The Clockmaker

T >> Thomas Chandler Haliburton >> The Clockmaker

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"His manner," said I, "was certainly rather unceremonious at times,
but he was so honest and so straightforward, that no person was,
I believe, ever seriously offended at him. IT WAS HIS WAY."

"Then his way was so plaguy rough," continued the Clockmaker, "that
he'd been the better, if it had been hammered and mauled down
smoother. I'd a levelled him as flat as a flounder."

"Pray what was his offence?" said I.

"Bad enough you may depend. The hon'ble Alden Gobble was dyspeptic,
and he suffered great on easiness arter eatin', so he gees to
Abemethy for advice. 'What's the matter with you?' said the
Doctor--jist that way, without even passing the time o' day with
him--'what's the matter with you?' said he. 'Why,' says Alden, 'I
presume I have the Dyspepsy.' 'Ah!' said he, 'I see; a Yankee
swallowed more dollars and cents than he can digest.' 'I am an
American citizen,' says Alden, with great dignity; 'I am Secretary to
our Legation at the Court of St. James.' 'The devil you are,' said
Abernethy; "then you'll soon get rid of your dyspepsy.' 'I don't see
that 'ere inference,' said Alden, 'it don't follow from what you
predicate at all; it ain't a natural consequence, I guess, that a man
should cease to be ill because he is called by the voice of a free
and enlightened people to fill an important office.' (The truth is,
you could no more trap Alden than you could an Indian. He could see
other folks' trail, and made none himself; he was a real diplomatist,
and I believe our diplomatists are allowed to be the best in the
world.) 'But I tell you it does follow,' said the Doctor; 'for in the
company you'll have to keep, you'll have to eat like a Christian.'

"It was an everlasting pity Alden contradicted him, for he broke out
like one ravin' distracted mad. 'I'll be damned,' said he, 'if ever I
saw a Yankee that didn't bolt his food whole like a boa constrictor.
How the devil can you expect to digest food, that you neither take
the trouble to dissect, nor time to masticate? It's no wonder you
lose your teeth, for you never use them; nor your digestion, for
you overload it; nor your saliva, for you expend it on the carpets,
instead of your food. It's disgusting, it's beastly. You Yankees load
your stomachs as a Devonshire man does his cart, as full as it can
hold, and as fast as he can pitch it with a dung-fork, and drive off;
and then you complain that such a load of compost is too heavy for
you. Dyspepsy, eh! infernal guzzling, you mean. I'll tell you what,
Mr. Secretary of Legation, take half the time to eat that you do to
drawl out your words, chew your food half as much as you do your
filthy tobacco, and you'll be well in a month.'

"'I don't understand such language,' said Alden. (For he was fairly
riled, and got his dander up, and when he shows clear grit, he looks
wicked ugly, I tell you.) 'I don't understand such language, sir;
I came here to consult you professionally, and not to be--' 'Don't
understand!' said the Doctor, 'why it's plain English; but here, read
my book!' and he shoved a book into his hands and left him in an
instant, standing alone in the middle of the room.

"If the hon'ble Alden Gobble had gone right away and demanded his
passport, and returned home with the Legation, in one of our first
class frigates (I guess the English would as soon see p'ison as one
o' them 'ere Serpents), to Washington, the President and the people
would have sustained him in it, I guess, until an apology was offered
for the insult to the nation. I guess if it had been me," said Mr.
Slick, "I'd a headed him afore he slipped out o' the door, and pinned
him up agin the wall, and made him bolt his words again, as quick as
he throw'd 'em up, for I never seed an Englishman that didn't cut his
words as short as he does his horse's tail, close up to the stump."

"It certainly was very coarse and vulgar language, and I think," said
I, "that your Secretary had just cause to be offended at such an
ungentlemanlike attack, although he showed his good sense in treating
it with the contempt it deserved."

