The Monikins

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER I. THE AUTHOR'S PEDIGREE,--ALSO THAT OF HIS FATHER.

  The philosopher who broaches a new theory is bound to furnish, at least,some elementary proofs of the reasonableness of his positions, and thehistorian who ventures to record marvels that have hitherto been hidfrom human knowledge, owes it to a decent regard to the opinions ofothers, to produce some credible testimony in favor of his veracity.I am peculiarly placed in regard to these two great essentials havinglittle more than its plausibility to offer in favor of my philosophy,and no other witness than myself to establish the important facts thatare now about to be laid before the reading world for the first time.In this dilemma, I fully feel the weight of responsibility under whichI stand; for there are truths of so little apparent probability as toappear fictitious, and fictions so like the truth that the ordinaryobserver is very apt to affirm that he was an eye-witness to theirexistence: two facts that all our historians would do well to bearin mind, since a knowledge of the circumstances might spare themthe mortification of having testimony that cost a deal of trouble,discredited in the one case, and save a vast deal of painful andunnecessary labor, in the other. Thrown upon myself, therefore, for whatthe French call les pieces justificatives of my theories, as well as ofmy facts, I see no better way to prepare the reader to believe me, thanby giving an unvarnished the result of the orange-woman's application;for had my worthy ancestor been subjected to the happy accidents andgenerous caprices of voluntary charity, it is more than probable Ishould be driven to throw a veil over those important years of hislife that were notoriously passed in the work-house, but which, inconsequence of that occurrence, are now easily authenticated by validminutes and documentary evidence. Thus it is that there exists novoid in the annals of our family, even that period which is usuallyremembered through gossiping and idle tales in the lives of most men,being matter of legal record in that of my progenitor, and so continuedto be down to the day of his presumed majority, since he was indebted toa careful master the moment the parish could with any legality, puttingdecency quite out of the question, get rid of him. I ought to have said,that the orange-woman, taking a hint from the sign of a butcher oppositeto whose door my ancestor was found, had very cleverly given him thename of Thomas Goldencalf.

  This second important transition in the affairs of my father, might bedeemed a presage of his future fortunes. He was bound apprentice to atrader in fancy articles, or a shopkeeper who dealt in such objectsas are usually purchased by those who do not well know what to dowith their money. This trade was of immense advantage to the futureprosperity of the young adventurer; for, in addition to the known factthat they who amuse are much better paid than they who instruct theirfellow-creatures, his situation enabled him to study those caprices ofmen, which, properly improved, are of themselves a mine of wealth, aswell as to gain a knowledge of the important truth that the greatestevents of this life are much oftener the result of impulse than ofcalculation.

  I have it by a direct tradition, orally conveyed from the lips of myancestor, that no one could be more lucky than himself in the characterof his master. This personage, who came, in time, to be my maternalgrandfather, was one of those wary traders who encourage others in theirfollies, with a view to his own advantage, and the experience of fiftyyears had rendered him so expert in the practices of his calling, thatit was seldom he struck out a new vein in his mine, without findinghimself rewarded for the enterprise, by a success that was fully equalto his expectations.

  "Tom," he said one day to his apprentice, when time had producedconfidence and awakened sympathies between them, "thou art a luckyyouth, or the parish officer would never have brought thee to mydoor. Thou little knowest the wealth that is in store for thee, or thetreasures that are at thy command, if thou provest diligent, and inparticular faithful to my interests." My provident grandfather nevermissed an occasion to throw in a useful moral, notwithstanding thegeneral character of veracity that distinguished his commerce. "Now,what dost think, lad, may be the amount of my capital?"

  My ancestor in the male line hesitated to reply, for, hitherto, hisideas had been confined to the profits; never having dared to lift histhoughts as high as that source from which he could not but see theyflowed in a very ample stream; but thrown upon himself by so unexpecteda question, and being quick at figures, after adding ten per cent. tothe sum which he knew the last year had given as the net avail of theirjoint ingenuity, he named the amount, in answered to the interrogatory.

  My maternal grandfather laughed in the face of my direct linealancestor.

  "Thou judgest, Tom," he said, when his mirth was a little abated, "bywhat thou thinkest is the cost of the actual stock before thine eyes,when thou shouldst take into the account that which I term our floatingcapital."

