THE AFFAIR AT TATTLETOWN.

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BY EPES SARGEANT.

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It is very questionable whether the reader has ever heard a true and impartial account of the affair at Tattletown. So many exaggerated versions have been put forth—so many garbled and malicious reports in regard to it, have been propagated—that the world is likely to be either unduly prejudiced against one of the parties, or wholly in doubt as to the merits of both. It is with an emotion of pride, that I take up my pen with the consciousness of being able to throw light upon this interesting, but mysterious subject.

There have been many changes in Tattletown during the last twenty years. Of this fact I became assured the last summer, when, by the way of a parenthesis in a tour to the White Hills, I branched off from my prescribed route to visit the little village where I had spent so many pleasant days in boyhood. What a change! It used to be one of the quietest, greenest, most sequestered nooks in the world, with its single wide street, bordered by venerable elms, and its shady by-roads radiating in every direction, and dotted with white cottages embosomed in clouds of verdure.

And then its inn! its single, unpretending inn, with its simple flag-staff, its modest piazza, and its cool, clean parlor, with the vase of asparagus upon the freshly reddened hearth-stone! Its sleeping-rooms with their snow-white curtains and coverlets, and the rustling foliage against their windows—what a temptation it was to enter them of a warm summer afternoon! Now, forsooth, the respectable old tenement is replaced by a hotel. I beg pardon—a house, built after the style of the Parthenon, its sides painted very white, and its blinds very green. The bar-room is floored with tesselated squares of marble, and there is a white marble counter, behind which presides a spruce young man with long dark hair plastered over his right ear, and an emerald breast-pin on his shirt bosom. Nay, it is rumored that the landlord has serious designs of introducing a gong in the place of the good old-fashioned bell of our forefathers. What is the country coming to?

Within my remembrance, the people of Tattletown were the best natured, most industrious and contented people alive. Every evening in summer their patriarchs might be seen sitting in front of their woodbine-covered porches, smoking their pipes and talking over old times, while groups of ruddy, riotous children, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, danced to the strains of some village Paganini. Poor, deluded, miserable Tattletonians! What a sight was it for the philanthropist to grieve at! Little knew they, of the errors and vices of the social system! They had not read Miss Martineau’s tracts; knew nothing of Owenism, nothing of Grahamism, nothing of transcendentalism, nothing of Fourierism, nothing of Mormonism. The “Society for the promotion of every thing,” had not established a branch among them. They were benighted, uninitiated; contented to live as their fathers had lived before them; to pluck the rose and leave the thorn behind; to keep their linen and their consciences clean, and to remain at peace with all mankind.

Then the belles of the village—how beautiful they were! how artless! how adorned with every sylvan grace! Now they all seem to have lost the heritage of loveliness. They look didactic, sedentary and precocious. There is not the same bloom on the cheek—the same sparkle in the eye—the same ruby mischief on the lip. Instead of cultivating their music and their flower-gardens, working flags for the Tattletown “Guardians of Liberty,” and teaching the children their catechisms on Sundays, they are meddling with matters that they have not the means of comprehending, establishing anti-everything societies, and fussing over phrenology and other newfangled heresies. Instead of a vase of freshly gathered flowers upon their shelves, you are now greeted by a vile plaster bust, with the skull phrenologically mapped out, and figured. I never encounter one of the odious things, without putting my fist in its face.

A religious revolution has, of course, been introduced among the other mutations. Instead of one well-filled church, where all the villagers may meet as members of one family, Tattletown can now boast of half a dozen sectarian societies, which are eternally at war with one another. Poor old Dr. Balmwell, who is still the meekest of God’s creatures, and whose annual salary would not equal the one night’s wages of a second-rate theatrical star, is denounced as a “haughty, over-fed prelate,” “the advocate of an established church,” and a “vile minion of the aristocracy.” Many a fair maiden is content to go with holes in her stockings, in order that she may contribute to the “society for the support of indigent young men intended for the ministry!”

“Dear smiling village! loveliest of the lawn!

Thy joys are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn.”

