Read Ebook: The Clockmaker; Or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville by Haliburton Thomas Chandler

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We had hardly entered the house, before the Clockmaker pointed to the view from the window, and, addressing himself to me, said, "if I was to tell them in Connecticut, there was such a farm as this away down east here in Nova Scotia, they wouldn't believe me--why there ain't such a location in all New England. The deacon has a hundred acres of dyke--"

"Seventy, said the deacon, only seventy."

"Well, seventy; but then there is your fine deep bottom, why I could run a ramrod into it--"

"Interval, we call it," said the Deacon, who, though evidently pleased at this eulogium, seemed to wish the experiment of the ramrod to be tried in the right place.

"Well, interval, if you please , is just as good as dyke. Then there is that water privilege, worth three or four thousand dollars, twice as good as what Governor Cass paid fifteen thousand dollars for. I wonder, Deacon, you don't put up a carding mill on it; the same works would carry a turning lathe, a shingle machine, a circular saw, grind bark, and--"

"Too old," said the Deacon, "too old for all those speculations--"

"Old," repeated the clockmaker, "not you; why you are worth half a dozen of the young men we see, nowadays; you are young enough to have--" Here he said something in a lower tone of voice, which I did not distinctly hear; but whatever it was, the Deacon was pleased, he smiled and said he did not think of such things now.

"But your beasts, dear me, your beasts must be put in and have a feed;" saying which, he went out to order them to be taken to the stable.

As the old gentleman closed the door after him, Mr. Slick drew near to me, and said in an undertone, "That is what I call 'SOFT SAWDER.' An Englishman would pass that man as a sheep passes a hog in a pasture, without looking at him; or," said he, looking rather archly, "if he was mounted on a pretty smart horse, I guess he'd trot away, if he could. Now I find--" Here his lecture on "SOFT SAWDER" was cut short by the entrance of Mrs. Flint.

"Jist come to say good-bye, Mrs. Flint."

"What, have you sold all your clocks?"

"Yes, and very low too, for money is scarce, and I wished to close the consarn; no, I am wrong in saying all, for I have just one left. Neighbour Steel's wife asked to have the refusal of it, but I guess I won't sell it; I had but two of them, this one and the feller of it, that I sold Governor Lincoln. General Green, the Secretary of State for Maine, said he'd give me forty dollars for this here one--it has composition wheels and patent axles, it is a beautiful article, a real first chop, no mistake, genuine superfine--but I guess I'll take it back; and beside, Squire Hawk might think kinder hard, that I did not give him the offer."

"Dear me," said Mrs. Flint, "I should like to see it, where is it?"

"It is in a chest of mine over the way, at Tom Tape's store, I guess he can ship it on to Eastport."

"That's a good man," said Mrs. Flint, "jist let's look at it."

Mr. Slick, willing to oblige, yielded to these entreaties, and soon produced the clock--a gawdy, highly varnished, trumpery looking affair. He placed it on the chimney-piece, where its beauties were pointed out and duly appreciated by Mrs. Flint, whose admiration was about ending in a proposal when Mr. Flint returned from giving his directions about the care of the horses. The Deacon praised the clock, he too thought it a handsome one; but the Deacon was a prudent man, he had a watch, he was sorry, but he had no occasion for a clock.

"I guess you're in the wrong furrow this time, Deacon, it ain't for sale," said Mr. Slick; "and if it was, I reckon neighbour Steel's wife would have it, for she gives me no peace about it." Mrs. Flint said that Mr. Steel had enough to do, poor man, to pay his interest, without buying clocks for his wife.

"It's no consarn of mine," said Mr. Slick, "as long as he pays me, what he has to do; but I guess I don't want to sell it, and beside it comes too high; that clock can't be made at Rhode Island under forty dollars. Why it ain't possible," said the Clockmaker, in apparent surprise, looking at his watch, "why as I'm alive it is four o'clock, and if I havn't been two hours here--how on airth shall I reach River Philip tonight? I'll tell you what, Mrs. Flint, I'll leave the clock in your care till I return on my way to the States--I'll set it a-goin' and put it to the right time."

As soon as this operation was performed, he delivered the key to the deacon with a sort of serio-comic injunction to wind up the clock every Saturday night, which Mrs. Flint said she would take care should be done, and promised to remind her husband of it, in case he should chance to forget it.

