The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
half a generation; he has littered his military life with blunders, and
yet has never committed one that didn't make him a knight or a baronet
or a lord or something. Look at his breast; why, he is just clothed
in domestic and foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is a
record of some shouting stupidity or other; and, taken together, they
are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can befall a
man is to be born lucky.
THE CAPTAIN'S STORY
There was a good deal of pleasant gossip about old Captain 'Hurricane'
Jones, of the Pacific Ocean--peace to his ashes! Two or three of
us present had known him; I, particularly well, for I had made four
sea-voyages with him. He was a very remarkable man. He was born on a
ship; he picked up what little education he had among his ship-mates;
he began life in the forecastle, and climbed grade by grade to the
captaincy. More than fifty years of his sixty-five were spent at sea.
He had sailed all oceans, seen all lands, and borrowed a tint from all
climates. When a man has been fifty years at sea, he necessarily knows
nothing of men, nothing of the world but its surface, nothing of the
world's thought, nothing of the world's learning but it's A B C, and
that blurred and distorted by the unfocussed lenses of an untrained
mind. Such a man is only a gray and bearded child. That is what old
Hurricane Jones was--simply an innocent, lovable old infant. When his
spirit was in repose he was as sweet and gentle as a girl; when his
wrath was up he was a hurricane that made his nickname seem tamely
descriptive. He was formidable in a fight, for he was of powerful build
and dauntless courage. He was frescoed from head to heel with pictures
and mottoes tattooed in red and blue India ink. I was with him one
voyage when he got his last vacant space tattooed; this vacant space was
around his left ankle. During three days he stumped about the ship with
his ankle bare and swollen, and this legend gleaming red and angry out
from a clouding of India ink: 'Virtue is its own R'd.' (There was a
lack of room.) He was deeply and sincerely pious, and swore like a
fish-woman. He considered swearing blameless, because sailors would
not understand an order unillumined by it. He was a profound Biblical
scholar--that is, he thought he was. He believed everything in the
Bible, but he had his own methods of arriving at his beliefs. He was
of the 'advanced' school of thinkers, and applied natural laws to the
interpretation of all miracles, somewhat on the plan of the people
who make the six days of creation six geological epochs, and so forth.
Without being aware of it, he was a rather severe satirist on modern
scientific religionists. Such a man as I have been describing is rabidly
fond of disquisition and argument; one knows that without being told it.
One trip the captain had a clergyman on board, but did not know he was
a clergyman, since the passenger list did not betray the fact. He took a
great liking to this Rev. Mr. Peters, and talked with him a great deal:
told him yarns, gave him toothsome scraps of personal history, and wove
a glittering streak of profanity through his garrulous fabric that was
refreshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecorated
speech. One day the captain said, 'Peters, do you ever read the Bible?'
'Well--yes.'
'I judge it ain't often, by the way you say it. Now, you tackle it in
dead earnest once, and you'll find it'll pay. Don't you get discouraged,
but hang right on. First you won't understand it; but by-and-by things
will begin to clear up, and then you wouldn't lay it down to--eat.'
'Yes, I have heard that said.'
'And it's so too. There ain't a book that begins with it. It lays over
'em all, Peters. There's some pretty tough things in it--there ain't any
getting around that--but you stick to them and think them out, and when
once you get on the inside everything's plain as day.'
'The miracles, too, captain?'
'Yes, sir! the miracles, too. Every one of them. Now, there's that
business with the prophets of Baal; like enough that stumped you?'
'Well, I don't know but--'
'Own up, now; it stumped you. Well, I don't wonder. You hadn't any
experience in ravelling such things out, and naturally it was too many
for you. Would you like to have me explain that thing to you, and show
you how to get at the meat of these matters?'
'Indeed, I would, captain, if you don't mind.'
Then the captain proceeded as follows: 'I'll do it with pleasure.
First, you see, I read and read, and thought and thought, till I got
to understand what sort of people they were in the old Bible times, and
then after that it was clear and easy. Now, this was the way I put it
up, concerning Isaac(1) and the prophets of Baal. There was some mighty
sharp men amongst the public characters of that old ancient day, and
Isaac was one of them. Isaac had his failings--plenty of them, too;
it ain't for me to apologise for Isaac; he played a cold deck on the
prophets of Baal, and like enough he was justifiable, considering the
odds that was against him. No, all I say is, 't' wa'n't any miracle, and
that I'll show you so's 't you can see it yourself.
'Well, times had been getting rougher and rougher for prophets--that
is, prophets of Isaac's denomination. There were four hundred and fifty
prophets of Baal in the community, and only one Presbyterian; that is,
if Isaac was a Presbyterian, which I reckon he was, but it don't say.