  Tom pondered a moment, for while he knew that his master had money inthe funds, he did not account that as any portion of the available meansconnected with his ordinary business; and as for a floating capital,he did not well see how it could be of much account, since thedisproportion between the cost and the selling prices of the differentarticles in which they dealt was so great, that there was no particularuse in such an investment. As his master, however, rarely paid foranything until he was in possession of returns from it that exceeded thedebt some seven-fold, he began to think the old man was alluding to theadvantages he obtained in the way of credit, and after a little morecogitation, he ventured to say as much.

  Again my maternal grandfather indulged in a hearty fit of laughter.

  "Thou art clever in thy way, Tom," he said, "and I like the minutenessof thy calculations, for they show an aptitude for trade; but thereis genius in our calling as well as cleverness. Come hither, boy," headded, drawing Tom to a window whence they could see the neighborson their way to church, for it was on a Sunday that my two providentprogenitors indulged in this moral view of humanity, as best fitted theday, "come hither, boy, and thou shalt see some small portion of thatcapital which thou seemest to think hid, stalking abroad by daylight,and in the open streets. Here, thou seest the wife of our neighbor,the pastry-cook; with what an air she tosses her head and displays thebauble thou sold'st her yesterday: well, even that slattern, idle andvain, and little worthy of trust as she is, carries about with her aportion of my capital!"

  My worthy ancestor stared, for he never knew the other to be guilty ofso great an indiscretion as to trust a woman whom they both knew boughtmore than her husband was willing to pay for.

  "She gave me a guinea, master, for that which did not cost aseven-shilling piece!"

  "She did, indeed, Tom, and it was her vanity that urged her to it. Itrade upon her folly, younker, and upon that of all mankind; now dostthou see with what a capital I carry on affairs? There--there is themaid, carrying the idle hussy's patterns in the rear; I drew upon mystock in that wench's possession, no later than the last week, forhalf-a-crown!"

  Tom reflected a long time on these allusions of his provident master,and although he understood them about as well as they will be understoodby the owners of half the soft humid eyes and sprouting whiskersamong my readers, by dint of cogitation he came at last to a practicalunderstanding of the subject, which before he was thirty he had, to usea French term, pretty well exploite.

  I learn by unquestionable tradition, received also from the mouths ofhis contemporaries, that the opinions of my ancestor underwent somematerial changes between the ages of ten and forty, a circumstance thathas often led me to reflect that people might do well not to be tooconfident of the principles, during the pliable period of life, when themind, like the tender shoot, is easily bent aside and subjected to theaction of surrounding causes.

  During the earlier years of the plastic age, my ancestor was observed tobetray strong feelings of compassion at the sight of charity-children,nor was he ever known to pass a child, especially a boy that was stillin petticoats, who was crying with hunger in the streets, withoutsharing his own crust with him. Indeed, his practice on this head wassaid to be steady and uniform, wheneve
r the rencontre took place aftermy worthy father had had his own sympathies quickened by a good dinner;a fact that maybe imputed to a keener sense of the pleasure he was aboutto confer.

  After sixteen, he was known to converse occasionally on the subject ofpolitics, a topic on which he came to be both expert and eloquentbefore twenty. His usual theme was justice and the sacred rights of man,concerning which he sometimes uttered very pretty sentiments, and suchas were altogether becoming in one who was at the bottom of the greatsocial pot that was then, as now, actively boiling, and where he wasmade to feel most, the heat that kept it in ebullition. I am assuredthat on the subject of taxation, and on that of the wrongs of Americaand Ireland, there were few youths in the parish who could discoursewith more zeal and unction. About this time, too, he was heard shouting"Wilkes and liberty!" in the public streets.

  But, as is the case with all men of rare capacities, there was aconcentration of powers in the mind of my ancestor, which soon broughtall his errant sympathies, the mere exuberance of acute and overflowingfeelings, into a proper and useful subjection, centring all in the oneabsorbing and capacious receptacle of self. I do not claim for my fatherany peculiar quality in this respect, for I have often observed thatmany of those who (like giddy-headed horsemen that raise a great dust,and scamper as if the highway were too narrow for their eccentriccourses, before they are fairly seated in the saddle, but who afterwarddrive as directly at their goals as the arrow parting from the bow),most indulge their sympathies at the commencement of their careers, arethe most apt toward the close to get a proper command of their feelings,and to reduce them within the bounds of common sense and prudence.Before five-and-twenty, my father was as exemplary and as constant adevotee of Plutus as was then to be found between Ratcliffe Highway andBridge Street:--I name these places in particular, as all the rest ofthe great capital in which he was born is known to be more indifferentto the subject of money.

