I think yo’ must find that the ship rides easy.”
“How you talk, Benjamin! there’s no believing a word you say.
I must say that the Judge and Squire Jones have both acted quite clever, so long; but I see that now we shall have a specimen to the contrary.
I heern say thats the Judge was gone a great ‘broad, and that he meant to bring his darter hum, but I didn’t calculate on sich carrins on.
To my notion, Benjamin, she’s likely to turn out a desp’ut ugly gal.”
“Ugly!” echoed the major-domo, opening eyes that were beginning to close in a very suspicious sleepiness, in wide amazement.
“By the Lord Harry, woman, I should as soon think of calling the Boadishey a clumsy frigate.
What the devil would you have?
Arn’t her eyes as bright as the morning and evening stars? and isn’t her hair as black and glistening as rigging that has just had a lick of tar? doesn’t she move as stately as a first-rate in smooth water, on a bowline?
Why, woman, the figure-head of the Boadishey was a fool to her, and that, as I’ve often heard the captain say, was an image of a great queen; and arn’t queens always comely, woman? for who do you think would be a king, and not choose a handsome bedfellow?”
“Talk decent, Benjamin,” said the housekeeper, “Or I won’t keep your company.
I don’t gainsay her being comely to look on, but I will maintain that she’s likely to show poor conduct.
She seems to think herself too good to talk to a body.
From what Squire Jones had telled me, I some expected to be quite captivated by her company.
Now, to my reckoning, Lowizy Grant is much more pritty behaved than Betsey Temple.
She wouldn’t so much as hold discourse with me when I wanted to ask her how she felt on coming home and missing her mammy.”
“Perhaps she didn’t understand you, woman; you are none of the best linguister; and then Miss Lizzy has been exercising the king’s English under a great Lon’on lady, and, for that matter, can talk the language almost as well as myself, or any native-born British subject.
You’ve forgot your schooling, and the young mistress is a great scollard.”
“Mistress!” cried Remarkable; “don’t make one out to be a nigger, Benjamin.
She’s no mistress of mine, and never will be.
And as to speech, I hold myself as second to nobody out of New England. I was born and raised in Essex County; and I’ve always heern say that the Bay State was provarbal for pronounsation!”
“I’ve often heard of that Bay of State,” said Benjamin, “but can’t say that I’ve ever been in it, nor do I know exactly whereaway it is that it lays; but I suppose there is good anchorage in it, and that it’s no bad place for the taking of ling; but for size it can’t be so much as a yawl to a sloop of war compared with the Bay of Biscay, or, mayhap, Torbay.
And as for language, if you want to hear the dictionary overhauled like a log-line in a blow, you must go to Wapping and listen to the Lon’oners as they deal out their lingo.
Howsomever, I see no such mighty matter that Miss Lizzy has been doing to you, good woman; so take another drop of your brews and forgive and forget, like an honest soul.”
“No, indeed! and I shan’t do sitch a thing, Benjamin.
This treatment is a newity to me, and what I won’t put up with.
I have a hundred and fifty dollars at use, besides a bed and twenty sheep, to good; and I don’t crave to live in a house where a body mustn’t call a young woman by her given name to her face.
I will call her Betsey as much as I please; it’s a free country, and no one can stop me.
I did intend to stop while summer, but I shall quit to-morrow morning; and I will talk just as I please.”
“For that matter, Mistress Remarkable,” said Benjamin, “there’s none here who will contradict you; for I’m of opinion that it would be as easy to stop a hurricane with a Barcelony handkerchy as to bring up your tongue when the stopper is off.
I say, good woman, do they grow many monkeys along the shores of that Bay of State?”
“You’re a monkey yourself, Mr. Penguillum,” cried the enraged housekeeper, “or a bear—a black, beastly bear! and ain’t fit for a decent woman to stay with.
I’ll never, keep your company agin, sir, if I should live thirty years with the Judge.
Sitch talk is more befitting the kitchen than the keeping-room of a house of one who is well-to-do in the world.”
“Look you, Mistress Pitty—Patty———Prettybones, mayhap I’m some such matter as a bear, as they will find who come to grapple with me; but dam’me if I’m a monkey—a thing that chatters without knowing a word of what it says—a parrot; that will hold a dialogue, for what an honest man knows, in a dozen languages; mayhap in the Bay of State lingo; mayhap in Greek or High Dutch.
But dost it know what it means itself? canst answer me that, good woman?
Your midshipman can sing out, and pass the word, when the captain gives the order, but just send him adrift by himself, and let him work the ship of his own head, and stop my grog if you don’t find all the Johnny Raws laughing at him.”
“Stop your grog, indeed!” said Remarkable, rising with great indignation, and seizing a candle; “you’re groggy now, Benjamin and I’ll quit the room before I hear any misbecoming words from you.”
The housekeeper retired, with a manner but little less dignified, as she thought, than the air of the heiress, muttering as she drew the door after her, with a noise like the report of a musket, the opprobrious terms of “drunkard,” “sot,” and “beast.”
“Who’s that you say is drunk?” cried Benjamin fiercely, rising and making a movement toward Remarkable.
“You talk of mustering yourself with a lady you’re just fit to grumble and find fault.
Where the devil should you larn behavior and dictionary? in your damned Bay of State, ha?”
Benjamin here fell back in his chair, and soon gave vent to certain ominous sounds, which resembled not a little the growling of his favorite animal the bear itself.
Be fore, however, he was quite locked—to use the language that would suit the Della-cruscan humor of certain refined minds of the present day—“in the arms of Morpheus,” he spoke aloud, observing due pauses between his epithets, the impressive terms of “monkey,” “parrot,” “picnic,” “tar pot,” and “linguisters”
We shall not attempt to explain his meaning nor connect his sentences; and our readers must be satisfied with our informing them that they were expressed with all that coolness of contempt that a man might well be supposed to feel for a monkey.
Nearly two hours passed in this sleep before the major domo was awakened by the noisy entrance of Richard, Major Hartmann, and the master of the mansion.
Benjamin so far rallied his confused faculties as to shape the course of the two former to their respective apartments, when he disappeared himself, leaving the task of securing the house to him who was most interested in its safety.
Locks and bars were but little attended to in the early days of that settlement, and so soon as Marmaduke had given an eye to the enormous fires of his dwelling he retired.
With this act of prudence closes the first night of our tale.
CHAPTER XVI