"I am not at all surprised at it, for to me they have seemed to be bent on matricide for some time, calling the country their mother."
"It's hawful, sir—it's truly hawful, when a whole people commits such a crime as parricide! I know'd you would be shocked to hear it, Mr. Hugh, and so I just came in to let you know it."
"I am infinitely obliged to you for this attention, my good fellow, and shall be still more so when you tell me all about it."
"Yes, sir, most willingly; and most unwillingly, too. But there's no use in 'iding the fact; it's gone, Mr. Hugh!"
"What is gone, John? Speak out, my good fellow; I can bear it."
"The pew, sir—or, rather that beautiful canopy that covered it and made it look so much like the lord mayor's seat in Guildhall. I 'ave hadmired and honored that canopy, sir, as the most helegant hobject in this country, sir."
"So they have destroyed it at last, have they? Encouraged and sustained by an expression of public sentiment, as proclaimed in a meeting that had a chairman and secretary, they have actually cut it down, I suppose?"
"They have, sir; and a pretty job they've made of it. There it stands, up at Miller's, hover his pig-pen!"
This was not a very heroic termination of the career of the obnoxious canopy; but it was one that made me laugh heartily. John was a little offended at this levity, and he soon left me to finish my toilet myself. I dare say, many of the honest folk of Ravensnest would have been as much surprised as John himself, at the indifference I manifested at the fate of this dignified pew. But, certainly, so far as my own social elevation, or social depression, was concerned, I cared nothing about it. It left me just where I was—neither greater nor otherwise; and as for any monuments to let the world know who my predecessors had been, or who I was at that moment, the country itself, or the part of it in which we dwelt, was sufficient. Its history must be forgotten, or changed, before our position could be mistaken; though I dare say the time will come when some extremely sublimated friend of equality will wish to extinguish all the lights of the past, in order that there may not exist that very offensive distinction of one man's name being illustrated, while another man's name is not. The pride of family is justly deemed the most offensive of all pride, since a man may value himself on a possession to which he has not the smallest claim in the way of personal merit, while those of the highest personal claims are altogether deprived of an advantage, to the enjoyment of which ancestors alone have created the right. Now, the institutions, both in their letter and their spirit, do favor justice in this particular, as far as they can; though even they are obliged to sustain one of the most potent agents to such distinctions, by declaring, through the laws, that the child shall succeed to the estate of the father. When we shall get everything straight, and as it ought to be, in this progressive country, heaven only knows; for I find my tenants laying stress on the fact that their fathers have leased my lands for generations, while they are quite willing to forget that my fathers were the lessors all the while.
I found all four of the girls on the piazza, breathing the air of as balmy a summer morning as a bountiful nature ever bestowed. They had heard of the fate of the canopy, which affected them differently, and somewhat according to temperament. Henrietta Coldbrooke laughed at it violently, and in a way I did not like; your laughing young lady rarely having much beyond merriment in her. I make all allowance for youthful spirits, and a natural disposition to turn things into fun; but it was too much to laugh at this exploit of the anti-renters for quite half an hour together. I liked Anne Marston's manner of regarding it better. She smiled a good deal, and laughed just enough to show that she was not insensible to the effect of an absurdity; and then she looked as if she felt that a wrong had been done. As for Patt, she was quite indignant at the insult; nor was she very backward in letting her opinions be known. But Mary Warren's manner of viewing the affair pleased me best, as indeed was fast getting to be the fact with most of her notions and conceits. She manifested neither levity nor resentment. Once or twice, when a droll remark escaped Henrietta, she laughed a little; a very little, and involuntarily, as it might be—just enough to prove that there was fun in her—when she would make some sensible observation, to the effect that the evil temper that was up in the country was the true part of the transaction that deserved attention; and that she felt this as well as saw it. Nobody seemed to care for the canopy—not even my excellent grandmother, in whose youth the church had been built, when distinctions of this sort were more in accordance with the temper and habits of the times than they are to-day. I had been on the piazza just long enough to note this difference in the manner of the girls, when my grandmother joined us.