A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN AT HOME.
BY C. ASTOR BRISTED.
It was a lovely October day; the temperature perfectly Elysian—not half a degree too hot or too cold—and the air moister than is usual in the dry climate of the Northern States, altogether reminding one of Florence in early autumn, only less enervating. Ashburner and the Harry Bensons were gliding up the Hudson in a 'floating palace,' which is American penny-a-liner for a northriver steamboat. Gerard Ludlow was on board, handsome and distingué as ever, but a little thinned and worn by numberless polkas. He had got rid of his wife by a mighty effort, and was going to play le Mari à la Campagne—not at Ravenswood, however, but with some of the Van Hornes who lived higher up the river. While the young exquisite was rattling on in a sort of Macaronic French to Mrs. Benson about the mountains of Switzerland and the pictures of Italy, the ascent of the Nile and "that glorious Clos-Vougeot Blanc Mousseux at the Anglais"—every topic, in short, that had not the least connection with America—Ashburner was witnessing for the third time, with unabated admiration, the magnificent scenery of the classic American river—for classic it is to a New-Yorker since Washington Irving has immortalized its legends.
"I am glad to see you are not ashamed to show a little enthusiasm," said Benson, as he marked his friend leaning over the forward railing, absorbed in the view before him. "Some people don't care much for this sort of thing. There's my cousin Ludlow, how supremely indifferent he is to it all! He is talking to my wife about the last comic opera he saw in Paris, which represents Shakespeare and Queen Bess getting very jolly together."
"Certainly one would hardly be able to tell what countryman Ludlow was, without previous knowledge. He seems, like many of your fashionables, very much out of place here."
"That's true enough; and the man most out of place among them all is my brother Carl, whom we are just going to visit."
Ashburner's recollection and knowledge of Carl Benson were pretty much comprised in a certain luncheon at Ravenswood, which he had found very much in place, and a very good place for. Henry went on to explain himself.
"He prides himself on a regard for two things—sincerity and equity—two very estimable virtues, no doubt, but capable of being ridden to death like all hobbies."
Benson further proceeded to state that he was afraid they would find his brother in no very genial mood—that, in fact, he had two special reasons at that time for being in bad humor. The anti-rent epidemic had broken out in the vicinity, and his place was threatened with perforation by a railroad. The former, however perilous to some of his acquaintance, was no very terrible danger to Carl himself, he having as many tenants in the country as his brother had in town—to wit, just one. The latter was considerably more serious in itself, and rendered particularly aggravating by attendant circumstances. An equally convenient and much safer inland route for the railway had been originally proposed; but Mr. Jobson, the chief engineer, started the project of a new one close along the shore, running through the beautiful private grounds that lined the whole east bank of the river for a hundred and fifty miles. The true motive for this change was, that the company would thus have to pay less for right of way, since the inland route would have passed through the cornfields and vegetable-grounds of farmers, to whom they must have made full compensation at the market value of the land, whereas by cutting through a private lawn they could take the ground at a merely nominal rate, the damage caused to a gentleman by the destruction of his place for all the purposes of a country-seat being a "fancy value," which jurors and commissioners chosen from the mass of the people, and regarding the aristocratic landholder with an envious eye, would never pay the least attention to. But either from a lingering regard for outward decency, or from some other motive, this, the real reason, met with only a passing allusion in Mr. Jobson's report. He came out boldly, and recommended the river route as calculated to improve the appearance of the shore, by filling up bays and cutting off sharp points.[20] What made it worse was, that the majority of these very gentlemen proprietors had been induced to subscribe largely to the road under the solemn assurance from leading members of the company (which took care not to make itself officially and corporately responsible) that the inland route would be adopted, which assurance was thrown to the winds as soon as the books were filled up. Carl was not to be taken in so; he had refused to subscribe to the road, and opposed it to the extent of his small influence from the first; he might be the victim of such people, but he would not be their dupe. This was one consolation to him. Another was, that the railway, when it did come upon him, which would not be for two years yet, would not absolutely ruin his place. It would not go through his house, or across the lawn in front of it, or break down his terrace, for which Nature was to be thanked, and not Mr. Jobson. Ravenswood was partly within one of the to-be-improved bays, and, consequently, the rails would cut it close along the water under the terraced bank. It merely stopped his access to the river, which, as he did not yacht, and had room for the little boating he wanted in the adjoining bay, was no great deprivation. At any rate, the danger anticipated by Harry turned out all moonshine. When they stopped at Van Burenopolis (the landing nearest Ravenswood), Carl's rockaway was on the ground, and in ten minutes their host received them at his front door, both his hands out-stretched, and his face lighted up with unfeigned pleasure.
Carl Benson was an unflattered likeness of his brother, with a larger nose, large feet, that got into every one's way, coarser hair, and narrower chest; altogether a rougher and inferior type of form; but he had a fresh and ruddy complexion, and though he was Henry's senior by six years, there did not seem to be more than a twelve-month between them. In dress he was as quiet as Harry was gay; never cared how old his clothes were, so long as he had plenty of clean linen; was often two years behind the fashion; affected black coats and gray trousers; eschewed enamelled chains, jewelled waistcoat-buttons, and other similar fopperies of Young New-York; preferred shoes (not of patent leather) to boots, and usually tied his cravat in the smallest possible bow. Nor was the contrast in manner between the two brothers less marked; the elder was shy and retiring before strangers, and would have been called a very awkward man anywhere but in England. You might easily guess from his way of behaving himself on a first introduction, the uncertain style of his movements, and his "butter-finger" fashion of taking hold of things, that he had none of that dexterity in the little every-day occasions of life which distinguished Harry; who, for instance, could harness a horse about as soon as his groom, while Carl would have been half the day about it, and not have done it well after all; Harry could carry out a complicated affair of business at one interview, without coming off worst; but his elder brother would have pottered about it three days, and probably been cheated in the end. This inaptitude for small business, this want of promptitude and dexterity, of presence of mind and body, so to speak, is not very detrimental in Europe, where a gentleman with a tolerably well-filled purse can have so much done for him; but in America, where the richest man has to do so much for himself, it is a constantly recurring inconvenience, and it struck the Englishman almost immediately that this, though not especially alluded to by Henry, was one of the things that made Carl out of place in his own fatherland.