USA > Indiana > Monroe County > The new purchase : or, seven and a half years in the Far West > Part 48
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Here Mr. C. interrupted-
"Doctor Bloduplex I cannot submit to this public insult and injustice-""
"Sit down, sir-don't interrupt me, sir !"
"I will not sit down till I explain-"
"Mr. Clarence you may speak when I am done."
"Well, sir, go on ; but do not endeavour to prejudice the minds of these young men against me."
The reverend President went on; and, although he alluded re- peatedly to Mr. C. and named many private and confidential mat- ters to his prejudice, that gentleman concluded to let the person-
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age have rope enough to hang himself metaphorically or, otherwise.
"Well now, my dear children,-(voice thrilling) let me imagine a case of parental government, and propose it for your considera- tion and vote. Suppose a young man, rash and without judgment, was to pursue a rebellious course against a President and Father of a college; and that after every means of private rebuke-yes! -(voice sobby )-after earnest and affectionate entreaty ;- (voice breaking)-yes! and suppose after-(sob)-his Father-(sob, sob,)-had even shed tears over him;"-(Here irrepressible sobs and tears for a few moments choked the Government; and many of the judges wept out audibly )-"Suppose the poor rebel's Father should drop on his knees before the ungrateful boy, I now kneel before you!"-(The Government now dropped on both knees on the floor of the rostrum, in open view of all the students)-"and should weep before him!"-(Here a gush of many tears burst from the wretched man-and weeping was audible, all over the court below)-"And should, with his hands imploringly clasped thus-(action to word)-entreat and beseech that poor rebellious child !- And suppose that child, while his Father was thus on his knees !- thus imploring !- thus weeping !- oh ! suppose that child should spit in his Father's face !- ought not that wicked child to be instantly cut off from college and expelled from it forever ?"
"Yes ! yes ! he ought, he ought !"-was answered by many, if not all the Students : upon which the Government, still kneeling and with hands in an imploring attitude, cried out with great tender- ness and gratitude, thus :
"Thank you, my dear children-thank you !"-Then rising from his knees, the miserable Government sank back exhausted with his exercises-(and they were pretty severe)-into his central seat, and hiding his face-(properly enough)-in his hands, he remained thus some moments, sobbing and recovering; perhaps considering the next act. Hence, taking advantage of this pause between the acts, we will enlighten the reader as to some matters.
Be it known then, that the rebellious and wicked young dog represented by our Grand Actor, was intended to be Professor Harwood! But none of the tender scene had ever occurred in private; although the Actor wished the audience to think so. On
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the contrary, when our Professors respectfully yet earnestly had remonstrated against the haste and illegality of Mr. Heartly's dis- mission by the sole act of the President, Doctor Bloduplex had fallen into an outrageous fit of anger : nay, raising his clenched fist, he had stamped with fury on the floor of his study, and ex- claimed-"I care nothing for the Faculty or the Board of Trustees -I will stamp them under my feet !"
Some may think the acting described thus far must have injured the actor himself. But, gentle reader, it was done to the very life ! Clarence said, he should have been deceived himself, had he not discerned the hoofs and the tail. Had the performer confined himself to his rehearsed parts, and not ventured on a certain ex- temporaneous playing to be named presently, Harwood and Clar- ence would have encountered that day a tempest in the outcries of the Students, which must have immediately driven them from their offices-perchance with bloody noses, black eyes and cracked pates !
Let a band of generous young men, a little inclined to the mobocratical tendencies of the New Purchase, fully believe all that a venerable and not ill looking clergyman tells them; let them once think that such a man did kneel to his junior, and dehort with tears, and at that moment was basely struck and spit upon by that youth, and there is no act of violence to which such an excited and indignant company may not be led or coaxed.
For a while our Professors sat as in a dream! So curiously wonderful was that act in the drama of their lives! Clarence says, he was busy awhile, with a contrast between the oddity on his knees before them, and gentlemen and men like Witherspoon, and Ludlow, and Day, and Nott, and Smith, and Carnahan, and Green ! Harwood, the hard hearted rascal! he sat with such a lip and nose of Kentucky scorn !- but soon, as was his habit, when having nothing to do, he began strapping a round-ended blade of an old pocket knife on his boot-said boot tastefully reposing on the knee of the other leg!
