Part 54 (1/2)

SAYBROOK.

”Says Tweed to Till, 'What gars ye rin sae still?'

Says Till to Tweed, 'Though ye rin wi' speed, An' I rin slaw, For ae man that ye droon, I droon twa.'”--_Old Song._

Rather more than a hundred miles from New York the railway crosses the Connecticut River, on one of those bridges that at a little distance resemble spiders' webs hung between the sh.o.r.es. From here one may look down quite to the river's mouth, where it enters the Sound; and if it be a warm summer's day, the bluish-gray streak of land across it may be seen. The Connecticut is the only river of importance emptying upon the New England coast that has not an island lodged in its throat.

It was on one of those parched days of midsummer, when the very air is quivering, and every green thing droops and shrivels under a vertical sun, that I first alighted at the station at Saybrook. The listless, f.a.gged, and jaded air of city swells lounging about the platform, the flushed faces of blooming girls and watchful dowagers, betokened the general prostration of weary humanity, who yearned for the musical plash of sea-waves as the withering leaves and dusty gra.s.s longed for rain.

How feminine New England exaggerates, to be sure! A group of three young ladies exchange their views upon the sultriness of the day: one observes, ”What a dreadful hot day!” a second declares it ”horrid”

(torrid, perhaps she meant to say); and the last p.r.o.nounces it ”perfectly frightful,” emphasizing the opinion by opening her umbrella with a sharp snap. What they would have said to an earthquake, a conflagration, or a s.h.i.+pwreck, is left to bewildering conjecture.

In a certain unquiet portion of the American Union, the term Connecticut Yankee is expressive of concentrated dislike for shrewd bargaining, a nasal tw.a.n.g of speech, and a supposed desire to overreach one's neighbor. How often have I heard in the South the expression, ”A mean Yankee;” as if, forsooth, meanness were sectional! Here in New England a Connecticut Yankee is spoken of as a cunning blade or sharp fellow; as an Englishman would say, ”He's Yorks.h.i.+re;” or an Italian, ”e Spoletino.”

The day of wooden nutmegs is past and gone, and Connecticut is more familiarly known as the ”Land of Steady Habits.” The whole State is a hive. Every smoky town you see is a busy work-shop. The problem of the Connecticut man is how to do the most work in the shortest time, whether by means of a sewing-machine, a Colt, or a _mitrailleuse_. If I should object to any thing in him, it would be the hurry and worry, the _drive_, which impels him through life--and in this I do not imagine he differs from the average American man of business--until, like one of his own engines that is always worked under a full pressure of steam, he stops running at last. That is why we see so many old men of thirty, and so many premature gray hairs in New England.

But what I chiefly lament is the disappearance of the Yankee--not the conventional Yankee of the theatre, for he had never an existence elsewhere; but the hearty yet suspicions, ”cute” though green, drawling, whittling, unadulterated Yankee, with his broad humor, delicious _patois_, and large-hearted patriotism. His very mother-tongue is forgotten. Not once during these rambles have I heard his old familiar ”I swaow,” or ”Git aout,” or ”Dew tell.”[336] Railway and telegraph, factory and work-shop, penetrating into the most secluded hamlets, have rubbed off all the crust of an originality so p.r.o.nounced as to have become the type, and often the caricature too, of American nationality the world over.

One peculiarity I have noticed is that of calling spinsters, of whatever age, ”girls.” I knew two elderly maiden ladies, each verging on three-score, who were universally spoken of as the ”Young girls,” their names, I should perhaps explain, being Young. Once, when in quest of lodgings in a strange place, I was directed to apply to the two Brown girls, whose united ages, as I should judge, could not be less than a century and a quarter. But one is not to judge of New England girls by this sample.

Another practice which prevails in some villages is that of designating father and son, where both have a common Christian-name, as ”Big Tom”

and ”Little Tom;” and brother and sister as ”Bub” and ”Sis.” One can hardly maintain a serious countenance to hear a stalwart fellow of six feet alluded to as ”Little” Tom, or Joe, or Bill, or a full-grown man or woman as ”Bub” or ”Sis.” On the coast, nicknames are current princ.i.p.ally among the sea-faring element; ”Guinea Bill” or ”Portugee Jack,”

presupposes the owner to have made a voyage to either of those distant lands.

The Italians count the whole twenty-four hours, beginning at half an hour after sunset. By this method of computation I reckoned on arriving at Saybrook Point at exactly twenty-two o'clock. I walked through the village leisurely observant of its outward aspect, which was that of undisturbed tranquillity. Modern life had been so long in reaching it, that it had been willing to accommodate itself to the old houses, and so far to the old life of the place. The toilets here, as elsewhere, encroached in many instances upon those of the last century, and were wonderfully like the portraits one sees of the time. Now, let us have the old manners back again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISAAC HULL]

One of the pleasantest old houses in Saybrook is the Hart mansion, which stands in the main street of the village, heavily draped by the foliage of three elm-trees of great size and beauty. It was a favorite retreat of that gallant sailor, Isaac Hull, who lost his heart there.[337] Like Nelson, he was the idol of his sailors, for he was as humane as he was brave. He seldom ordered one of his old sea-dogs to be flogged, but would call a culprit before him, and after scolding him soundly with affected roughness of tone and manner, would tell him to return to his duty. The _Old Ironsides_ was loved with a love almost like that which man bears to woman. Ladies would have kissed the hem of her sails; men sc.r.a.ped the barnacles from her bottom, and carried them home in their pockets. I have seen no end of canes, picture-frames, and other souvenirs of this famous s.h.i.+p treasured by fortunate possessors; and one of the old merchants of Boston had his street door made of her oak.