As for politics—but here I approach the subject which was uppermost in my mind at starting. All the world knows that there are, or rather used to be, two rival newspapers published at Tattletown, the editors of which manage to keep the poor people in a perpetual ferment. There is the Tattletown Independent American, edited by Mr. Snobb! and the Tattletown Free and Independent American, edited by Mr. Fobb. The former is the longer established of the two, and, as the public are well aware, is conservative in its tone. Fobb’s hebdomadal, on the contrary, is characterised by the spirit of innovation. If a doctrine be new, startling, incredible, abrupt, violating all preconceived notions and prejudices, it commends itself at once to Fobb’s acceptance. He will urge it with a boldness and pertinacity that confound the unthinking. To incur his opposition, it is only necessary that a principle should be old and well established. His morality would seem to resemble that of the tribe, with whom it is a custom to kill all their old men and women. Age is with him the worst of crimes, and the most penal. Novelty is the first of charms.

Strange as it may seem, Fobb has his devoted admirers and active supporters. As for Snobb, I am credibly informed, that, disgusted with the supineness of the Tattletonians, he had at one time resolved to relinquish the publication of the “Independent American,” when, unexpectedly, the field was invaded by Fobb with his “Free and Independent.” Then it was that the patriotism and disinterestedness of Snobb’s character shone conspicuous. He was, to use his own vigorous expression, determined to stand to his guns, and however great might be the pecuniary sacrifice, to remain in the village to combat the pernicious influence, which, “like the Bohon Upas,” I quote Snobb’s own words—“would spread poison and desolation among families and communities.” Snobb wound off his appeal, by calling upon all, who valued their liberty and their lives; who would save their country from intestine confusion and slaughter; who would keep unstained the altar of domestic felicity, and transmit unimpaired that glorious fabric of constitutional right, cemented by the blood of martyred ancestors—to rally round him and the Independent American. “Any person obtaining five subscribers,” said he in conclusion, “shall receive a sixth copy gratis.”

It is difficult to conceive of the degree of excitement produced in Tattletown by this fulmination, on the part of Snobb, and the subsequent establishment of the “Free and Independent American,” on the part of Fobb. Such a thing as neutrality could no longer exist. Great and vital principles were at stake; and from the squire to the tinman’s apprentice, it was necessary that every man should take one side or the other—should be either a Snobbite or a Fobbite. Both journals were benefited by this agitation. New subscribers poured in daily, and a fund was raised by the partisans of each establishment for the more effectual prosecution of the war. And what was the war about? To this day nobody can tell.

Personalities now began to be interchanged. Snobb gave Fobb the lie direct, and defied him to prove a statement which had appeared in the “Free and Independent,” accusing Snobb of highway robbery, arson and other little peccadilloes. Fobb treated Snobb’s defiance with an easy irony, which bewildered the good people of Tattletown, who began to think that Fobb must know a good deal more of Snobb than other people. The following answer appeared in the “Independent American:”

“We must apologise to our readers for again polluting our columns with an allusion to the reckless traducer, whose journal of yesterday came forth reeking with slanders against ourselves. It would be charitable, perhaps, to attribute to a diseased intellect, rather than a malicious temper, these ebullitions of mendacity, but the motive is too obviously bad. We can assure this poor creature, this beggarly reprobate and unwashed scribbler, that mere declamation is not proof, and that assertion carries no weight when unsustained by evidence. If he can keep sober long enough, let him reply to the question which we once more reiterate, ‘where are your proofs?’ ”

It was with intense anxiety that the citizens of Tattletown looked for the next number of the “Free and Independent.” Never before had Snobb been so severe, so savage. Fobb’s rejoinder excited public interest in the quarrel, to a painful degree. It was as follows:

“The guilty fugitive from justice, whom it is with shame we acknowledge as our contemporary, attempts to invalidate our charges by clamoring for proofs. We beg him to reflect a moment before he repeats his call. If he has sincerely striven to make reparation for past misdemeanors, by a life comparatively guiltless—if there be any hope or prospect of reformation in his case—most reluctantly would we be instrumental in re-consigning him to the States-prison or the gallows. Before, therefore, we come out with any statements, that shall be universally admitted as final and conclusive as to the character of this man, we will put a few questions which he will understand, however enigmatical they may be to others. Did Snobb ever make the acquaintance of Miss Amanda W——? Did he ever see a white crape scarf that used to belong to that ill-fated young lady? Does he remember the circumstance of an old pruning-knife being found beneath a cherry-tree? Has he still got that red silk hankerchief?”