"That," said the Clockmaker as soon as we were mounted, "that I call 'HUMAN NATUR'!' Now that clock is sold for forty dollars--it cost me just six dollars and fifty cents. Mrs. Flint will never let Mrs. Steel have the refusal--nor will the deacon learn until I call for the clock, that having once indulged in the use of a superfluity, how difficult it is to give it up. We can do without any article of luxury we have never had, but when once obtained, it is not in 'HUMAN NATUR'' to surrender it voluntarily. Of fifteen thousand sold by myself and partners in this Province, twelve thousand were left in this manner, and only ten clocks were ever returned; when we called for them they invariably bought them. We trust to 'SOFT SAWDER' to get them into the house, and to 'HUMAN NATUR'' that they never come out of it."

The Silent Girls.

"Do you see them 'ere swallows," said the Clockmaker, "how low they fly? Well I presume we shall have rain right away; and them noisy critters, them gulls how close they keep to the water, down there in the Shubenacadie; well that's a sure sign. If we study natur', we don't want no thermometer. But I guess we shall be in time to get under cover in a shingle-maker's shed about three miles ahead on us. We had just reached the deserted hovel when the rain fell in torrents.

"I reckon," said the Clockmaker, as he sat himself down on a bundle of shingles, "I reckon they are bad off for inns in this country. When a feller is too lazy to work here, he paints his name over his door, and calls it a tavern, and as like as not he makes the whole neighbourhood as lazy as himself--it is about as easy to find a good inn in Halifax, as it is to find wool on a goat's back. An inn, to be a good consarn, must be built a purpose, you can no more make a good tavern out of a common dwelling house, I expect, than a good coat out of an old pair of trousers. They are etarnal lazy, you may depend--now there might be a grand spec made there, in building a good inn and a good church."

"What a sacrilegious and unnatural union," said I, with most unaffected surprise.

"Not at all," said Mr. Slick; "we build both on speculation in the States, and make a good deal of profit out of 'em too, I tell you. We look out a good sightly place, in a town like Halifax, that is pretty considerably well peopled, with folks that are good marks; and if there is no real right down good preacher among them, we build a handsome Church, touched off like a New York liner, a real taking looking thing--and then we look out for a preacher, a crack man, a regular ten horse power chap--well, we hire him, and we have to give pretty high wages too, say twelve hundred or sixteen hundred dollars a year. We take him at first on trial for a Sabbath or two, to try his paces, and if he takes with the folks, if he goes down well, we clinch the bargain, and let and sell the pews; and, I tell you it pays well and makes a real good investment. There were few better specs among us than inns and churches, until the railroads came on the carpet; as soon as the novelty of the new preacher wears off, we hire another, and that keeps up the steam."

"I trust it will be long, very long, my friend," said I, "ere the rage for speculation introduces 'the money-changers into the temple,' with us."

Mr. Slick looked at me with a most ineffable expression of pity and surprise. "Depend on it, sir," said he, with a most philosophical air, "this Province is much behind the intelligence of the age. But if it is behind us in that respect, it is a long chalk ahead on us in others. I never seed or heerd tell of a country that had so many natural privileges as this. Why, there are twice as many harbours and water-powers here, as we have all the way from Eastport to New OrLEENS. They have all they can ax, and more than they desarve. They have iron, coal, slate, grindstone, lime, firestone, gypsum, free-stone, and a list as long as an auctioneer's catalogue. But they are either asleep, or stone blind to them. Their shores are crowded with fish, and their lands covered with wood. A government that lays as light on 'em as a down counterp'in, and no taxes. Then look at their dykes. The Lord seems to have made 'em on purpose for such lazy folks. If you were to tell the citizens of our country that these dykes had been cropped for a hundred years without manure, they'd say, they guessed you had seen Col. Crockett, the greatest hand at a flam in our nation. You have heerd tell of a man who couldn't see London for the houses? I tell you, if we had this country, you couldn't see the harbours for the shipping. There'd be a rush of folks to it, as there is in one of our inns, to the dinner table, when they sometimes get jammed together in the door-way, and a man has to take a running leap over their heads, afore he can get in. A little nigger boy in New York found a diamond worth two thousand dollars; well, he sold it to a watchmaker for fifty cents--the little critter didn't know no better. Your people are just like the nigger boy--they don't know the value of their diamond.

"Do you know the reason monkeys are no good? because they chatter all day long; so do the niggers, and so do the Bluenoses of Nova Scotia; it's all talk and no work. Now, with us it's all work and no talk; in our ship yards, our factories, our mills, and even in our vessels, there's no talk; a man can't work and talk too. I guess if you were at the factories at Lowell we'd show you a wonder--five hundred gals at work together, all in silence. I don't think our great country has such a real natural curiosity as that--I expect the world don't contain the beat of that; for a woman's tongue goes so slick of itself, without water power or steam, and moves so easy on its hinges, that it's no easy matter to put a spring stop on it, I tell you--it comes as natural as drinkin' mint julip.