Reader-that very knife cut the thread of our Actor's intended speech? Happily it was fit for that kind of cutting, but for no other : even if heated it would barely have cut butter! That blade was springless ! pointless ! edgeless ! I have handled it an hundred
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times. Oh! Bloduplex! had it been a dirk! a Spanish blade! a Mississippi tooth-pick !- what grandeur in that attitude! that look of horror! that piercing thrill of thy outcry! when starting from thy sobs and tears, on catching sight of that funny old knife through thy parted fingers, thou didst thus exclaim and appeal to the Students :
"Young gentlemen !- take notice-there is a knife open at my left side !- and I know not for what purpose !"
"Doctor Bloduplex!"-cried Clarence-"no harm is threatened -I know that knife-it is entirely worthless-and that is Har- wood's habit-I have seen him do it in church!
Here something sticking in the Government's throat, he ejected from his mouth a gob right at Clarence's feet, and then went on:
"I have reason, my children, to fear Mr. Harwood; and to protect myself, I asked some of you to guard me to day! It was natural, then, I should dread a knife so near me; but I did not mean to insinuate he had it out for a bad purpose (!)-I only meant to teach him how impolite1 it is to be thus playing with his knife.( !! )"
Affairs were now a little disordered: although to the Professors it was plain this thrust at the knife had hurt the Government more than the worst thrust from it could ever have done. Clarence then rose to make his defence before the Court of Appeals.
"Young gentlemen," dixit ille, "we have witnessed a scene both amazing and surprising ; hence I shall be easily credited in saying I have no preparation for it-"
The President interrupted-"If Mr. Clarence means to insinuate that I had made any preparation, he shall not speak-"
"Sir"-rejoined the other-I will speak; and I will repeat that I have no preparation. Further, let the Students notice that sur- prised and amazed I am, but not in a passion : nay that I am calm and, therefore, competent to make a statement of all facts which, directly and indirectly the President of the Faculty has seen fit to bring and lay before this school. But why he wishes to involve me is wonderful, as I have already resigned my office, and am only to remain, by contract, for a few months." Accordingly,
1 Spitting at a Professor's feet is what ?- In this case Satan correcting Sin.
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and spite of re-repeated and brutal interruptions from the Govern- ment, Clarence made his statements and ceased, and then arose Harwood, and commenced as follows:
"Gentlemen, Professor Clarence has said he is not angry ; but it would be wrong in me not to be angry and indignant, too. Doctor Constant Bloduplex, with all the authority of his clerical and official station, has openly and publicly accused me of a design to assassinate him! and seeks thus, as far as he can, to destroy my moral character-"
"I did not accuse you, sir!"-said the President.
"Not in so many words, Doctor, but you did insinuate, and you intended by your whole manner and your words to insinuate as much."
"I did not."
"You did, sir ;- you did! And now, as you have put several things to the vote of the Students to-day, I insist on putting this matter to vote; and if the Students acquit you of evil intention I will yield the point."
"Agreed," instantly replied the Doctor. Alas! did he not see the tears of the Students had dried away? Or dared he not refuse?
Harwood, then, very distinctly stated the question, thus :
"All the Students who believe that Doctor Bloduplex did not insinuate that I had out my knife to stab him, affirm that belief by saying-yes."
Not a voice responded !
"All the Students who believe that Doctor Bloduplex did in- sinuate that I had out my knife to stab him, affirm that belief by saying-yes."
"Yes-yes-yes!"-from twenty voices; and from one louder than the rest-"Yes ! I'll be d- if he didn't !"
"There, sir!"-said now Harwood to the delinquent Govern- ment-"You well know you meant your remark for an insinua- tion ; and sir, it was a base insinuation !"
To this the President vouschafed no reply. And he stopped all further preceedings by running down from the Rostrum and re- treating to the far side of the Hall, where he declared himself now afraid of Harwood, and said he wished to be surrounded by the
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Students! And then, after abusing the Professors, he cried out "let all the Students who are in my favour follow me to my house;" when he hurried forth, followed by a few.
