an awful power, Mr. Effingham!"

"Indeed it is, sir, but fortunately, that of the republic is still more awful, and I shall look to the latter for support, in this 'crisis'--that is the word, too, is it not, Mr. John Effingham?"

"If you mean a change of administration, the upsetting of a stage, or the death of a cart-horse; they are all equally crisises, in the American vocabulary."

"Well, Mr. Bragg, having resolved that it knew my late father's intentions better than he knew them himself, as is apparent from the mistake he made in his will, what next did the public dispose of, in the plenitude of its power?"

"It resolved, sir, that it was your duty to carry out the intentions of your father."

"In that, then, we are perfectly of a mind; as the public will most probably discover, before we get through with this matter. This is one of the most pious resolutions I ever knew the public to pass. Did it proceed any farther?"

Mr. Bragg, notwithstanding the long-encouraged truckling to the sets of men, whom he was accustomed to dignify with the name of the public, had a profound deference or the principles, character, and station of Mr. Effingham, that no sophistry, or self-encouragement in the practices of social confusion, could overcome; and he paused before he communicated the next resolution to his employers. But perceiving that both the latter and his cousin were quietly waiting to hear it, he was fain to overcome his scruples.

"They have openly libelled you, by passing resolutions declaring you to be odious."

"That, indeed, is a strong measure, and, in the interest of good manners and of good morals, it may call for a rebuke. No one can care less than myself, Mr. Bragg, for the opinions of those who have sufficiently demonstrated that their opinions are of no value, by the heedless manner in which they have permitted themselves to fall into this error; but it is proceeding too far, when a few members of the community presume to take these liberties with a private individual, and that, moreover, in a case affecting a pretended claim of their own; and I desire you to tell those concerned, that if they dare to publish their resolution declaring me to be odious, I will teach them what they now do not appear to know, that we live in a country of laws. I shall not prosecute them, but I shall indict them for the offence, and I hope this is plainly expressed."

Aristabulus stood aghast! To indict the public was a step he had never heard of before, and he began to perceive that the question actually had two sides. Still, his awe of public meetings, and his habitual regard for popularity, induced him not to give up the matter, without another struggle.

"They have already ordered their proceedings to be published, Mr. Effingham!" he said, as if such an order were not to be countermanded.

"I fancy, sir, that when it comes to the issue, and the penalties of a prosecution present themselves, their readers will begin to recollect their individuality, and to think less of their public character. They who hunt in droves, like wolves, are seldom very valiant when singled out from their pack. The end will show."

"I heartily wish this unpleasant affair might be amicably settled," added Aristabulus.

"One might, indeed, fancy so," observed John Effingham, "since no one likes to be persecuted."

"But, Mr. John, the public thinks itself persecuted, in this affair."

"The term, as applied to a body that not only makes, but which executes, the law, is so palpably absurd, that I am surprised any man can presume to use it. But, Mr. Bragg, you have seen documents that cannot err, and know that the public has not the smallest right to this bit of land."

"All very true, sir; but you will please to remember, that the people do not know what I now know."

"And you will please to remember, sir, that when people choose to act affirmatively, in so high-handed a manner as this, they are bound to know what they are about. Ignorance in such a matter, is like the drunkard's plea of intoxication; it merely makes the offence worse."

"Do you not think, Mr. John, that Mr. Effingham might have acquainted these citizens with the real state of the case? Are the people so very wrong that they have fallen into a mistake?"

"Since you ask this question plainly, Mr. Bragg, it shall be answered with equal sincerity. Mr. Effingham is a man of mature years; the known child, executor, and heir of one who, it is admitted all round, was the master of the controverted property. Knowing his own business, this Mr. Effingham, in sight of the grave of his fathers, beneath the paternal roof, has the intolerable impudence--"

"Arrogance is the word, Jack," said Mr. Effingham, smiling.

"Aye, the intolerable arrogance to suppose that his own is his own; and this he dares to affirm, without having had the politeness to send his title-deeds, and private papers, round to those who have been so short a time in the place, that they might well know every thing that has occurred in it for the last half century. Oh thou naughty, arrogant fellow, Ned!"