Naturally, the prophets of Baal took all the trade. Isaac was pretty
low spirited, I reckon, but he was a good deal of a man, and no doubt
he went a-prophesying around, letting on to be doing a land-office
business, but 't' wa'n't any use; he couldn't run any opposition to
amount to anything. By-and-by things got desperate with him; he sets
his head to work and thinks it all out, and then what does he do? Why he
begins to throw out hints that the other parties are this and that and
t'other,--nothing very definite, may be, but just kind of undermining
their reputation in a quiet way. This made talk, of course, and finally
got to the King. The King asked Isaac what he meant by his talk. Says
Isaac, “Oh, nothing particular; only, can they pray down fire from
heaven on an altar? It ain't much, maybe, your majesty, only can they do
it? That's the idea.” So the King was a good deal disturbed, and he went
to the prophets of Baal, and they said, pretty airy, that if he had
an altar ready, they were ready; and they intimated he better get it
insured, too.
'So next morning all the Children of Israel and their parents and the
other people gathered themselves together. Well, here was that great
crowd of prophets of Baal packed together on one side, and Isaac walking
up and down all alone on the other, putting up his job. When time was
called, Isaac let on to be comfortable and indifferent; told the other
team to take the first innings. So they went at it, the whole four
hundred and fifty, praying around the altar, very hopefully, and doing
their level best. They prayed an hour--two hours--three hours--and so
on, plumb till noon. It wa'n't any use; they hadn't took a trick. Of
course they felt kind of ashamed before all those people, and well they
might. Now, what would a magnanimous man do? Keep still, wouldn't he? Of
course. What did Isaac do? He graveled the prophets of Baal every way
he could think of. Says he, “You don't speak up loud enough; your god's
asleep, like enough, or may be he's taking a walk; you want to holler,
you know,” or words to that effect; I don't recollect the exact
language. Mind I don't apologise for Isaac; he had his faults.
'Well, the prophets of Baal prayed along the best they knew how all the
afternoon, and never raised a spark. At last, about sundown, they were
all tuckered out, and they owned up and quit.
'What does Isaac do, now? He steps up and says to some friends of
his, there, “Pour four barrels of water on the altar!” Everybody was
astonished; for the other side had prayed at it dry, you know, and got
whitewashed. They poured it on. Says he, “Heave on four more barrels.”
Then he says, “Heave on four more.” Twelve barrels, you see, altogether.
The water ran all over the altar, and all down the sides, and filled up
a trench around it that would hold a couple of hogsheads--“measures,” it
says: I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some of the people were going
to put on their things and go, for they allowed he was crazy. They
didn't know Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray: he strung along,
and strung along, about the heathen in distant lands, and about the
sister churches, and about the state and the country at large, and
about those that's in authority in the government, and all the usual
programme, you know, till everybody had got tired and gone to thinking
about something else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody was
noticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the under side of his
leg, and pff! up the whole thing blazes like a house afire! Twelve
barrels of water? Petroleum, sir, PETROLEUM! that's what it was!'
'Petroleum, captain?'
'Yes, sir; the country was full of it. Isaac knew all about that. You
read the Bible. Don't you worry about the tough places. They ain't tough
when you come to think them out and throw light on them. There ain't a
thing in the Bible but what is true; all you want is to go prayerfully
to work and cipher out how 'twas done.'
(1) This is the captain's own mistake.
STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA
I. THE GOVERNMENT IN THE FRYING-PAN.
Here in Vienna in these closing days of 1897 one's blood gets no chance
to stagnate. The atmosphere is brimful of political electricity.
All conversation is political; every man is a battery, with brushes
overworn, and gives out blue sparks when you set him going on the common
topic. Everybody has an opinion, and lets you have it frank and hot, and
out of this multitude of counsel you get merely confusion and despair.
For no one really understands this political situation, or can tell you
what is going to be the outcome of it.
Things have happened here recently which would set any country
but Austria on fire from end to end, and upset the Government to a
certainty; but no one feels confident that such results will follow
here. Here, apparently, one must wait and see what will happen, then he
will know, and not before; guessing is idle; guessing cannot help the
matter. This is what the wise tell you; they all say it; they say it
every day, and it is the sole detail upon which they all agree.
There is some approach to agreement upon another point: that there will
be no revolution. Men say: 'Look at our history, revolutions have not
been in our line; and look at our political map, its construction is
unfavourable to an organised uprising, and without unity what could a
revolt accomplish? It is disunion which has held our empire together for
centuries, and what it has done in the past it may continue to do now
and in the future.'
The most intelligible sketch I have encountered of this unintelligible
arrangement of things was contributed to the 'Traveller's Record' by Mr.
Forrest Morgan, of Hartford, three years ago. He says:
'The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is the patchwork-quilt, the Midway
Plaisance, the national chain-gang of Europe; a state that is not a
nation, but a collection of nations, some with national memories and
aspirations and others without, some occupying distinct provinces
almost purely their own, and others mixed with alien races, but each
with a different language, and each mostly holding the others
foreigners as much as if the link of a common government did not
exist. Only one of its races even now comprises so much as