Had now our two Professors gone home! But "evil communi- cations corrupt good manners;" and so imitating the Parental System, they, forsooth, must have a little talk with the Students! -many of whom remained. They did not say much, indeed ; yet Harwood was imprudent enough to say there "Bloduplex is a Liar!" Nay! the same impertinent language both Professors used afterwards, the same day, to the citizens of the village! And for this frightful and outrageous insolence Harwood was shortly after excommunicated from the Commission of the Church !2 True, Harwood had a dreadful provocation ;- but what right had he to twist and squirm about when a Holy and Reverend Man stamped upon him? Why did he not, like an humble worm, crawl back wounded into his hole? True, Harwood offered to bring Clarence, and twenty Students, to prove the truth of the libel ; but "no," said Bishop Bloduplex, who himself presided, and advo- cated, and judged on the trial, in the inferior court-"no; the greater the truth the greater the libel: and let him thus be taught not to slander and abuse a clergyman !"
Ay, and true it was, that Professor Clarence was summoned before our Grand Jury, and on solemn oath declared, that to the best of his knowledge and belief there was not the slightest ground for believing that Mr. Harwood intended on that Satur- day to assassinate Doctor Constant Bloduplex! But what right had a mere layman to a character? What right to defend himself, by saying indignantly that the accusation of Doctor B. was mali- cious and false ?- What- -
"Well, but Mr. Carlton, did not the higher ecclesiastical court take up the case against Bloduplex on Fama Clamosa ?- did not the officers and members of his own parish lay the matter before a bench of Bishops ?"
2 ¡Later Professor Harney left the Presbyterian church and joined a small sect known as the Wilderites. Afterwards he became an Inde- pendent and for some time preached in Louisville. A short time before his death he was received into the Episcopal church. T. A. Wylie's Hist. of Ind. Univ. p. 104.
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No! dear reader, no: but consider, he was the only Doctor of Divinity in the whole Purchase! He was too enormous a Big-Bug -- and the sting of such is sometimes fatal !
"Mr. Carlton, what did the President with the Students that went with him?"
Well, several of his body-guard told the author, and gave Mr. Clarence written certificates to the same purport, that "early on Saturday morning the President had sent for and told them ex- pressly he was afraid of Harwood, and wished them to protect him from violence ;- that they then believed him, and, indeed, until the knife scene was presented ;- that afterwards they went back with the Doctor, but only to hear what else he would say ;- that at his house the President treated them with cakes and wine ;- a full hour in ridiculing and burlesquing his character, and pro- nounced him in all respects incompetent to the office of Professor of Languages," &c.
Any more questions, reader ?
"No, indeed, we have heard enough."
So I had begun to think. Here, then, let us end our cele- brated Saturday-a day memorable enough, to be the Last of our Seventh Year.
CHAPTER LXV.
CONCLUDING SIX MONTHS.
"That such a slave as this should wear a sword !"
Ha! I see the light of a Clearing! a little further, and we are through this Romance of the Forest!
Beautiful the fresh green of our opening spring! Glorious the wild flowers and blossoms, exhaling their odours to the air! Grand as ever the dark, solemn, boundless forest! Full of awe, yon swollen water! bearing through the desert wood, on its raging bosom, an hundred branching trees, and, here and there, the shat- tered fragments of a rude cabin !
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Hark !- ah! it is the piteous cooing of our wood doves! And hark !- there !- yes, scamper away, you little grey gaffer, and peep from the dense foliage of that lofty sugar-top! I'knew it was you squealing your cunning song. Fear not! shady-tail- my rifle is at home-I have no heart to shoot you now! There! cracks the brush !- I see you-leap not away! bounding, timid deer! Stay and graze the early buds and tender twigs of yon thicket-I am no more your foe!
Yes! there is a clearing ahead! A short moment more and I leave you, oh ! deep and dark ravine, where I have been so often buried in solitude !- and you, oh ! beetling cliff, with dizzy brow, frowning over the secret waters so many hundred feet below! And am I so soon to leave you all-and, for ever? Ah! if I revisit the Purchase, you, enchanting trees, will be prostrate !- you, merry squirrels and timid deer, will have fled !- you, solemn ravine, will be'desecrated with wide and beaten roads! Alas! the secret waters will lie open then to the public gaze !- the tall cliff be stripped of its grove !- and the solitary cabin there of Ned Stanley, be supplanted by the odious, pretending, and smirking house of brick and mortar !- alas !-
"Mr. Carlton !- Mr. Carlton !!- Mr. Carlton !!! "
Sir !- Sir !!
"We shall never get out of the woods at this rate."
Thank you, dear reader! I forgot myself-I was away in the spirit amid the apparitions of innocent joys long dead. Let us return, then, to history.
Before resuming literary topics, we must say a word of what happened some weeks ago to the firm of Glenville and Carlton: and which dissolved our partnership, and sent Glenville to the Farther West, and Carlton-alas! whither?
