CHAPTER 2

All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens:
Think not the king did banish thee:
But thou the king.—Richard II

An ancestor of Marmaduke Temple had, about one hundred and twenty
years before the commencement of our tale, come to the colony of
Pennsylvania, a friend and co-religionist of its great patron.  Old
Marmaduke, for this formidable prenomen was a kind of appellative to
the race, brought with him, to that asylum of the persecuted an
abundance of the good things of this life.  He became the master of
many thousands of acres of uninhabited territory, and the supporter of
many a score of dependents.  He lived greatly respected for his piety,
and not a little distinguished as a sectary; was intrusted by his
associates with many important political stations; and died just in
time to escape the knowledge of his own poverty.  It was his lot to
share the fortune of most of those who brought wealth with them into
the new settlements of the middle colonies.

The consequence of an emigrant into these provinces was generally to
be ascertained by the number of his white servants or dependents, and
the nature of the public situations that he held.  Taking this rule as
a guide, the ancestor of our Judge must have been a man of no little
note.

It is, however, a subject of curious inquiry at the present day, to
look into the brief records of that early period, and observe how
regular, and with few exceptions how inevitable, were the gradations,
on the one hand, of the masters to poverty, and on the other, of their
servants to wealth.  Accustomed to ease, and unequal to the struggles
incident to an infant society, the affluent emigrant was barely
enabled to maintain his own rank by the weight of his personal
superiority and acquirements; but, the moment that his head was laid
in the grave, his indolent and comparatively uneducated offspring were
compelled to yield precedency to the more active energies of a class
whose exertions had been stimulated by necessity.  This is a very
common course of things, even in the present state of the Union; but
it was peculiarly the fortunes of the two extremes of society, in the
peaceful and unenterprising colonies of Pennsylvania and New Jersey,

The posterity of Marmaduke did not escape the common lot of those who
depend rather on their hereditary possessions than on their own
powers; and in the third generation they had descended to a point
below which, in this happy country, it is barely possible for honesty,
intellect and sobriety to fall.  The same pride of family that had, by
its self-satisfied indolence, conduced to aid their fail, now became a
principle to stimulate them to endeavor to rise again.  The feeling,
from being morbid, was changed to a healthful and active desire to
emulate the character, the condition, and, peradventure, the wealth of
their ancestors also.  It was the father of our new acquaintance, the
Judge, who first began to reascend in the scale of society; and in
this undertaking he was not a little assisted by a marriage, which
aided in furnishing the means of educating his only son in a rather
better manner than the low state of the common schools of Pennsylvania
could promise; or than had been the practice in the family for the two
or three preceding generations.

At the school where the reviving prosperity of his father was enabled
to maintain him, young Marmaduke formed an intimacy with a youth whose
years were about equal to his own.  This was a fortunate connection
for our Judge, and paved the way to most of his future elevation in
life.

There was not only great wealth but high court interest among the
connections of Edward Effingham.  They were one of the few families
then resident in the colonies who thought it a degradation to its
members to descend to the pursuits of commerce; and who never emerged
from the privacy of domestic life unless to preside in the councils of
the colony or to bear arms in her defense.  The latter had from youth
been the only employment of Edward’s father.  Military rank under the
crown of Great Britain was attained with much longer probation, and by
much more toilsome services, sixty years ago than at the present time.
Years were passed without murmuring, in the sub ordinate grades of the
service; and those soldiers who were stationed in the colonies felt,
when they obtained the command of a company, that they were entitled
to receive the greatest deference from the peaceful occupants of the
soil.  Any one of our readers who has occasion to cross the Niagara
may easily observe not only the self importance, but the real
estimation enjoyed by the hum blest representative of the crown, even
in that polar region of royal sunshine.  Such, and at no very distant
period, was the respect paid to the military in these States, where
now, happily, no symbol of war is ever seen, unless at the free and
tearless voice of their people.  When, therefore, the father of
Marmaduke’s friend, after forty years’ service, retired with the rank
of major, maintaining in his domestic establishment a comparative
splendor, he be came a man of the first consideration in his native
colony which was that of New York.  He had served with fidelity and
courage, and having been, according to the custom of the provinces,
intrusted with commands much superior to those to which he was
entitled by rank, with reputation also.  When Major Effingham yielded
to the claims of age, he retired with dignity, refusing his half-pay
or any other compensation for services that he felt he could no longer
perform.

The ministry proffered various civil offices which yielded not only
honor but profit; but he declined them all, with the chivalrous
independence and loyalty that had marked his character through life.
The veteran soon caused this set of patriotic disinterestedness to be
followed by another of private munificence, that, however little it
accorded with prudence, was in perfect conformity with the simple
integrity of his own views.

