Part 9 (1/2)
”The neighbours hereabout had for many years, and may have still, some curious stories about General Was.h.i.+ngton's closeness in money matters.
They said he never bought anything by weight but he had it weighed over again, nor by tale but he had it counted, and if the weight or number were not exact, he sent it back. Once, during his absence, his steward had a room plastered, and paid the plasterer's bill. On the General's return, he measured the room, and found that the plasterer had charged fifteen s.h.i.+llings too much. Meanwhile the man had died, and the General made a claim of fifteen s.h.i.+llings on his estate, which was paid. Again, one of his tenants brought him the rent. The exact change of fourpence was required. The man tendered a dollar, and asked the General to credit him with the balance against the next year's rent. The General refused and made him ride nine miles to Alexandria and back for the fourpence.
On the other hand, he sent to a shoemaker in Alexandria to come and measure him for shoes. The man returned word that he did not go to any one's house to take measures, and the General mounted his horse and rode the nine miles to him. One of his rules was to pay at taverns the same sum for his servants' meals as for his own. An inn-keeper brought him a bill of three-and-ninepence for his own breakfast, and three s.h.i.+llings for his servant. He insisted upon adding the extra ninepence, as he did not doubt that the servant had eaten as much as he. What do you say to these anecdotes? Was this meanness or not?”
Ratcliffe was amused. ”The stories are new to me,” he said. ”It is just as I thought. These are signs of a man who thinks much of trifles; one who fusses over small matters. We don't do things in that way now that we no longer have to get crops from granite, as they used to do in New Hamps.h.i.+re when I was a boy.”
Carrington replied that it was unlucky for Virginians that they had not done things in that way then: if they had, they would not have gone to the dogs.
Gore shook his head seriously; ”Did I not tell you so?” said he. ”Was not this man an abstract virtue? I give you my word I stand in awe before him, and I feel ashamed to pry into these details of his life.
What is it to us how he thought proper to apply his principles to nightcaps and feather dusters? We are not his body servants, and we care nothing about his infirmities. It is enough for us to know that he carried his rules of virtue down to a pin's point, and that we ought, one and all, to be on our knees before his tomb.”
Dunbeg, pondering deeply, at length asked Carrington whether all this did not make rather a clumsy politician of the father of his country.
”Mr. Ratcliffe knows more about politics than I. Ask him,” said Carrington.
”Was.h.i.+ngton was no politician at all, as we understand the word,”
replied Ratcliffe abruptly. ”He stood outside of politics. The thing couldn't be done to-day. The people don't like that sort of royal airs.”
”I don't understand!” said Mrs. Lee. ”Why could you not do it now?”
”Because I should make a fool of myself;” replied Ratcliffe, pleased to think that Mrs. Lee should put him on a level with Was.h.i.+ngton. She had only meant to ask why the thing could not be done, and this little touch of Ratcliffe's vanity was inimitable.
”Mr. Ratcliffe means that Was.h.i.+ngton was too respectable for our time,”
interposed Carrington.
This was deliberately meant to irritate Ratcliffe, and it did so all the more because Mrs. Lee turned to Carrington, and said, with some bitterness:
”Was he then the only honest public man we ever had?”
”Oh no!” replied Carrington cheerfully; ”there have been one or two others.”
”If the rest of our Presidents had been like him,” said Gore, ”we should have had fewer ugly blots on our short history.”
Ratcliffe was exasperated at Carrington's habit of drawing discussion to this point. He felt the remark as a personal insult, and he knew it to be intended. ”Public men,” he broke out, ”cannot be dressing themselves to-day in Was.h.i.+ngton's old clothes. If Was.h.i.+ngton were President now, he would have to learn our ways or lose his next election. Only fools and theorists imagine that our society can be handled with gloves or long poles. One must make one's self a part of it. If virtue won't answer our purpose, we must use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office, and this was as true in Was.h.i.+ngton's day as it is now, and always will be.”
”Come,” said Lord Skye, who was beginning to fear an open quarrel; ”the conversation verges on treason, and I am accredited to this government.
Why not examine the grounds?”
A kind of natural sympathy led Lord Dunbeg to wander by the side of Miss Dare through the quaint old garden. His mind being much occupied by the effort of stowing away the impressions he had just received, he was more than usually absent in his manner, and this want of attention irritated the young lady. She made some comments on flowers; she invented some new species with startling names; she asked whether these were known in Ireland; but Lord Dunbeg was for the moment so vague in his answers that she saw her case was perilous.
”Here is an old sun-dial. Do you have sun-dials in Ireland, Lord Dunbeg?”
”Yes; oh, certainly! What! sun-dials? Oh, yes! I a.s.sure you there are a great many sun-dials in Ireland, Miss Dare.”
”I am so glad. But I suppose they are only for ornament. Here it is just the other way. Look at this one! they all behave like that. The wear and tear of our sun is too much for them; they don't last. My uncle, who has a place at Long Branch, had five sun-dials in ten years.”
”How very odd! But really now, Miss Dare, I don't see how a sun--dial could wear out.”
”Don't you? How strange! Don't you see, they get soaked with suns.h.i.+ne so that they can't hold shadow. It's like me, you know. I have such a good time all the time that I can't be unhappy. Do you ever read the Burlington Hawkeye, Lord Dunbeg?”