"It was plaguy lucky for the doctor, I tell you, that he cut his
stick as he did, and made himself scarce, for Alden was an ugly
customer; he'd a gi'n him a proper scalding; he'd a taken the
bristles off his hide, as clean as the skin of a spring shote of
a pig killed at Christmas."

The Clockmaker was evidently excited by his own story, and to
indemnify himself for these remarks on his countrymen, he indulged
for some time in ridiculing the Nova Scotians.

"Do you see that 'ere flock of colts," said he, as we passed one of
those beautiful prairies that render the valleys of Nova Scotia so
verdant and so fertile. "Well, I guess they keep too much of that
'ere stock. I heerd an Indian one day ax a tavern-keeper for some
rum. 'Why, Joe Spawdeeck,' said he, 'I reckon you have got too much
already.' 'Too much of anything,' said Joe, 'is not good; but too
much rum is jist enough.' I guess these Bluenoses think so about
their horses; they are fairly eat up by them, out of house and home,
and they are no good neither. They bean't good saddle horses, and
they bean't good draft beasts; they are jist neither one thing nor
t'other. They are like the drink of our Connecticut folks. At mowing
time they use molasses and water--nasty stuff, only fit to catch
flies; it spiles good water and makes bad beer. No wonder the folks
are poor. Look at them 'ere great dykes; well, they all go to feed
horses; and look at their grain fields on the upland; well, they are
all sowed with oats to feed horses, and they buy their bread from
us: so we feed the asses, and they feed the horses. If I had them
critters on that 'ere marsh, on a location of mine, I'd jist
take my rifle and shoot every one on 'em--the nasty yo-necked,
cat-hammed, heavy-headed, flat-eared, crooked-shanked, long-legged,
narrow-chested, good-for-nothin' brutes; they ain't worth their
keep one winter. I vow, I wish one of these Bluenoses, with his
go-to-meetin' clothes on, coat-tails pinned up behind like a leather
blind of a Shay, an old spur on one heel, and a pipe stuck through
his hat-band, mounted on one of these limber-timbered critters, that
moves its hind legs like a hen scratchin' gravel, was sot down in
Broadway, in New York, for a sight. Lord! I think I hear the West
Point cadets a-larfin' at him. 'Who brought that 'ere scare-crow out
of standin' corn and stuck him here?' 'I guess that 'ere citizen came
from away down east out of the Notch of the White Mountains.' 'Here
comes the Cholera doctor, from Canada--not from Canada, I guess,
neither, for he don't look as if he had ever been among the rapids.'
If they wouldn't poke fun at him it's a pity.

"If they'd keep less horses, and more sheep, they'd have food and
clothing, too, instead of buyin' both. I vow I've larfed afore now
till I have fairly wet myself a-cryin', to see one of these folks
catch a horse: may be he has to go two or three miles of an arrand.
Well, down he goes on the dyke with a bridle in one hand, and an old
tin pan in another, full of oats, to catch his beast. First he goes
to one flock of horses, and then to another, to see if he can find
his own critter. At last he gets sight on him, and goes softly up to
him, shakin' of his oats, and a-coaxin' him, and jist as he goes to
put his hand upon him, away he starts all head and tail, and the rest
with him: that starts another flock, and they set a third off, and
at last every troop on 'em goes, as if Old Nick was arter them, till
they amount to two or three hundred in a drove. Well, he chases them
clear across the Tantramer marsh, seven miles good, over ditches,
creeks, mire holes, and flag ponds, and then they turn and take a
fair chase for it back again, seven miles more. By this time, I
presume, they are all pretty considerably well tired, and Bluenose,
he goes and gets up all the men folks in the neighbourhood, and
catches his beast, as they do a moose arter he is fairly run down;
so he runs fourteen miles, to ride two, because he is in a tarnation
hurry. It's e'enamost equal to eatin' soup with a fork, when you are
short of time. It puts me in mind of catching birds by sprinklin'
salt on their tails; it's only one horse a man can ride out of half
a dozen, arter all. One has no shoes, t'other has a colt, one ain't
broke, another has a sore back, while a fifth is so etarnal cunnin',
all Cumberland couldn't catch him, till winter drives him up to the
barn for food.