  My ancestor was just thirty, when his master, who like himself wasa bachelor, very unexpectedly, and a good deal to the scandal of theneighborhood, introduced a new inmate into his frugal abode, in theperson of an infant female child. It would seem that some one hadbeen speculating on his stock of weakness too, for this poor, little,defenceless, and dependent being was thrown upon his care, like Tomhimself, through the vigilance of the parish officers. There were manygood-natured jokes practised on the prosperous fancy-dealer, by the morewitty of his neighbors, at this sudden turn of good fortune, and not afew ill-natured sneers were given behind his back; most of the knowingones of the vicinity finding a stronger likeness between the little girland all the other unmarried men of the eight or ten adjoining streets,than to the worthy housekeeper who had been selected to pay for hersupport. I have been much disposed to admit the opinions of theseamiable observers as authority in my own pedigree, since it wouldbe reaching the obscurity in which all ancient lines take root, ageneration earlier, than by allowing the presumption that little Betseywas my direct male ancestor's master's daughter; but, on reflection, Ihave determined to adhere to the less popular but more simple versionof the affair, because it is connected with the transmission of no smallpart of our estate, a circumstance of itself that at once gives dignityand importance to a genealogy.

  Whatever may have been the real opinion of the reputed father touchinghis rights to the honors of that respectable title, he soon became asstrongly attached to the child, as if it really owed its existenceto himself. The little girl was carefully nursed, abundantly fed,and throve accordingly. She had reached her third year, when thefancy-dealer took the smallpox from his little pet, who was justrecovering from the same disease, and died at the expiration of thetenth day.

  This was an unlooked-for and stunning blow to my ancestor, who was thenin his thirty-fifth year and the head shopman of the establishment,which had continued to grow with the growing follies and vanities of theage. On examining his master's will, it was found that my father, whohad certainly aided materially of late in the acquisition of the money,was left the good-will of the shop, the command of all the stock atcost, and the sole executorship of the estate. He was also intrustedwith the exclusive guardianship of little Betsey, to whom his masterhad affectionately devised every farthing of his property. An ordinaryreader may be surprised that a man who had so long practised on thefoibles of his species, should have so much confidence in a mereshopman, as to leave his whole estate so completely in his power; but,it must be remembered, that human ingenuity has not yet devised anymeans by which we can carry our personal effects into the other world;that "what cannot be cured must be endured"; that he must of necessityhave confided this important trust to some fellow-creature, and that itwas better to commit the keeping of his money to one who, knowing thesecret by which it had been accumulated, had less inducement to bedishonest, than one who was exposed to the temptation of covetousness,without having a knowledge of any direct and legal means of gratifyinghis longings. It has been conjectured, therefore, that the testatorthought, by giving up his trade to a man who was as keenly alive asmy ancestor to all its perfections, moral and pecuniary, he provided asufficient protection against his falling into the sin of peculation, byso amply supplying him with simpler means of enriching himself. Besides,it is fair to presume that the long acquaintance had begotten sufficientconfidence to weaken the effect of that saying which some wit has putinto the mouth of a wag, "Make me your executor, father; I care not towhom you leave the estate." Let all this be as it might, nothing can bemore certain than that my worthy ancestor executed his trust with thescrupulous fidelity of a man whose integrity had been severely schooledin the ethics of trade. Little Betsey was properly educated for one inher condition of life; her health was as carefully watched over as ifshe had been the only daughter of the sovereign instead of theonly daughter of a fancy-dealer; her morals were superintended by asuperannuated old maid; her mind left to its original purity; her personjealously protected against the designs of greedy fortune-hunters; and,to complete the catalogue of his paternal attentions and solicitudes, myvigilant and faithful ancestor, to prevent accidents, and to counteractthe chances of life, so far as it might be done by human foresight, sawthat she was legally married, the day she reached her nineteenth year,to the person whom, there is every reason to think, he believed to bethe most unexceptionable man of his acquaintance--in other words, tohimself. Settlements were unnecessary between parties who had so longbeen known to each other, and, thanks to the liberality of his latemaster's will in more ways than one, a long minority, and the industryof the ci-devant head shopman, the nuptial benediction was no soonerpronounced, than our family stepped into the undisputed possession offour hundred thousand pounds. One less scrupulous on the subject ofreligion and the law, might not have thought it necessary to give theorphan heiress a settlement so satisfactory, at the termination of herwardship.