My partner, in early days, had "put his name to paper ;" a se- curity, as he supposed, but making himself liable as a partner. Notes were given to pay for produce: and this was loaded and floated to Orleans, and there sold at a fair profit. But, by a singular negligence, the gentleman entrusted with the boats, and pork, corn, lard, tallow, and hoop-poles, never came back with the money! And hence the merchants failing, the holders of their notes got nothing for their paper! For many long years, this
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paper lay quiet and slumbering-till a lawyer suddenly appeared in the woods-and the repose of the notes was broken. And so was that of Glenville! The holders were now taught for "a con- sideration," how to come upon the security-especially as he, after a long and doubtful struggle had got above the waves, and was swimming in comparative comfort.
The security was, therefore, advised very unexpectedly of his insecurity : and, in the next moment, stripped of all his hard earned possessions, he was soused naked into that very figurative and deeply poetical sea-a Sea of Troubles! Now, folks inti- mately connected with: others, rarely take that metaphorical plunge, without ducking their associates : hence, down went Mr. Carlton into the deep waters, from which emerging for a sniff of air, he saw most of his external good things swept away by the torrent !
Mr. Carlton's work, therefore, for the six months under con- sideration, was that most vexatious and profitless kind of twist- ing called winding-up. Suppose me, then, hard at work, turning the windlass or some other figured crank of the Wind-up-business, while we go on to wind-up also the story of the College : and then Clarence, and the rest of us, like other phantasms of our drama, disappear-perhaps, for ever !
After the Saturday, our Literati continued their labours,-the Government minding the discipline,-the Professors, the teach- ing. Except some official intercourse, all other was at an end: for the Professors were for keeping out of harm's way, and not only avoided all sayings and doings in company of the President, but even looking at or towards him out of the tail of an eye.
Generally, the students remained neutral : but the young gentle- men belonging to the governmental party, did very good service as partisans. Among other things, they, one dark night, girdled all Clarence's flourishing and ornamental trees set out by him years before, around little College ;- they cut off his beautiful wood- bines, twining up frames around his doors and windows-and at other times, they destroyed his garden fence, and admitted or turned a herd of swine into the too exuberant fruits and vege- tables-not to name other civilized feats unknown before to Hoosier young men.
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Harwood did not share these compliments-not because less re- spected-but more feared. Kind and gentle as a great mastiff, still he was not all patience : arid, once aroused, he would not have scrupled to shake well in his staunch jaws, the sneaking whelps and genteel curs, so annoying to his clerical neighbour. Well, in- deed, might Bloduplex have been in awe of that Kentucky spirit, had it ever dreamed of doing him harm! True, Bloduplex always, now, went armed-his sword sheathed in a cane !- ma'- liciously pretending that Harwood intended to whip him !- poor defence! had the Professor once seriously undertaken to give him, what he so richly deserved-a hiding!
And yet, accidentally, these belligerents once met, and Harwood was upset. First, however, be it remembered, our side-walk, for a mile, was paved with wood, not chemically, but mechanically : a line of hewed logs ran from the Colleges to the centre of Wood- ville. This pave was used in miry times-until anybody received two severe falls after which he stuck to the mud-way of the vulgar road. Now, it was the custom, when two peaceful Chris- tians were about to meet, for the more active to hasten to the end of his log, and, stepping aside to an adjacent block or stone, there remain till the superior, or lady, had passed.
Well, one Sabbath morning, Harwood was going full tilt up town, to visit a sick relative, and, being on the logway, he dis- cerned advancing from the opposite direction, Doctor Bloduplex. Accordingly, he hurried on to reach, by the laws of our etiquette, the step-out place-but, alas! as he stepped aside, the Doctor accidentally quickening his pace, suddenly presented his shoulder, and, with all his weight of person and character, tumbled the Professor off his feet, and had the honour of making his new hat fly ten feet away into the mud !