I must leave it for some more graphic pen—to the author of “Jack Sheppard” or “Barnaby Rudge,” to depict the consternation and horror produced among the Tattletonians by this publication. Could it be that Tattletown harbored a murderer? What other interpretation could be put upon the diabolical insinuations in Fobb’s paper? For a week and more nothing was talked of but this article. At the post office—the tinman’s shop—the grocer’s—on the steps of the meeting-houses, no other topic was broached. With unprecedented eagerness the next number of Snobb’s paper was looked for and purchased. The only allusion it contained to Fobb’s ferocious attack was in these simple lines: “As we shall make the insinuations contained in the last number of the Tattletown Free and Independent the subject of a judicial investigation, it is quite unnecessary for us to bestow any farther notice upon the miserable calumniator, who is striving to get into notice by means of the attention he may provoke from ourselves.”

Tattletown was disappointed in this rejoinder, and began to entertain its suspicions as to the truth of Fobb’s intimations. The old women of the place began to shake their heads and look wise, when the subject was broached. “They must say they always thought there was something wrong—something not altogether easy about Mr. Snobb. They hoped for the best, but there were things—however murder will out.” The fate of the injured “Amanda” was a topic of endless speculation among the more youthful of the feminine inhabitants; and there was a delightful mystery about the “white crape scarf,” which afforded an exhaustless pabulum for curiosity. Snobb must certainly clear up his character. He must explain the circumstances in regard to that “ill-fated young lady.” He must tell the public what became of “that red silk handkerchief.” Above all, he must satisfactorily account for the horrible fact of the old pruning-knife being found under the cherry-tree.

In the meantime Fobb declared that he was daily and hourly environed with the perils of assassination. He was obliged to go armed, to protect himself from the minions of the culprit Snobb. His fearless devotion to the cause of truth and justice had “sharpened daggers that were thirsting for his blood—but what was life compared with the proud satisfaction of having maintained the cause of the people,

‘Unmoved by flattery and unbribed by gain?’ ”

In the midst of the excitement produced by this war of words, Tattletown was electrified one fine morning in December, by the report, that Snobb and Fobb had gone over to the neighboring village of Bungville to settle their differences by mortal combat. Two spruce young men from New York had arrived in the stage-coach the night before, and put up at the Tattletown house. They had brought guns with them; and early that morning the two editors, similarly armed and equipped, had started off with the strangers in a wagon belonging to the latter, in the direction of the village already named. As these facts became currently known among the Tattletonians the sensation was prodigious. A meeting of the “select men” was instantly called, and a committee of five, consisting of Mr. Fuzz, the retired “squire of the village,” Mr. Rattle, the tinman, Mr. Ponder, the celebrated lecturer on matters and things in general, Mr. Rumble the auctioneer, and Mr. Blister the apothecary, were appointed to proceed on horseback to Bungville, and prevent if possible the duel—or, if that had transpired, to arrest the survivor and the seconds.

Headed by Mr. Fuzz, the cavalcade started off in gallant style, followed by the prayers and anxious entreaties of the gentler sex to prevent if possible the “effusion of blood.” Miss Celestina Scragg, the poetess of the village, and the author of the celebrated ode to that beautiful stream, the Squamkeog, came very near being thrown under the hoofs of the squire’s horse, as she appealed to Mr. Fuzz, and besought him to rescue Albert, as she tenderly designated Mr. Fobb, or “perish in the attempt.”

After riding hard for about an hour, the committee approached the Bungville house, where they determined to make their first inquiries as to the fate of the editors and their seconds. Mr. Buzz, the landlord, was a brisk, officious little man, who always knew before you spoke what you were going to say, and rarely listened to more than the two first words of any question you might put to him. He was, moreover, a little deaf, so that the habit of anticipation was, perhaps, as much a matter of necessity as of choice.

“Have we arrived too late?” asked Fuzz.