  I was the fifth of the children who were the fruits of this union, andthe only one of them all that passed the first year of its life. My poormother did not survive my birth, and I can only record her qualitiesthrough the medium of that great agent in the archives of the family,tradition. By all that I have heard, she must have been a meek, quiet,domestic woman; who, by temperament and attainments, was admirablyqualified to second the prudent plans of my father for her welfare. Ifshe had causes of complaint, (and that she had, there is too much reasonto think, for who has ever escaped them?) they were concealed, withfemale fidelity, in the sacred repository of her own heart; and iftruant imagination sometimes dimly drew an outline of married happinessdifferent from the fact that stood in dull reality before her eyes, thepicture was merely commented on by a sigh, and consigned to a cabinetwhose key none ever touched but herself, and she seldom.

  Of this subdued and unobtrusive sorrow, for I fear it sometimes reachedthat intensity of feeling, my excellent and indefatigable ancestorappeared to have no suspicion. He pursued his ordinary occupations withhis ordinary single-minded devotion, and the last thing that would havecrossed his brain was
the suspicion that he had not punctiliously donehis duty by his ward. Had he acted otherwise, none surely would havesuffered more by his delinquency than her husband, and none would havea better right to complain. Now, as her husband never dreamt of makingsuch an accusation, it is not at all surprising that my ancestorremained in ignorance of his wife's feelings at the hour of his death.

  It has been said that the opinions of the successor of the fancy-dealerunderwent some essential changes between the ages of ten and forty.After he had reached his twenty-second year, or, in other words, themoment he began to earn money for himself, as well as for his master,he ceased to cry "Wilkes and liberty!" He was not heard to breathea syllable concerning the obligations of society toward the weak andunfortunate, for the five years that succeeded his majority; he touchedlightly on Christian duties in general, after he got to be worth fiftypounds of his own; and as for railing at human follies, it would havebeen rank ingratitude in one who so very unequivocally got his bread bythem. About this time, his remarks on the subject of taxation, however,were singularly caustic, and well applied. He railed at the public debt,as a public curse, and ominously predicted the dissolution ofsociety, in consequence of the burdens and incumbrances it was hourlyaccumulating on the already overloaded shoulders of the trader.

  The period of his marriage and his succession to the hoardings of hisformer master, may be dated as the second epocha in the opinions of myancestor. From this moment his ambition expanded, his views enlarged inproportion to his means, and his contemplations on the subject of hisgreat floating capital became more profound and philosophical. A manof my ancestor's native sagacity, whose whole soul was absorbed in thepursuit of gain, who had so long been forming his mind, by dealing asit were with the elements of human weaknesses, and who already possessedfour hundred thousand pounds, was very likely to strike out for himselfsome higher road to eminence, than that in which he had been laboriouslyjourneying, during the years of painful probation. The property ofmy mother had been chiefly invested in good bonds and mortgages;her protector, patron, benefactor, and legalized father, having anunconquerable repugnance to confiding in that soulless, conventional,nondescript body corporate, the public. The first indication that wasgiven by my ancestor of a change of purpose in the direction of hisenergies, was by calling in the whole of his outstanding debts, andadopting the Napoleon plan of operations, by concentrating his forces ona particular point, in order that he might operate in masses. About thistime, too, he suddenly ceased railing at taxation. This change maybe likened to that which occurs in the language of the ministerialjournals, when they cease abusing any foreign state with whom the nationhas been carrying on a war, that it is, at length, believed politic toterminate; and for much the same reason, as it was the intention of mythrifty ancestor to make an ally of a power that he had hitherto alwaystreated as an enemy. The whole of the four hundred thousand pounds wereliberally intrusted to the country, the former fancy-dealer's apprenticeentering the arena of virtuous and patriotic speculation, as a bull;and, if with more caution, with at least some portion of the energyand obstinacy of the desperate animal that gives title to this class ofadventurers. Success crowned his laudable efforts; gold rolled inupon him like water on a flood, buoying him up, soul and body, to thatenviable height, where, as it would seem, just views can alone be takenof society in its innumerable phases. All his former views of life,which, in common with others of a similar origin and similar politicalsentiments, he had imbibed in early years, and which might withpropriety be called near views, were now completely obscured by thesublimer and broader prospect that was spread before him.

