The next morning a note arrived at the aggressor’s residence, containing a challenge, in form, and one only of the melon seeds. The truth then flashed before the challenged party—it was the challenger’s intention to make three bites at this cherry, three separate affairs out of this unwarrantable frolic! The challenge was accepted, and the challenged party, in deference to the challenger’s reputed skill with the pistol, had half decided upon the small sword; but his friends, who were on the alert, soon discovered, that the captain, who had risen by his merit, had, in the earlier days of his necessity, gained his bread, as an accomplished instructor, in the use of that very weapon. They met and fired, alternately, by lot; the young man had elected this mode, thinking he might win the first fire—he did—fired, and missed his opponent. The captain levelled his pistol and fired—the ball passed through the flap of the right ear, and grazed the bone; and, as the wounded man involuntarily put his hand to the place, he remembered that it was on the right ear of his antagonist, that the first melon seed had fallen. Here ended the first lesson. A month had passed. His friends cherished the hope, that he would hear nothing more from the captain, when another note—a challenge of course—and another of those accursed melon seeds arrived, with the captain’s apology, on the score of ill-health, for not sending it before.
Again they met—fired simultaneously, and the captain, who was unhurt, shattered the right elbow of his antagonist—the very point upon which he had been struck by the second melon seed: and here ended the second lesson. There was something awfully impressive, in the modus operandi, and exquisite skill of this antagonist. The third melon seed was still in his possession, and the aggressor had not forgotten, that it had struck the unoffending gentleman, upon the left breast! A month had past—another—and another, of terrible suspense; but nothing was heard from the captain. Intelligence had been received, that he was confined to his lodgings, by illness. At length, the gentleman who had been his second, in the former duels, once more presented himself, and tendered another note, which, as the recipient perceived, on taking it, contained the last of the melon seeds. The note was superscribed in the captain’s well known hand, but it was the writing evidently of one, who wrote deficiente manu. There was an unusual solemnity also, in the manner of him, who delivered it. The seal was broken, and there was the melon seed, in a blank envelope—“And what, sir, am I to understand by this?”—“You will understand, sir, that my friend forgives you—he is dead.”
No. CL.
A curious story of vicarious hanging is referred to, by several of the earlier historians, of New England. The readers of Hudibras will remember the following passage, Part ii. 407—
“Justice gives sentence, many times,
On one man for another’s crimes.
Our brethren of New England use
Choice malefactors to excuse,
And hang the guiltless in their stead,
Of whom the churches have less need:
As lately ’t happen’d:—in a town
There liv’d a cobbler, and but one,
That out of doctrine could cut use,
And mend men’s lives, as well as shoes.
This precious brother having slain,
In times of peace, an Indian,
Not out of malice, but mere zeal,
Because he was an infidel;
The mighty Tottipottymoy
Sent to our ciders an envoy;
Complaining sorely of the breach
Of league, held forth by brother Patch,
Against the articles in force
Between both churches, his and ours,
For which he crav’d the saints to render
Into his hands, or hang th’ offender:
But they, maturely having weigh’d
They had no more but him o’ the trade,
A man that served them, in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble,
Resolved to spare him; yet to do
The Indian Hoghan Moghan too
Impartial Justice, in his stead did
Hang an old weaver, that was bedrid.”
This is not altogether the sheer poetica licentia, that common readers may suppose it to be. Hubbard, Mass. Hist. Coll. xv. 77, gives the following version, after having spoken of the theft—“the company, as some report pretended, in way of satisfaction, to punish him, that did the theft, but in his stead, hanged a poor, decrepit, old man, that was unserviceable to the company, and burthensome to keep alive, which was the ground of the story, with which the merry gentleman, that wrote the poem, called Hudibras, did, in his poetical fancy, make so much sport. Yet the inhabitants of Plymouth tell the story much otherwise, as if the person hanged was really guilty of stealing, as may be were many of the rest, and if they were driven by necessity to content the Indians, at that time to do justice, there were some of Mr. Weston’s company living, it is possible it might be executed not on him that most deserved, but on him that could be best spared, or was not likely to live long, if let alone.”
Morton published his English Canaan, in 1637, and relates the story Part iii. ch. iv. p. 108, but he states, that it was a proposal only, which was very well received, but being opposed by one person, “they hanged up the real offender.”
As the condemned draw nigh unto death—the scaffold—the gibbet—it would be natural to suppose, that every avenue to the heart would be effectually closed, against the entrance of all impressions, but those of terrible solemnity; yet no common truth is more clearly established, than that ill-timed levity, vanity, pride, and an almost inexplicable pleasure, arising from a consciousness of being the observed of all observers, have been exhibited, by men, on their way to the scaffold, and even with the halter about their necks.
The story is well worn out, of the wretched man, who, observing the crowd eagerly rushing before him, on his way to the gallows, exclaimed, “gentlemen, why so fast—there can be no sport, till I come!”