"Most of them 'ere dyke marshes have what they call 'honey pots' in
'em; that is a deep hole all full of squash, where you can't find no
bottom. Well, every now and then, when a feller goes to look for his
horse, he sees his tail a-stickin' right out an eend, from one of
these honey pots, and wavin' like a head of broom corn; and sometimes
you see two or three trapped there, e'enamost smothered, everlastin'
tired, half swimmin' half wadin', like rats in a molasses cask. When
they find 'em in that 'ere pickle, they go and get ropes, and tie
'em tight round their necks, and half hang 'em to make 'em float,
and then haul 'em out. Awful lookin' critters they be, you may
depend, when they do come out; for all the world like half-drowned
kittens--all slinkey slimey, with their great long tails glued up
like a swab of oakum dipped in tar. If they don't look foolish it's
a pity! Well, they have to nurse these critters all winter, with hot
mashes, warm covering, and what not, and when spring comes, they
mostly die, and if they don't they are never no good arter. I wish
with all my heart half the horses in the country were barrelled up in
these here 'honey pots,' and then there'd be near about one half too
many left for profit. Jist look at one of these barn yards in the
spring--half a dozen half-starved colts, with their hair lookin' a
thousand ways for Sunday, and their coats hangin' in tatters, and
half a dozen good-for-nothin' old horses, a-crowdin' out the cows
and sheep.

"Can you wonder that people who keep such an unprofitable stock, come
out of the small eend of the horn in the long run?"

No. X

The Road to a Woman's Heart--The Broken Heart.

As we approached the inn at Amherst, the Clockmaker grew uneasy.

"It's pretty well on in the evening, I guess," said he, "and Marm
Pugwash is as onsartain in her temper as a mornin' in April; it's all
sunshine or all clouds with her, and if she's in one of her tantrums,
she'll stretch out her neck and hiss, like a goose with a flock of
goslins. I wonder what on airth Pugwash was a-thinkin' on, when he
signed articles of partnership with that 'ere woman; she's not a
bad-lookin' piece of furniture neither, and it's a proper pity sich
a clever woman should carry such a stiff upper lip--she reminds me
of our old minister Joshua Hopewell's apple trees.

"The old minister had an orchard of most particular good fruit, for
he was a great hand at buddin', graftin', and what not, and the
orchard (it was on the south side of the house) stretched right up to
the road. Well, there were some trees hung over the fence, I never
seed such bearers, the apples hung in ropes, for all the world like
strings of onions, and the fruit was beautiful. Nobody touched the
minister's apples, and when other folks lost their'n from the boys,
his'n always hung there like bait to a hook, but there never was so
much as a nibble at 'em. So I said to him one day, 'Minister,' said
I, 'how on airth do you manage to keep your fruit that's so exposed,
when no one else can do it no how?' 'Why,' says he, 'they are
dreadful pretty fruit, ain't they?' 'I guess,' said I, 'there ain't
the like on 'em in all Connecticut.' 'Well,' says he, 'I'll tell you
the secret, but you needn't let on to no one about it. That 'ere row
next the fence, I grafted it myself, I took great pains to get the
right kind, I sent clean up to Roxberry, and away down to Squaw-neck
Creek for ---.' 'I know that, Minister,' said I (for I was afeared
he was a-goin' to give me day and date for every graft, being a
terrible long-winded man in his stories), 'I know that,' said I,
'but how do you preserve them?' 'Why, I was a-goin' to tell you,'
said he, 'when you stopped me. That 'ere outward row I grafted myself
with the choicest kind I could find, and I succeeded. They are
beautiful, but so etarnal sour, no human soul can eat them. Well,
the boys think the old minister's graftin' has all succeeded about
as well as that row, and they sarch no farther. They snicker at my
graftin', and I laugh in my sleeve, I guess, at their penetration.'

