"Bully for you, Hamlin, bully for you, by the Lord I didn't s'pose you
had the mettle to do it. Little Pete is just the man for the business,
but if he don't come, you can have one of my Welshmen. I s'pose most
of the Stockbridge men wouldn't quite dare, but just wait till after
the whipping. They won't be afraid of the bigwigs any longer. That'll
break the charm. Little Pete's whip will do more to make us free and
equal than all the swords and guns in Berkhire." And Hubbard went out
exultant.
As he was leaving, he met no less an one than Parson West coming in,
and wearing rather a discomfited countenance. The parson had been
used, as parsons were in those days, to a good deal of deference from
his flock, and the lowering looks and covered heads of the crowd about
the door were disagreeable novelties. No institution in the New
England of that day was, in fact, more strictly aristocratic than the
pulpit. Its affiliations were wholly with the governing and wealthy
classes, and its tone with the common people as arrogant and
domineering as that of the magistracy itself. And though Parson West
was personally a man of unusual affability toward the poor and lowly,
it was impossible in a time like this that one of his class should not
be regarded with suspicion and aversion by the popular party.
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