"I don't pretend to say the gals don't nullify the rule, sometimes at intermission and arter hours, but when they do, if they don't let go, then it's a pity. You have heerd a school come out, of little boys? Lord, it's no touch to it. Or a flock of geese at it? They are no more a match for 'em than a pony is for a coach-horse. But when they are at work, all's as still as sleep and no snoring. I guess we have a right to brag o' that invention--we trained the dear critters, so they don't think of striking the minutes and seconds no longer.

"Now the folks of Halifax take it all out in talking. They talk of steamboats, whalers and railroads; but they all end where they begin--in talk. I don't think I'd be out in my latitude if I was to say they beat the womenkind at that. One feller says, 'I talk of going to England;' another says, 'I talk of going to the country;' while a third says, 'I talk of going to sleep.' If we happen to speak of such things, we say, 'I'm right off down East;' or 'I'm away off South,' and away we go, jist like a streak of lightning.

"When we want folks to talk, we pay 'em for it, such as ministers, lawyers, and members of Congress; but then we expect the use of their tongues, and not their hands; and when we pay folks to work, we expect the use of their hands, and not their tongues. I guess work don't come kind o' natural to the people of this Province, no more than it does to a full-bred horse. I expect they think they have a little too much blood in 'em for work, for they are near about as proud as they are lazy.

"Now the bees know how to sarve out such chaps, for they have their drones too. Well they reckon it's no fun, a-makin' honey all summer, for these idle critters to eat all winter, so they give 'em Lynch Law. They have a regular built mob of citizens, and string up the drones like the Vicksburg gamblers. Their maxim is, and not a bad one neither I guess, 'no work, no honey.'"

No. IV

Conversations at the River Philip.

It was late before we arrived at Pugnose's inn--the evening was cool, and a fire was cheering and comfortable. Mr. Slick declined any share in the bottle of wine, he said he was dyspeptic; and a glass or two soon convinced me that it was likely to produce in me something worse than dyspepsy. It was speedily removed and we drew up to the fire. Taking a small penknife from his pocket, he began to whittle a thin piece of dry wood, which lay on the hearth; and, after musing some time said--

"I guess you've never been in the States?"

I replied that I had not, but that before I returned to England I proposed visiting that country.

"There," said he, "you'll see the great Daniel Webster; he's a great man, I tell you; King William, number four, I guess, would be no match for him as an orator--he'd talk him out of sight in half an hour. If he was in your house of Commons, I reckon he'd make some of your great folks look pretty streaked--he's a true patriot and statesman, the first in our country, and a most particular cute lawyer. There was a Quaker chap too cute for him once though. This Quaker, a pretty knowin' old shaver, had a cause down to Rhode Island; so he went to Daniel to hire him to go down and plead his case for him; so says he, 'Lawyer Webster what's your fee?' 'Why,' says Daniel, 'let me see, I have to go down south to Washington, to plead the great Insurance case of the Hartford Company--and I've got to be at Cincinnati to attend the Convention, and I don't see how I can go to Rhode Island without great loss and great fatigue; it would cost you maybe more than you'd be willing to give.'

"Well, the Quaker looked pretty white about the gills, I tell you, when he heard this, for he couldn't do without him no how, and he didn't like this preliminary talk of his at all. At last he made bold to ask him the worst of it, what he would take? 'Why,' says Daniel, 'I always liked the Quakers, they are a quiet peaceable people who never go to law if they can help it, and it would be better for our great country if there were more such people in it. I never seed or heerd tell of any harm in 'em except going the whole figure for Gineral Jackson, and that everlasting, almighty villain, Van Buren; yes, I love the Quakers, I hope they'll go the Webster ticket yet--and I'll go for you as low as I can any way afford, say one thousand dollars.'

"The Quaker well nigh fainted when he heerd this, but he was pretty deep too; so, says he, 'Lawyer, that's a great deal of money, but I have more cases there; if I give you the one thousand dollars will you plead the other cases I shall have to give you?' 'Yes,' says Daniel, 'I will to the best of my humble abilities.' So down they went to Rhode Island, and Daniel tried the case and carried it for the Quaker. Well, the Quaker he goes round to all the folks that had suits in court, and says he, 'What will you give me if I get the great Daniel to plead for you? It cost me one thousand dollars for a fee, but now he and I are pretty thick, and as he is on the spot, I'd get him to plead cheap for you.' So he got three hundred dollars from one, and two from another, and so on, until he got eleven hundred dollars, jist one hundred dollars more than he gave. Daniel was in a great rage when he heerd this. 'What!' says he, 'do you think I would agree to your letting me out like a horse to hire?' 'Friend Daniel,' said the Quaker, 'didst thou not undertake to plead all such cases as I should have to give thee? If thou wilt not stand to thy agreement, neither will I stand to mine.' Daniel laughed out ready to split his sides at this. 'Well,' says he, 'I guess I might as well stand still for you to put the bridle on this time, for you have fairly pinned me up in a corner of the fence anyhow.' So he went good humouredly to work and pleaded them all.