“Oh, by more than an hour. It is all over,” replied Buzz, who supposed that the inquiry had reference to the dinner hour.

“It is all over, gentlemen,” said Fuzz, in a magisterial tone, turning to his awe-stricken companions. “Has any one been killed or wounded?” continued he, addressing the landlord.

“Killed, indeed? I guess you would think so,” exclaimed Buzz. “They have shot one fine, plump fellow.”

“It is probably Snobb. He is the plump one,” said Fuzz, contracting his lips, and looking sternly round at the members of the committee. “Did he fall dead on the spot?” he rejoined.

“Dead as Julius Cæsar—I may say very dead,” replied Buzz.

“Serious business this, gentlemen,” said Fuzz, dilating with importance.

Here Mr. Rattle, the tinman, was seen to mount his horse and gallop off in the direction of Tattletown. He was determined to be the first to communicate the news of the catastrophe.

“There will be no need of your services, Mr. Blister,” said Fuzz, bestowing a patronizing glance upon the apothecary. “Have the seconds escaped, Mr. Buzz?”

“Yes, the second one escaped, but with a bullet in his neck. They tracked him a mile or two by his blood.”

“Dreadful!” muttered Mr. Blister. “So Fobb is wounded! I will just ride back and inform Miss Scragg of the fact. She will go into hysterics, and I shall get a job.” And so saying, the apothecary mounted his horse, and followed in Rattle’s track.

“What have you done with the killed, Mr. Buzz?”

“Oh, we have skinned him, and hung him up to dry, to be sure. One of the gents would have a slice of him for dinner, but he found it rather tough eating I suspect; not quite equal to the ducks.”

“What!” exclaimed Fuzz, turning pale and starting back with horror. “Are they cannibals?”

“Yes, to be sure,” responded Buzz, who did not fully comprehend the question.

“Gentlemen, we must pursue the guilty fugitives,” said the squire. “What direction did they take, landlord? No equivocation, sir. The law will bear us out in adopting the most rigorous measures. Where are they?”

“Bless me, they are cosily seated at dinner in my little back parlor. I wouldn’t interrupt them now. It may make them mad.”

“Landlord! Lead us to them at once—at once, I say,” exclaimed Fuzz, turning very red about the gills.

“Well, squire, don’t talk so loud. I will show you the way, but mind that I say I shouldn’t wonder if they resented it.”

Buzz led the way through a long entry to a door, which he pointed out to the squire as communicating with the apartment where the “young gentlemen” were assembled. It needed not his words to convince Fuzz and his two remaining companions of this fact. A noise of uproarious mirth, mingled with the jingling of glasses, the clash of plates and the stamping of feet, plainly foretold the state of things within. Fuzz buttoned his coat, and tried to look undismayed.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “stand by me. Don’t flinch.”

He made a bold step forward, but as his palm approached the door-handle, an explosion of laughter, loud and long, made him recoil like a man who has barely saved himself from falling over a precipice. He looked at his associates, puffed out his cheeks, and seemed to be gathering energy for a renewed essay. Again he stopped suddenly, and assuming a look of unwonted sagacity, remarked that it was best to proceed gently and craftily about the business. Then motioning the bystanders to keep silence, he cautiously turned the handle of the door, and, opening it an inch or two, stealthily looked in upon the convivial party. It consisted of four nice young men. They were seated at a round table, which was plentifully covered with bottles, decanters, glasses, and the remains of a dessert. Two of the party were strangers to Fuzz, but the other two were, marvellous to behold, no other than Fobb and Snobb, not seamed with ghastly wounds, but quaffing champagne and clapping each other on the back with the affectionate familiarity of old friends.

At this spectacle, Fuzz was no less amazed than he would have been, had he seen one of the editors trussed, spitted and “done to a turn,” served up in a big dish on the table, while the other was flourishing his knife with the savory anticipation of making a meal of him. Cautiously shutting the door, Fuzz communicated the astounding fact to his brethren of the committee, and then reopening the door so that they might hear without seeing or being seen, they listened “with all their ears.”