That is Harwood's tale. Here, however, is the Governmental version triumphantly given to our Board of Trustees, I being present :-
"I had been, Mr. Chairman," said he to Doctor Sylvan, our President,-"I had been up town, to visit a sick parishioner, on Sabbath morning, and was on my return, in order to prepare for the sacred duties of the pulpit, when I saw coming to meet me, in a threatening attitude, Mr. Harwood. At a glance, I saw he
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was determined not to yield me the log: and I then resolved so to chastise his want of respect for my age, character, and station, as for ever to make him remember the lesson. I have been ac- cused of fearing that young man; but, Mr. Chairman, indepen- dent of this cane, in which I carry a sword,"-(and, at the word, this Christian Doctor did, in presence of our whole Board, draw that sword, and, with a real Flagstaff gravity and swell)-"in- dependent, I say, of this sword,"-(driven back with inimitable grandeur,)-"I well knew, in case of a recontre, I should easily knock him off the log! - because, the day before; I had been weighed in Mr. Retail's patent scales, and my weight was exactly One Hundred and Ninety Pounds ! and, of course, when we came together, he found himself and his hat where he informs you !! "
"Is that true, Mr. Carlton !? "
Yes, reader, it is : and I'll take my "affidavy on it."
"What meeting of your Board, was this?"
A called meeting, called by the Government, with a view to have his rebellious Professors instantly expelled. It was held about the middle of our final six months : but it would make too long a book to do more than run over a few outlines.
After the exchange of papers, notes, and other diplomatics, the Board, the Government, and Faculty, convened; when Bloduplex began-continued-ay, and held on even ahead, for two long summer days, "from rise of morn to set of sun;" and then ended, because fully blown out! But after that, for other speech or reply there was no time, and, happily, no necessity.
As usual, the President read his certificates-gave his religious experience, and miraculous conversion from infidelity-told of his sainted mother looking down on him-and sobbed, and finally roared right out, like a bull-calf forcibly held back from the cow! From this recovering, he told us how Harwood and Clarence had even ridiculed that experience! and expressed suspicion about those tears, when he had indiscreetly given them the same history in private! He then went over his own whole life and character- did the same for Harwood, and ditto for Clarence: in all which he showed the pre-eminence of his mnemonic-system, by detailing to us every word, joke, pleasantry, tea-drinking, walk in the woods, rash-saying, silly-word, indignant-exclamation, &c. &c .-
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and even very many improper things that "should have been" said and done by our Professors,-but which never had been!
He tried his hand at irony and sarcasm, comparing himself to Dr. Johnson, and Clarence to Boswell! He ridiculed Clarence for being a "charity scholar:" because, at Princeton, he had paid nothing for his Theological education! He then acted the bottle story-which, however, cannot be fully represented without a diagram : but he used one hand for a bottle, and the fore-finger of the other as corkscrew; and then, holding the bottle-and-corked- fist under an Honourable Trustee's nose, he suddenly, with cork- screw-finger jerked out the cork, and let out the whole essence, in that remarkable sentence, "Billy! you're a mighty little man !" And "this," added the facetious Government-"this is what I did for the students at my house on the Saturday named, and to illustrate Professor Clarence's character; as I did not choose to employ a sledge-hammer to kill a fly !"
It was now the Government, and with great complacency, spoke and acted the celebrated a posteriori mentioned in this work, and so often afterwards repeated by him. But, at length, this Great Engine ceased its emissions of steam; and we aroused to hear Clarence's reply, and yet with looks of peevishness; as dreading another long, elusive, windy tempest of words. Oh! the delicious refreshing of his more than laconic reply-thus :-
"Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Board,-I have very much I could say-but I shall make no reply !"
This answer will be better appreciated from the following dialogue between Dr. Sylvan and Mr. Clarence, directly after our adjournment :----
Dr. S. "Never, sir, did you do a happier thing: you effected more for yourself than by a thousand speeches."
Mr. C. "You saw me, Dr. Sylvan, for six hours the first day, taking notes, that I might reply to the innumerable slanders and falsehoods with which I was assailed: but, then occurred this thought, amid that torrent of ribaldry, viz :- 'If these Trustees are gentlemen, they need not my reply ;- if they are not gentlemen, I need not make a reply.' And then, sir, you saw me crumble up my notes, and put them into my pocket : and I shall hand them over to Robert Carlton."
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Our called meeting, however, utterly declined expelling the Professors; and that, notwithstanding the President repeatedly said in his oration, that he would resign if Mr. Harwood was per- mitted to remain! We recommended, indeed, if, possible, an amicable private adjustment, and referred the whole matter to the new Board of Trustees, that were to meet in the Fall: a very cowardly behaviour, since we all privately felt and acknowledged that President Bloduplex certainly deserved to be dismissed, whatever the Professors may have merited.
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