The friend of Marmaduke was his only child; and to this son, on his
marriage with a lady to whom the father was particularly partial, the
Major gave a complete conveyance of his whole estate, consisting of
money in the funds, a town and country residence, sundry valuable
farms in the old parts of the colony, and large tracts of wild land in
the new—in this manner throwing himself upon the filial piety of his
child for his own future maintenance.  Major Effingham, in declining
the liberal offers of the British ministry, had subjected himself to
the suspicion of having attained his dotage, by all those who throng
the avenues to court patronage, even in the remotest corners of that
vast empire; but, when he thus voluntarily stripped himself of his
great personal wealth, the remainder of the community seemed
instinctively to adopt the conclusion also that he had reached a
second childhood.  This may explain the fact of his importance rapidly
declining; and, if privacy was his object, the veteran had soon a free
indulgence of his wishes.  Whatever views the world might entertain of
this act of the Major, to himself and to his child it seemed no more
than a natural gift by a father of those immunities which he could no
longer enjoy or improve, to a son, who was formed, both by nature and
education, to do both.  The younger Effingham did not object to the
amount of the donation; for he felt that while his parent reserved a
moral control over his actions, he was relieving himself of a
fatiguing burden: such, indeed, was the confidence existing between
them, that to neither did it seem anything more than removing money
from one pocket to another.

One of the first acts of the young man, on corning into possession of
his wealth, was to seek his early friend, with a view to offer any
assistance that it was now in his power to bestow.

The death of Marmaduke’s father, and the consequent division of his
small estate, rendered such an offer extremely acceptable to the young
Pennsylvanian; he felt his own powers, and saw, not only the
excellences, but the foibles in the character of his friend.
Effingham was by nature indolent, confiding, and at times impetuous
and indiscreet; but Marmaduke was uniformly equable, penetrating, and
full of activity and enterprise.  To the latter therefore, the
assistance, or rather connection that was proffered to him, seemed to
produce a mutual advantage.  It was cheerfully accepted, and the
arrangement of its conditions was easily completed.  A mercantile
house was established in the metropolis of Pennsylvania, with the
avails of Mr. Effingham's personal property; all, or nearly all, of
which was put into the possession of Temple, who was the only
ostensible proprietor in the concern, while, in secret, the other was
entitled to an equal participation in the profits.  This connection
was thus kept private for two reasons, one of which, in the freedom of
their inter course, was frankly avowed to Marmaduke, while the other
continued profoundly hid in the bosom of his friend, The last was
nothing more than pride.  To the descend ant of a line of soldiers,
commerce, even in that indirect manner, seemed a degrading pursuit;
but an insuperable obstacle to the disclosure existed in the
prejudices of his father

We have already said that Major Effingham had served as a soldier with
reputation.  On one occasion, while in command on the western frontier
of Pennsylvania against a league of the French and Indians, not only
his glory, but the safety of himself and his troops were jeoparded by
the peaceful policy of that colony.  To the soldier, this was an
unpardonable offence.  He was fighting in their defense—he knew that
the mild principles of this little nation of practical Christians
would be disregarded by their subtle and malignant enemies; and he
felt the in jury the more deeply because he saw that the avowed object
of the colonists, in withholding their succors, would only have a
tendency to expose his command, without preserving the peace.  The
soldier succeeded, after a desperate conflict, in extricating himself,
with a handful of his men, from their murderous enemy; but he never
for gave the people who had exposed him to a danger which they left
him to combat alone.  It was in vain to tell him that they had no
agency in his being placed on their frontier at all; it was evidently
for their benefit that he had been so placed, and it was their
“religious duty,” so the Major always expressed it, “it was their
religions duty to have supported him.”

At no time was the old soldier an admirer of the peaceful disciples of
Fox.  Their disciplined habits, both of mind and body, had endowed
them with great physical perfection; and the eye of the veteran was
apt to scan the fair proportions and athletic frames of the colonists
with a look that seemed to utter volumes of contempt for their moral
imbecility, He was also a little addicted to the expression of a
belief that, where there was so great an observance of the externals
of religion, there could not be much of the substance.  It is not our
task to explain what is or what ought to be the substance of
Christianity, but merely to record in this place the opinions of Major
Effingham.

Knowing the sentiments of the father in relation to this people, it
was no wonder that the son hesitated to avow his connection with, nay,
even his dependence on the integrity of, a Quaker.

It has been said that Marmaduke deduced his origin from the
contemporaries and friends of Penn.  His father had married without
the pale of the church to which he belonged, and had, in this manner,
forfeited some of the privileges of his offspring.  Still, as young
Marmaduke was educated in a colony and society where even the ordinary
intercourse between friends was tinctured with the aspect of this mild
religion, his habits and language were some what marked by its
peculiarities.  His own marriage at a future day with a lady without
not only the pale, but the influence, of this sect of religionists,
had a tendency, it is true, to weaken his early impressions; still he
retained them in some degree to the hour of his death, and was
observed uniformly, when much interested or agitated, to speak in the
language of his youth.  But this is anticipating our tale.