“Yes, gentlemen,” said the voice of Fobb in tones of mock solemnity, “you behold in that abandoned individual, my unworthy brother Zeke Peabody, otherwise known as Simon Snobb—you behold in him, I repeat, the ruthless, unhung murderer of the unfortunate Amanda W——.”

Here a roar of obstreperous laughter, in which Snobb’s lungs seemed to crow like chanticleer, interrupted the speaker for a moment. He continued:

“If you ask me for proofs, consider for a moment the fact of the red silk handkerchief—the white crape scarf—the old pruning-knife that was found under the cherry-tree. If these circumstances be not enough to convict that cowering culprit—then pass along the champagne, and fill to my toast.”

“Fill to Fobb’s toast!” exclaimed three voices amid shouts of laughter.

“My toast,” said Fobb, “is one that cannot fail to be appreciated by this intelligent company. You, my dear Timms, will drink to it with a tear in your eye, for are you not the immortal inventor of the world-renowned Tricogrophpophphlogidion, that invaluable and never-to-be-sufficiently-commended preparation for the hair, by merely spreading which over a wig-block, you find there the next morning, a beautiful, curly wig, redundant and glossy? And you, O modest and retiring Jones, are not you the man that, by your grandfather’s celebrated pills, have rejuvenated suffering humanity? Have you not ‘floored consumption,’ and broken the back of dispepsia? Isn’t it a man’s own fault now if he is sick? Do not children cry for your incomparable lozenges? Are they not a blessing to mothers, and a curse to the doctors? Cannot a hand-cart-man, with your powerful ‘poor man’s plaster’ on his back, draw fifty times the weight that he could without it? Estimable, philanthropic Jones! Posterity will do you justice. And you, brother Zeke, in Tattletown known as Snobb, where shall we find an editor in the country who can fight windmills and make people think they are devouring despots with a better grace than yourself? My own accomplishments modesty forbids me to speak at length; but I flatter myself, that the story of Amanda W⁠—— and the pruning-knife—and my eloquent denunciations of the monster, Snobb—are not unworthy specimens of those talents which entitle me to rank myself in your fraternity, and to participate in the emotions, which the sentiment I am now about to offer is calculated to excite. I will give you, gentlemen: Vive la humbug!”

Hardly had the peals of laughter consequent upon this prolonged sally subsided, when Fuzz, who was holding on to the door by the handle, being pressed upon from behind by his own companions, and two or three bar-room loungers, whom the sound of speech-making had attracted to the spot, suddenly let the handle slip from his grasp, whereupon the whole body of eaves-droppers, preceded by the squire, were precipitated into the room, where the two editors and their friends were at their revels. Imagining it to be a hostile invasion, the four friends, whose tempers had been pretty well primed with champagne, immediately “squared off,” and showed their “science.”

Fuzz was greeted by Timms with what the latter was pleased to call “a settler in his bread-basket,” which had the effect of lifting him from his feet, and spinning him into a corner of the room with a most unmagisterial celerity. Mr. Ponder, the “celebrated lecturer on matters and things in general,” was attended to in the most prompt manner by Jones, who, as he technically expressed himself, “punished him by a dig in his dice-box,” meaning that his blow took effect somewhere in the region of his teeth. As for Rumble, the auctioneer, he was knocked down by a bottle in the hand of Snobb, like an old remnant of goods disposed of under his own hammer. The rest of the invaders met with due attention from Fobb, who broke two chairs over as many heads.

The battle was speedily fought and won. The committee sent by the select men of Tattletown returned home that night in melancholy disarray, and imprecating vengeance upon their assailants. There was an immediate demand in the village for brown paper and vinegar, court plaster and lint. It was long before Mr. Ponder could deliver another lecture at the new Lyceum, owing to the disfigurement of his countenance. As for Snobb and Fobb, who were in fact the originators of the whole mischief, they issued no more numbers of their sprightly papers. The “Independent,” and the “Free and Independent” were abruptly stopped. The two brother editors were never more seen in Tattletown. The last I heard of them, one was lecturing on Animal Magnetism, while the other accompanied him as a subject for his experiments. Their wonderful feats in clairvoyance have been so trumpeted by the country press, that it is unnecessary for me to allude to them more minutely.