"It is a land, sir," continued the Clockmaker, "of hard work. We have two kind of slaves, the niggers and the white slaves. All European labourers and blacks, who come out to us, do our hard bodily work, while we direct it to a profitable end; neither rich nor poor, high nor low, with us, eat the bread of idleness. Our whole capital is in active operation, and our whole population is in active employment. An idle fellow, like Pugnose, who runs away to us, is clapped into harness afore he knows where he is, and is made to work; like a horse that refuses to draw, he is put into the teamboat; he finds some before him and others behind him, he must either draw, or be dragged to death."

No. V

Justice Pettifog.

In the morning the Clockmaker informed me that a Justice's Court was to be held that day at Pugnose's inn, and he guessed he could do a little business among the country folks that would be assembled there. Some of them, he said, owed him for clocks, and it would save him a world of travelling, to have the Justice and Constable to drive them up together. "If you want a fat wether, there's nothing like penning up the whole flock in a corner. I guess," said he, "if General Campbell knew what sort of a man that 'ere magistrate was, he'd disband him pretty quick; he's a regular suck egg--a disgrace to the country. I guess if he acted that way in Kentucky, he'd get a breakfast of cold lead some morning, out of the small eend of a rifle, he'd find pretty difficult to digest. They tell me he issues three hundred writs a year, the cost of which, including that tarnation constable's fees, can't amount to nothing less than three thousand dollars per annum. If the Hon'ble Daniel Webster had him afore a jury, I reckon he'd turn him inside out, and slip him back again, as quick as an old stocking. He'd paint him to the life, as plain to be known as the head of Gineral Jackson. He's jist a fit feller for Lynch law, to be tried, hanged, and damned, all at once; there's more nor him in the country--there's some of the breed in every county in the Province. Jist one or two to do the dirty work, as we keep niggers for jobs that would give a white man the cholera. They ought to pay his passage, as we do with such critters, tell him his place is taken in the mail coach, and if he is found here after twenty-four hours, they'd make a carpenter's plumb-bob of him, and hang him outside the church steeple, to try if it was perpendicular. He almost always gives judgment for plaintiff, and if the poor defendant has an offset, he makes him sue it, so that it grinds a grist both ways for him, like the upper and lower millstone."

People soon began to assemble, some on foot, and others on horseback and in wagons. Pugnose's tavern was all bustle and confusion--plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses, all talking, quarrelling, explaining, and drinking. "Here comes the Squire," said one. "I'm thinking his horse carries more roguery than law," said another. "They must have been in proper want of timber to make a justice of," said a third, "when they took such a crooked stick as that." "Sap-headed enough too for refuse," said a stout-looking farmer. "May be so," said another, "but as hard at the heart as a log of elm." "Howsomever," said a third, "I hope it won't be long afore he has the wainy edge scored off of him, anyhow." Many more such remarks were made, all drawn from familiar objects, but all expressive of bitterness and contempt.

He carried one or two large books with him in his gig, and a considerable roll of papers. As soon as the obsequious Mr. Pugnose saw him at the door, he assisted him to alight, ushered him into the "best room," and desired the constable to attend "the Squire." The crowd immediately entered, and the Constable opened the court in due form, and commanded silence.

Taking out a long list of causes, Mr. Pettifog commenced reading the names: "James Sharp versus John Slug--call John Slug." John Slug being duly called and not answering, was defaulted. In this manner he proceeded to default some twenty or thirty persons. At last he came to a cause, "William Hare versus Dennis O'Brien--call Dennis O'Brien." "Here I am," said a voice from the other room--"here I am, who has anything to say to Dennis O'Brien?"

"Make less noise, sir," said the Justice, "or I'll commit you."

"Commit me, is it," said Dennis. "Take care then, Squire, you don't commit yourself."

"You are sued by William Hare for three pounds, for a month's board and lodging; what have you to say to it?"

"Say to it?" said Dennis. "Did you ever hear what Tim Doyle said when he was going to be hanged for stealing a pig? Says he, 'If the pig hadn't squeeled in the bag I'd never have been found out, so I wouldn't.' So I'll take warning by Tim Doyle's fate; I say nothing--let him prove it." Here Mr. Hare was called on for his proof, but taking it for granted that the board would be admitted, and the defence opened, he was not prepared with proof.

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