Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1855-08-12
Smuggled Relations.


When was a child, remember to have had my
ears boxed for informing lady visitor who made
morning call at our house, that a certain orna.
mental object on the table, which was covered with
marbied paper, wasn't marble" Years of rehec
tion upon this injury have fully satisfied me that
the honest object in question never imposed upon
anybody; further that my hOnored parents, though
both OF sanguine temperament, never can have
conceived it possible that it might could. should.
would, or did, impose upon anybody. Yet, have
no doubt that had my ears boxed for violating
tacit compact in the family and among the family
visitors to blink the stubborn fact of the marbled
paper, and agree upon fiction of real marble.
Long after this, when my ears had been mast
boxing for a quarter of a century, knew man
with cork leg. That he had cork leg-or. at
all events, that he was at immense pains to take
about with him a leg which was not his own leg,
or a real leg-was so plain and obvious circum-
stance, that the whole universe might have made
affidavit of it. STILL it always understood that
this cork leg was TO be regarded as a leg of flesh
and blood, and even that the very subject of cork
in the abstract was to be avoided in the wearer's
society.
have had my share of going about the world;
wherever have been, 1 have found the marbled
paper and the cork leg. l have found them IN ma
ny forms; but, of all their Protean shapes at onee
the commonest and strsDgest has been-Smuggled
| Relations.
was on intimate terms, for many, many years,
with my late lamented friend, Cogsford, of the
| great Greek house of CogsiOrd, Brothers & Oogs-
| ford. was bis executor. believe be had no Sc
crets from me but one-his mother That the
agreeable old lady who kept his house for him loas
his mother, must be Lis mother, couldn't possibly
be anybody but his mother, was evident not to me
| alone, but to everybody who knew him. She was
not refugee, she was not prescribed, she was not
in hiding, there was no price put upon her vener-
able head; she was invariably liked and respected
as goodhumored, sensible, cheerful old SOUL
Then why did COgsford smuggle his mother all the
days of his life? have not the slightest idea why.
| cannot &c much as say whether she had ever con-
tracted second marriage and her name was really
Mrs. Bean; or whether that name was bestowed
upon her as part OF thesmuggng transaction.
only know that there she used to sit ut one endof the
hospitsble table, the living image in cap of Cogs-
w 49, ONAt~ N%i Snt tildL OOSSOIu huCN ludt
| knew who she was. Yet, if had been Gus
tom House officer at FoIkestone and Mrs Bean
French clock that Cogsford was furtively bring
lag from Paris in a hst-box, he could not have
made her the subject of more determined and de-
liberate pretence. 1t was prolonged for years up
on years. 1t survived the good old lady herself
One day Ireeeived an agitated note from Cogsford,
entreating me to go to him Immediately, 1 went
and found him we, ping, and in the greatest attic
tim.
my dear friend, said he, pressing my hand, 81
have lost Mrs. Bean. She is no more ~
l went to the funeral with him. He was in the
deepest grief He spoke of Mrs. Bean, on the way
back, as the best of women, But, even then, he
never limited that Mrs. Bean was his mother; and
the first and last acknowledgment of the fact that
ever had from him was in his last will, wherein
he entreated "hs said dear friend and executor
to observe that he requested to be buried beside
his mother-whom he didn't even name, he was so
perfectly confident that had detected Mrs Bean
was once acquainted with another man who
smuggled brother. This coDtraband relative
made mysterious appearances and disappearances
and knew strange things. He was called John
simply John. l have got into habit of believing
that he must have been under penalty to forfeit
some weekly allowance if he ever claimed sur
name. He came to light in this way;-I wanted
some information respecting the remotest of the |
Hymaaya range of mountains, and l applied to |
my friend Benting a member of the Geographical |
Society, and learned on such points J, to advise me-
After some consideration, Benting said, in half
reluctant and constrained way, very unlike his usu-
al frank manner, that he Thought ne knew man
who could tell me, of his own experience, what
wanted to learn. An appointment was made for
a certain evening at Benting's house. | arrived
first had not observed for more than FIVE minutes
that Benting was under curious cloud when his
servant announced-in hushed, and / may say
unearthIy manner-"Mr John" A rather stiff
and shabby person appeared, who called BentHg |
by no name whatever IA singularity that always |
observed whenever | saw them together after |
wards J, and whose manner was curiously divided 1
between familiarity and distance. l found this /
man to have been all over the Indies, and to pos
sess an extraordinary fund of travellers experience
1t came from him drily at first; but he warmed,
and it flowed freely, until he happened to meet
Benting's eye. Then, he subsidized again, and Git
appeared to me J, felt himself, for some unknown
reason, in danger Of losing that weekly allowance.
This happened dozen times in a couple Of hours
and not the least curious part Of the matter was,
that Bentirg himself was always as much discon
certed as the other man. 1t did not occur to me
that night thst this BentiDg's brother, for had
known him very well indeed for years, and always
understood him to have none. Neither can | now
recall, nor, if | could would it matter, by what de-
grees and stages | arrived at the knowledge. How
ever this may be. knew it, and Benting knew that
knew it. But we always preserved the fiction
that I could have no suspicion that there was any
sort Of kindred or affinity between them. He went
to Mexico, this John--and he went to Australia
and he went to China-and be died somewhere in
Persia--and one day, when We went down TO din
ner at Bentings, l would find him in the dining
room already seated las if he had just been counting
the allowance on the tabe-eloth y and another day
would hear Of him as being among scarlet parrots
in the tropics; but, J. never knew whether he bad
ever done anything wrong, or whether he had ever
done anything right, or why he went about the
world, or how. As have already signifed, get