"Mr. John, you appear to forget that the public has more claims to be treated with attention, than a single individual. If it has fallen into error, it ought to be undeceived."

"No doubt, sir; and I advise Mr. Effingham to send you, his agent, to every man, woman and child in the county, with the Patent of the King, all the mesne conveyances and wills, in your pocket, in order that you may read them at length to each individual, with a view that every man, woman and child, may be satisfied that he or she is not the owner of Edward Effingham's lands!"

"Nay, sir, a shorter process might be adopted."

"It might, indeed, sir, and such a process has been adopted by my cousin, in giving the usual notice, in the newspaper, against trespassing. But, Mr. Bragg, you must know that I took great pains, three years since, when repairing this house, to correct the mistake on this very point, into which I found that your immaculate public had fallen, through its disposition to know more of other people's affairs, than those concerned knew of themselves."

Aristabulus said no more, but gave the matter up in despair. On quitting the house, he proceeded forthwith, to inform those most interested of the determination of Mr. Effingham, not to be trampled on by any pretended meeting of the public. Common sense, not to say common honesty, began to resume its sway, and prudence put in its plea, by way of applying the corrective. Both he and Mr. Dodge, however, agreed that there was an unheard-of temerity in thus resisting the people, and this too without a commensurate object, as the pecuniary value of the disputed point was of no material consequence to either party.

The reader is not, by any means, to suppose that Aristabulus Bragg and Steadfast Dodge belonged to the same variety of the human species, in consequence of their unity of sentiment in this affair, and certain other general points of resemblance in their manner and modes of thinking. As a matter of necessity each partook of those features of caste, condition, origin, and association that characterize their particular set; but when it came to the nicer distinctions that mark true individuality, it would not have been easy to find two men more essentially different in character. The first was bold, morally and physically, aspiring, self-possessed, shrewd, singularly adapted to succeed in his schemes where he knew the parties, intelligent, after his tastes, and apt. Had it been his fortune to be thrown earlier into a better sphere, the same natural qualities that rendered him so expert in his present situation, would have conduced to his improvement, and most probably would have formed a gentleman, a scholar, and one who could have contributed largely to the welfare and tastes of his fellow-creatures. That such was not his fate, was more his misfortune than his fault, for his plastic character had readily taken the impression of those things that from propinquity alone, pressed hardest on it. On the other hand Steadfast was a hypocrite by nature, cowardly, envious, and malignant; and circumstances had only lent their aid to the natural tendencies of his disposition. That two men so differently constituted at their births, should meet, as it might be in a common centre, in so many of their habits and opinions, was merely the result of accident and education.

Among the other points of resemblance between these two persons, was that fault of confounding the cause with the effects of the peculiar institutions under which they had been educated and lived. Because the law gave to the public, that authority which, under other systems, is entrusted either to one, or to the few they believed the public was invested with far more power than a right understanding of their own principles would have shown. In a word, both these persons made a mistake which is getting to be too common in America, that of supposing the institutions of the country were all means and no end. Under this erroneous impression they saw only the machinery of the government, becoming entirely forgetful that the power which was given to the people collectively, was only so given to secure to them as perfect a liberty as possible, in their characters of individuals. Neither had risen sufficiently above vulgar notions, to understand that public opinion, in order to be omnipotent, or even formidable beyond the inflictions of the moment, must be right; and that, if a solitary man renders himself contemptible by taking up false notions inconsiderately and unjustly, bodies of men, falling into the same error, incur the same penalties, with the additional stigma of having acted as cowards.

There was also another common mistake into which Messrs. Bragg and Dodge had permitted themselves to fall, through the want of a proper distinction between principles. Resisting the popular will, on the part of an individual, they considered arrogance and aristocracy, per se , without at all entering into the question of the right, or the wrong. The people, rightly enough in the general signification of the term, they deemed to be sovereign; and they belonged to a numerous class, who view disobedience to the sovereign in a democracy, although it be in his illegal caprices, very much as the subject of a despot views disobedience to his prince.

It is scarcely necessary to say, that Mr. Effingham and his cousin viewed these matters differently. Clear headed, just-minded, and liberal in all his practices, the