Saybrook is languid. It is dispersed along one broad and handsome street, completely canopied by an arch of foliage. You seem, when at the entrance, to be looking through a green tunnel. In this street there is no noise and but little movement. The few shops were without custom.

After the spasm of activity caused by the arrival of the train--when it seemed for the moment to rub its eyes and brisk up a little, carriages and pedestrians having mysteriously disappeared somewhere--the old town dozed again.

The Connecticut is here tame and uninteresting, with near sh.o.r.es of salt-marsh flatness. Yellow sand-bars, green hummocks, or jutting points skirted with pine-groves, inclose the stream, which is broad, placid, and shallow. There are no iron headlands, or dangerous reefs. Nature seems quite in harmony with the general quietude and restfulness.

A few years ago there existed at the Point the remains of a colonial fortress, with much history cl.u.s.tering around it. It was raised in the very infancy of English settlement at the mouth of the Connecticut; and when the Revolution came, the old dismounted cannon, that had perhaps done duty with Howard or Blake, were again placed on the ramparts. The railway people have reduced the hill on which it stood to a flat and dreary gravel waste.[338] This is walking into antiquity with a vengeance! It is perhaps fortunate that the Coliseum, Temple Bar, and St. Denis are not where they would be valued for the cubic yards of waste material they might afford.

The Dutch antic.i.p.ated the English in the settlement on Connecticut River. The Hollanders at Fort Amsterdam, and the then rival colonies of Plymouth and Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, were each desirous of obtaining a foothold which each felt too weak to undertake alone. The country had been subjugated by the Pequots, whose territory neither colony might invade without bringing the whole nation upon them.

The Dutch were also first to visit the river, and to inform the Pilgrims of its beauty and advantages for traffic. In 1633, Ma.s.sachusetts having rejected overtures for a joint occupation, Plymouth determined to establish a trading-post upon the river without her aid. Apprised of this intention, the Dutch dispatched an expedition, which disembarked where Hartford now is. A house was hastily erected, and ordnance mounted, with which the Hollanders gave notice that they meant to keep out intruders.

The Plymouth expedition, under command of William Holmes, ascended the river, and, notwithstanding an attempt to stop them, pa.s.sed by the Dutch fort. They landed at Nattawanute, afterward Windsor, and, having made themselves secure, sent their vessel home. Word was sent to Fort Amsterdam of the invasion. A company of seventy dispatched to the scene advanced ”brimful of wrath and cabbage,” with drums beating and colors flying, against the English fort. Seeing the Pilgrims were in nowise disconcerted, the Dutch captain ordered a halt; a parley took place, and, having thus vindicated the national honor, Gualtier Twilley's men withdrew.[339]

The attempts of Plymouth to establish tributary plantations, with trading-posts, at the extreme eastern and western limits of New England, were equally disastrous. Ma.s.sachusetts stood quietly by, and saw her rival dispossessed at Pen.o.bscot, but at Windsor the Plymouth people soon found themselves hemmed in between settlements made by emigrants from the bay. As a quarrel would perhaps have been alike fatal to both, Plymouth gave way to her more powerful neighbor.

The English settlement of Connecticut is usually a.s.signed to the year 1635, the year of beginnings at Hartford, Wethersfield, and Saybrook. In the autumn the younger Winthrop sent a few men to take possession and fortify at the mouth of the Connecticut, as agent of Lords Say, Brook, and their a.s.sociate owners of the patent.[340] This expedition forestalled by a few days only a new attempt to obtain possession by the Dutch, who, finding the English already landed and having cannon mounted, abandoned their design.

Through the agency of the celebrated Hugh Peters, the patentees engaged, and sent to New England, Lion Gardiner, a military engineer who had served in the Low Countries. He arrived at Boston in November, 1635, and proceeded to the fort at the mouth of the Connecticut. He was followed by George Fenwick, sent over by Lord Say to be resident agent of the English proprietors. Fenwick, accompanied by Peters, reached the fort in the spring. The plantation was called Saybrook, as a compliment to the two princ.i.p.al personages interested in its founding.

Saybrook has perhaps acquired a certain importance in the eyes of historical writers to which no other spot of New England's soil can pretend. There is little room to doubt that Lord Say, and perhaps some of his a.s.sociates, strongly entertained the idea of removing thither.[341] A more debatable a.s.sertion, which is, however, well fortified with authorities, represents Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, Pym, and Sir Arthur Haselrig as having been prevented from embarking only by an express order from the king: some, indeed, a.s.sert that they actually embarked.[342]