  I am afraid the truth will compel me to admit, that my ancestor wasnever charitable in the vulgar acceptation of the term; but then, healways maintained that his interest in his fellow-creatures was of amore elevated cast, taking a comprehensive glance at all the bearingsof good and evil--being of the sort of love which induces the parent tocorrect the child, that the lesson of present suffering may producethe blessings of future respectability and usefulness. Acting onthese principles, he gradually grew more estranged from his species inappearance, a sacrifice that was probably exacted by the severity of hispractical reproofs for their growing wickedness, and the austere policythat was necessary to enforce them. By this time, my ancestor was alsothoroughly impressed with what is called the value of money; a sentimentwhich, I believe, gives its possessor a livelier perception than commonof the dangers of the precious metals, as well as of their privilegesand uses. He expatiated occasionally on the guaranties that it wasnecessary to give to society, for its own security; never even voted fora parish officer unless he were a warm substantial citizen; and began tobe a subscriber to the patriotic fund, and to the other similar littlemoral and pecuniary buttresses of the government, whose common andcommendable object was, to protect our country, our altars, and ourfiresides.

  The death-bed of my mother has been described to me as a touching andmelancholy scene. It appears that as this meek and retired woman wasextricated from the coil of mortality, her intellect grew brighter, herpowers of discernment stronger, and her character in every respectmore elevated and commanding. Although she had said much less about ourfiresides and altars than her husband, I see no reason to doubt that shehad ever been quite as faithful as he could be to the one, and asmuch devoted to the other. I shall describe the important event of herpassage from this to a better world, as I have often had it repeatedfrom the lips of one who was present, and who has had an importantagency in since making me the man I am. This person was the clergyman ofthe parish, a pious divine, a learned man, and a gentleman in feeling aswell as by extraction.

  My mother, though long conscious that she was drawing near to herlast great account, had steadily refused to draw her husband from hisabsorbing pursuits, by permitting him to be made acquainted with hersituation. He knew that she was ill; very ill, as he had reason tothink; but, as he not only allowed her, but even volunteered to orderher all the advice and relief that money could command (my ancestor wasnot a miser in the vulgar meaning of the word), he thought that he haddone all that man could do, in a case of life and death--interestsover which he professed to have no control. He saw Dr. Etherington,the rector, come and go daily, for a month, without uneasinessor apprehension, for he thought his discourse had a tendency totranquillize my mother, and he had a strong affection for all that lefthim undisturbed, to the enjoyment of the occupation in which his wholeenergies were now completely centred. The physician got his guinea ateach visit, with scrupulous punctuality; the nurses were well receivedand were well satisfied, for no one interfered with their acts butthe doctor; and every ordinary duty of commission was as regularlydischarged by my ancestor, as if the sinking and resigned creaturefrom whom he was about to be forever separated had been the spontaneouschoice of his young and fresh affections.

  When, therefore, a servant entered to say that Dr. Etherington desireda private interview, my worthy ancestor, who had no consciousness ofhaving neglected any obligation that became a friend of church andstate, was in no small measure surprised.

  "I come, Mr. Goldencalf, on a melancholy duty," said the pious rector,entering the private cabinet to which his application had for thefirst time obtained his admission; "the fatal secret can no longer beconcealed from you, and your wife at length consents that I shall be theinstrument of revealing it."

  The Doctor paused; for on such occasions it is perhaps as well to letthe party that is about to be shocked receive a little of the blowthrough his own imagination; and busily enough was that of my poorfather said to be exercised on this painful occasion. He grew pale,opened his eyes until they again filled the sockets into which they hadgradually been sinking for twenty years, and looked a hundred questionsthat his tongue refused to put.

  "It cannot be, Doctor," he at length querulously said, "that a womanlike Betsey has got an inkling into any of the events connected withthe last great secret expedition, and which have escaped my jealousy andexperience?"

&nbs
p; "I am afraid, dear sir, that Mrs. Goldencalf has obtained glimpses ofthe last great and secret expedition on which we must all, sooner orlater, embark, that have entirely escaped your vigilance. But of this Iwill speak some other time. At present it is my painful duty to informyou it is the opinion of the physician that your excellent wife cannotoutlive the day, if, indeed, she do the hour."

  My father was struck with this intelligence, and for more than a minutehe remained silent and without motion. Casting his eyes toward thepapers on which he had lately been employed, and which contained somevery important calculations connected with the next settling day, he atlength resumed:

  "If this be really so, Doctor, it may be well for me to go to her, sinceone in the situation of the poor woman may indeed have something ofimportance to communicate."

  "It is with this object that I have now come to tell you the truth,"quietly answered the divine, who knew that nothing was to be gained bycontending with the besetting weakness of such a man, at such a moment.

  My father bent his head in assent, and, first carefully enclosing theopen papers in a secretary, he followed his companion to the bedside ofhis dying wife.