"Now, Marm Pugwash is like the minister's apples--very temptin' fruit
to look at, but desperate sour. If Pugwash had a watery mouth when he
married, I guess it's pretty puckery by this time. However, if she
goes to act ugly, I'll give her a dose of 'soft sawder,' that will
take the frown out of her frontispiece, and make her dial-plate as
smooth as a lick of copal varnish. It's a pity she's such a kickin'
devil, too, for she has good points: good eye--good foot--neat
pastern--fine chest--a clean set of limbs, and carries a good ---.
But here we are; now you'll see what 'soft sawder' will do."

When we entered the house, the traveller's room was all in darkness,
and on opening the opposite door into the sitting-room, we found the
female part of the family extinguishing the fire for the night. Mrs.
Pugwash had a broom in her hand, and was in the act (the last act of
female housewifery) of sweeping the hearth. The strong flickering
light of the fire, as it fell upon her tall fine figure and beautiful
face, revealed a creature worthy of the Clockmaker's comments.

"Good evening, Marm," said Mr. Slick, "how do you do, and how's Mr.
Pugwash?"

"He," said she, "why he's been abed this hour, you don't expect to
disturb him this time of night I hope?"

"Oh no," said Mr. Stick, "certainly not, and I am sorry to have
disturbed you, but we got detained longer than we expected; I am
sorry that--"

"So am I," said she, "but if Mr. Pugwash will keep an inn when he has
no occasion to, his family can't expect no rest."

Here the Clockmaker, seeing the storm gathering, stooped down
suddenly, and staring intently, held out his hand and exclaimed,
"Well if that ain't a beautiful child! Come here, my little man and
shake hands along with me; well, I declare if that 'ere little feller
ain't the finest child I ever seed! What, not abed yet? Ah, you
rogue, where did you get them 'ere pretty rosy cheeks; stole 'em
from mamma, eh? Well, I wish my old mother could see that child,
it is such a treat. In our country," said he, turning to me, "the
children are all as pale as chalk, or as yeller as an orange. Lord,
that 'ere little feller would be a show in our country--come to me my
man." Here the "soft sawder" began to operate. Mrs. Pugwash said in a
milder tone than we had yet heard, "Go, my dear to the gentleman; go,
dear." Mr. Slick kissed him, asked him if he would go to the States
along with him, told him all the little girls there would fall in
love with him, for they didn't see such a beautiful face once in a
month of Sundays. "Black eyes--let me see--ah mamma's eyes too, and
black hair also; as I am alive, why you are mamma's own boy--the very
image of mamma."

"Do be seated, gentlemen," said Mrs. Pugwash. "Sally make a fire in
the next room."

"She ought to be proud of you," he continued. "Well, if I live to
return here, I must paint your face, and have it put on my clocks,
and our folks will buy the clocks for the sake of the face. Did you
ever see," said he, again addressing me, "such a likeness between
one human and another, as between this beautiful little boy and his
mother?"

"I am sure you have had no supper," said Mrs. Pugwash to me; "you
must be hungry and weary, too--I will get you a cup of tea."

"I am sorry to give you so much trouble," said I.

"Not the least trouble in the world," she replied, "on the contrary
a pleasure."

We were then shown into the next room, where the fire was now blazing
up, but Mr. Slick protested he could not proceed without the little
boy, and lingered behind me to ascertain his age, and concluded by
asking the child if he had any aunts that looked like mamma.

As the door closed, Mr. Slick said, "It's a pity she don't go well
in gear. The difficulty with those critters is to get them to start,
arter that there is no trouble with them if you don't check 'em too
short. If you do, they'll stop again, run back and kick like mad, and
then Old Nick himself wouldn't start 'em. Pugwash, I guess, don't
understand the natur' of the critter; she'll never go kind in harness
for him. When I see a child," said the Clockmaker, "I always feel
safe with these women folk; for I have always found that the road to
a woman's heart lies through her child."