When Marmaduke first became the partner of young Effingham, he was
quite the Quaker in externals; and it was too dangerous an experiment
for the son to think of encountering the prejudices of the father on
this subject.  The connection, therefore, remained a profound secret
to all but those who were interested in it,

For a few years Marmaduke directed the commercial operations of his
house with a prudence and sagacity that afforded rich returns.  He
married the lady we have mentioned, who was the mother of Elizabeth,
and the visits of his friend were becoming more frequent.  There was a
speedy prospect of removing the veil from their intercourse, as its
advantages became each hour more apparent to Mr. Effingham, when the
troubles that preceded the war of the Revolution extended themselves
to an alarming degree.

Educated in the most dependent loyalty, Mr. Effingham had, from the
commencement of the disputes between the colonists and the crown,
warmly maintained what he believed to be the just prerogatives of his
prince; while, on the other hand, the clear head and independent mind
of Temple had induced him to espouse the cause of the people.  Both
might have been influenced by early impressions; for, if the son of
the loyal and gallant soldier bowed in implicit obedience to the will
of his sovereign, the descendant of the persecuted followers of Penn
looked back with a little bitterness to the unmerited wrongs that had
been heaped upon his ancestors.

This difference in opinion had long been a subject of amicable dispute
between them: but, Latterly, the contest was getting to be too
important to admit of trivial discussions on the part of Marmaduke,
whose acute discernment was already catching faint glimmerings of the
important events that were in embryo.  The sparks of dissension soon
kindled into a blaze; and the colonies, or rather, as they quickly
declared themselves, THE STATES, became a scene of strife and
bloodshed for years.

A short time before the battle of Lexington, Mr. Effingham, already a
widower, transmitted to Marmaduke, for safe-keeping, all his valuable
effects and papers; and left the colony without his father.  The war
had, however, scarcely commenced in earnest, when he reappeared in New
York, wearing the Livery of his king; and, in a short time, he took
the field at the head of a provincial corps.  In the mean time
Marmaduke had completely committed himself in the cause, as it was
then called, of the rebel lion.  Of course, all intercourse between
the friends ceased—on the part of Colonel Effingham it was unsought,
and on that of Marmaduke there was a cautious reserve.  It soon became
necessary for the latter to abandon the capital of Philadelphia; but
he had taken the precaution to remove the whole of his effects beyond
the reach of the royal forces, including the papers of his friend
also.  There he continued serving his country during the struggle, in
various civil capacities, and always with dignity and usefulness.
While, however, he discharged his functions with credit and fidelity,
Marmaduke never seemed to lose sight of his own interests; for, when
the estates of the adherents of the crown fell under the hammer, by
the acts of confiscation, he appeared in New York, and became the
purchaser of extensive possessions at comparatively low prices.

It is true that Marmaduke, by thus purchasing estates that had been
wrested by violence from others, rendered himself obnoxious to the
censures of that Sect which, at the same time that it discards its
children from a full participation in the family union, seems ever
unwilling to abandon them entirely to the world.  But either his
success, or the frequency of the transgression in others, soon wiped
off this slight stain from his character; and, although there were a
few who, dissatisfied with their own fortunes, or conscious of their
own demerits, would make dark hints concerning the sudden prosperity
of the unportioned Quaker, yet his services, and possibly his wealth,
soon drove the recollection of these vague conjectures from men’s
minds.  When the war ended, and the independence of the States was
acknowledged, Mr. Temple turned his attention from the pursuit of
commerce, which was then fluctuating and uncertain, to the settlement
of those tracts of land which he had purchased.  Aided by a good deal
of money, and directed by the suggestions of a strong and practical
reason, his enterprise throve to a degree that the climate and rugged
face of the country which he selected would seem to forbid.  His
property increased in a tenfold ratio, and he was already ranked among
the most wealthy and important of his countrymen.  To inherit this
wealth he had but one child—the daughter whom we have introduced to
the reader, and whom he was now conveying from school to preside over
a household that had too long wanted a mistress.

When the district in which his estates lay had become sufficiently
populous to be set off as a county, Mr. Temple had, according to the
custom of the new settlements, been selected to fill its highest
judicial station.  This might make a Templar smile; but in addition to
the apology of necessity, there is ever a dignity in talents and
experience that is commonly sufficient, in any station, for the
protection of its possessor; and Marmaduke, more fortunate in his
native clearness of mind than the judge of King Charles, not only
decided right, but was generally able to give a very good reason for
it.  At all events, such was the universal practice of the country and
the times; and Judge Temple, so far from ranking among the lowest of
his judicial contemporaries in the courts of the new counties, felt
himself, and was unanimously acknowledged to be, among the first.

We shall here close this brief explanation of the history and
character of some of our personages leaving them in future to speak
and act for themselves.