"You seem," said I, "to understand the female heart so well, I make
no doubt you are a general favourite among the fair sex."

"Any man," he replied, "that understands horses, has a pretty
considerable fair knowledge of women too, for they are jist alike in
temper, and require the very identical same treatment. Encourage the
timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, but lather the
sulky ones like blazes.

"People talk an everlastin' sight of nonsense about wine, women and
horses. I've bought and sold 'em all, I've traded in all of them, and
I tell you, there ain't one in a thousand that knows a grain about
either on 'em. You hear folks say, oh, such a man is an ugly-grained
critter--he'll break his wife's heart; jist as if a woman's heart was
as brittle as a pipe stalk. The female heart, as far as my experience
goes, is jist like a new India rubber shoe; you may pull and pull at
it, till it stretches out a yard long, and then let go, and it will
fly right back to its old shape. Their hearts are made of stout
leather, I tell you; there's a plaguy sight of wear in 'em.

"I never knowed but one case of a broken heart, and that was in
t'other sex, one Washington Banks. He was a sneezer. He was tall
enough to spit down on the heads of your grenadiers, and near about
high enough to wade across Charlestown River, and as strong as a
towboat. I guess he was somewhat less than a foot longer than the
moral law and catechism too. He was a perfect pictur' of a man; you
couldn't falt him in no particular; he was so just a made critter;
folks used to run to the winder when he passed, and say 'There goes
Washington Banks, bean't he lovely?' I do believe there wasn't a gal
in the Lowell factories, that warn't in love with him. Sometimes, at
intermission, on Sabbath day, when they all came out together (an
amazin' hansom sight too, near about a whole congregation of young
gals), Banks used to say, 'I vow, young ladies, I wish I had five
hundred arms to reciprocate one with each of you; but I reckon I have
a heart big enough for you all; it's a whapper, you may depend, and
every mite and morsel of it at your service.' Well, how you do act,
Mr. Banks, half a thousand little clipper-clapper tongues would say,
all at the same time, and their dear little eyes sparklin', like so
many stars twinklin' of a frosty night.

"Well, when I last seed him, he was all skin and bone, like a horse
turned out to die. He was teetotally defleshed, a mere walkin'
skeleton. 'I am dreadful sorry,' says I, 'to see you, Banks, lookin'
so peecked; why you look like a sick turkey hen, all legs; what on
airth ails you?' 'I'm dyin',' says he, 'of a broken heart.' 'What,'
says I, 'have the gals been jiltin' you?' 'No, no,' says he, 'I
bean't such a fool as that neither.' 'Well,' says I, 'have you made a
bad speculation?' 'No,' says he, shakin' his head, 'I hope I have too
much clear grit in me to take on so bad for that.' 'What under the
sun, is it, then?' said I. 'Why,' says he, 'I made a bet the fore
part of summer with Leftenant Oby Knowles, that I could shoulder the
best bower of the Constitution frigate. I won my bet, but the Anchor
was so eternal heavy it broke my heart.' Sure enough he did die that
very fall, and he was the only instance I ever heerd tell of a broken
heart."

No. XI

Cumberland Oysters Produce Melancholy Forebodings.

The "soft sawder" of the Clockmaker had operated effectually on the
beauty of Amherst, our lovely hostess of Pugwash's inn: indeed, I am
inclined to think, with Mr. Slick, that "the road to a woman's heart
lies through her child," from the effect produced upon her by the
praises bestowed on her infant boy.

I was musing on this feminine susceptibility to flattery, when the
door opened, and Mrs. Pugwash entered, dressed in her sweetest smiles
and her best cap, an auxiliary by no means required by her charms,
which, like an Italian sky, when unclouded, are unrivalled in
splendour. Approaching me, she said, with an irresistible smile,
"Would you like Mr. ---" (Here there was a pause, a hiatus, evidently
intended for me to fill up with my name; but that no person knows,
nor do I intend they shall; at Medley's Hotel, in Halifax, I was
known as the stranger in No. 1. The attention that incognito procured
for me, the importance it gave me in the eyes of the master of the
house, its lodgers and servants, is indescribable. It is only great
people who travel incog. State travelling is inconvenient and slow;
the constant weight of form and etiquette oppresses at once the
strength and the spirits. It is pleasant to travel unobserved, to
stand at ease, or exchange the full suit for the undress coat and
fatigue jacket. Wherever too there is mystery there is importance;
there is no knowing for whom I may be mistaken; but let me once give
my humble cognomen and occupation, and I sink immediately to my own
level, to a plebeian station and a vulgar name; not even my beautiful
hostess, nor my inquisitive friend, the Clockmaker, who calls me
"Squire," shall extract that secret!) "Would you like, Mr. ---"

"Indeed, I would," said I, "Mrs. Pugwash; pray be seated, and tell me
what it is."

"Would you like a dish of superior Shittyacks for supper?"

"Indeed I would," said I, again laughing; "but pray tell me what
it is?"

"Laws me!" said she with a stare, "where have you been all your days,
that you never heerd of our Shittyack oysters? I thought everybody
had heerd of them."

"I beg pardon," said I, "but I understood at Halifax, that the only
oysters in this part of the world were found on the shores of Prince
Edward Island."

"Oh! dear no," said our hostess, "they are found all along the coast
from Shittyack, through Bay of Vartes, away up to Ramshag. The latter
we seldom get, though the best; there is no regular conveyance, and
when they do come, they are generally shelled and in kegs, and never
in good order. I have not had a real good Ramshag in my house these
two years, since Governor Maitland was here; he was amazin' fond of
them, and lawyer Talkemdeaf sent his carriage there on purpose to
procure them fresh for him. Now we can't get them, but we have the
Shittyacks in perfection; say the word, and they shall be served up
immediately."

A good dish and an unexpected dish is most acceptable, and certainly
my American friend and myself did ample justice to the oysters,
which, if they have not so classical a name, have quite as good a
flavour as their far famed brethren of Milton. Mr. Slick ate so
heartily, that when he resumed his conversation, he indulged in the
most melancholy forebodings.

"Did you see that 'ere nigger," said he, "that removed the oyster
shells? well, he's one of our Chesapickers, one of General Cuffy's
slaves. I wish Admiral Cockburn had a taken them all off our hands at
the same time. We made a pretty good sale of them 'ere black cattle,
I guess, to the British; I wish we were well rid of 'em all. The
blacks and the whites in the States show their teeth and snarl, they
are jist ready to fall to. The Protestants and Catholics begin to lay
back their ears, and turn tail for kickin'. The Abolitionists and
Planters are at it like two bulls in a pastur'. Mob-law and Lynch-law
are working like yeast in a barrel, and frothing at the bung hole.
Nullification and Tariff are like a charcoal pit, all covered up,
but burning inside, and sending out smoke at every crack, enough to
stifle a horse. General Government and State Government every now
and then square off and sparr, and the first blow given will bring a
genuine set-to. Surplus Revenue is another bone of contention; like
a shin of beef thrown among a pack of dogs, it will set the whole on
'em by the ears.

"You have heerd tell of cotton rags dipped in turpentine, havn't
you, how they produce combustion? Well, I guess we have the elements
of spontaneous combustion among us in abundance; when it does break
out, if you don't see an eruption of human gore, worse than Etna
lava, then I'm mistaken. There'll be the very devil to pay, that's
a fact. I expect the blacks will butcher the Southern whites, and
the Northerners will have to turn out and butcher them again; and
all this shoot, hang, cut, stab, and burn business will sweeten our
folks' temper, as raw meat does that of a dog--it fairly makes me
sick to think on it. The explosion may clear the air again, and all
be tranquil once more, but it's an even chance if it don't leave us
the three steamboat options: to be blown sky high, to be scalded to
death, or drowned."

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