Kidd

“ KIDD, JOHN (1775–1851) , English physician, chemist and geologist, born at Westminster on the 10th of September 1775, was the son of a naval officer, Captain John Kidd. He was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Westminster, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1797 (M.D. in 1804) . He also studied at Guy’s Hospital, London (1797–1801) , where he was a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper. He became reader in chemistry at Oxford in 1801, and in 1803 was elected the first Aldrichian professor of chemistry. ”

“ In those days colonial governorships were less sought after than they are now; and it was hopeless to expect any man of mark at home to accept one.
From an “Account of the proceedings in relation to Captain Kidd in two letters from a Person of Quality to a kinsman of the Earl of Bellamont,” published in 1701, the year of Kidd’s death, with the avowed object of vindicating the memory of Bellamont, who was then dead, it appears that New York had at that time, rightly or wrongly, earned a bad name in England. ”

“ From so much of his previous history as this poor man told to the chaplain at Newgate, it appears that he was an Irishman, born near Londonderry, kidnapped when young and shipped for the plantations, where he had followed various honest avocations without any conspicuous success. Most of Kidd’s grown-up recruits, it is to be feared, were men of this kind, who for one reason or another were indisposed to remain long in any one employment, and likely to abandon the enterprise as soon as they got tired of it. ”

“ Kidd was an independent and eccentric thinker and talker on religious and social subjects, and delivered many lectures in various parts of the country on such subjects as ‘Genial Gossip,’ ‘Fashion and its Victims,’ ‘The Value of Little Things,’ and ‘Happiness made comparatively easy’ (Liverpool Mercury, 8 March 1856) . ”

“ She's never seen me without 'em. I 'ad a remarkable strong growth when I was quite a boy. While other boys was—”
“Shut-up!” vociferated Mr. Kidd.
“Sha'n't!” said Mr. Gibbs, defiantly. “I've 'ad enough of being away from my comfortable little 'ome and my wife; and I'm going to let 'em start growing agin this very night. She'll never reckernize me without 'em, that's certain.”
“He's right, Bob,” said Mr. Brown, with conviction.
“D'ye mean to tell me we've got to wait till 'is blasted whiskers grow?” cried Mr. Kidd, almost dancing with fury. ”

“ Kidd's powerful preaching and vigorous character overcame violent opposition, and ultimately gained for him an extraordinary popularity. It became an article of popular belief that no one who ever resisted ‘the Doctor’ had prospered. ”

“ Kidd who, after losing largely by the war, died, leaving his estate heavily encumbered. Up to that time Mrs. Kidd had had no acquaintance with poverty or business, but she had the energy which made up for want of experience. She accepted a position in a college in Brookhaven, Miss., and two years after bought an interest in the school. Nine years later she was elected president of the North Texas Eemale College, in Sherman, Tex., a position she still holds. Mrs. Kidd is the first woman south of Mason and Dixon's line who has held such a position. ”

“ Kiddie smiled in amusement.
"Well, well, Gid," he said, "you just wait until Rube an' I come back from our camp in the forest. I shall have dropped all the objectionable politeness by then. We shall take no forks or plates, but will tear our food with our teeth. We will sleep in our boots under blankets of balsam branches, and forget the comforts of pyjamas and hot shaving water. ”

“ I examined him, but he denied everything, even that he came with Kidd from Madagascar, or ever saw him in his life; but Captain Davies, [8] who also came thence with Kidd, and all Kidd's men, are positive he is the man and that he went by his true name viz. Gillam, all the while he was on the voyage with them, and Mr. Campbel the Postmaster of this town (whom I sent to treat with Kidd) offers to swear this is the man he saw on [bo] ard Kidd's sloop under the name of James Gillam. ”

“ Kidd had a semi-Socialist audience ready for him, who lived mainly by sentiment, whose sentimentalities had anticipated his own, and who were only waiting for some one from whom they might learn to sing them to some definite intellectual tune. ”

“ On the foundation of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1826 Kidd was elected one of the original associates, and became an academician in 1829. He practised painting at Edinburgh till about 1836, when he came to London, resigning his membership of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1838. ”

“ The tune is ascribed to Nicholson. The oldest American recording known to me is in the four-shape-note manuscript song collection made by Catherine Alderice in or near Emmittsburg, Md., 1800-1830, p. 37. Miss Gilchrist calls attention to the secular ‘Captain Kidd’ ballad, of which the above is a parody, as it appeared, twenty-five verses long, in Our Familiar Songs and Who Made Them, published in America, 1889. She describes it as “a sort of dying speech and testament probably dating from about 1701 in which year Kidd and nine of his associates were hanged in Execution Dock.... ”

“ Kidds never committed himself. He is now the incumbent of a pretty church in the suburbs, built for him by his aunt, and, strange to say, the church fills. Whether it is that his brevity is attractive, or his transparent goodness compensates for his other peculiarities, certainly he has a congregation; and if you polled that congregation, the one point on which all would agree, in addition to his eligibility or innocence, would be that the Rev. Gray Kidds was "so funny."
And now, for our second type of peculiarity, let us beat back for one moment to the fair sex again. Mrs. ”

“ And I've made up my mind, since reading it, that we might as well give up any idea of Captain Kidd having buried anything around here. That book said he never buried a thing, except one place on Long Island, and that was all raked up long ago. ”

“ Gray Kidds is one of those individuals whose peculiarity it is never to have been a boy. Kidds at fifteen had whiskers as voluminous as he now has at six-and-twenty, and as he gambolled heavily amongst his more puerile schoolfellows, visitors to the playground used to ask the assistant masters who that man was playing with the boys. They evidently had an uneasy notion that a private lunatic asylum formed a branch of the educational establishment, and that Gray Kidds was a harmless [200] patient allowed to join the boys in their sports. Gray Kidds was and is literally harmless. ”

“ If you want to know what they do accidentally discover about Kiddie himself and how excited every body becomes as the rare news spreads from mouth to mouth, you will find that and many other remarkable things about him in this interesting story of his life in the Maple tree that grows in Farmer Green's yard. You will like Kiddie. He is very modest and retiring—behaving very much as any well raised youngster should, and when you understand just how it happens that he keeps repeating that funny remark about Katy, you can join him in the hearty laugh he has on his friends. ”

“ Sheila walked majestically apart from him.
"Amazin' wise, that animal is," said Gideon, taking the bridle of the tired pony, and watching Kiddie leap to the saddle of the fresh one. "Built same's a racehorse, she is. Them long legs of hers, they'd cover a heap o' ground, eh? What kinder work did she do in her own country, Kiddie? Huntin'?"
"Yes, deer hunting," Kiddie answered. "She could race any stag—outdistance any horse. Has a pedigree as long's your arm, Gid. She's quite an aristocrat."
"Splendidest dog I ever see in my life," commented Rube, patting the hound's shaggy head. ”

“ I rather think it created far more sensation than I did when I came on board. In the first place, it made its appearance in a more public manner, and the Captain and officers crowded round to look at it and the poor nurse.
“Wonder whether it’s a boy or a girl,” said Toby Kiddle, who was amongst the foremost crowding round. “If it’s a boy the younker will make a fine playmate for our Benjy. Let’s have a squint at it, Dick. He won’t cut our little chap out, anyhow; but we’ll let the Jollies have him in keeping, and let them see what they can make on him. ”

“ Does he ever visit our neighborhood?”
“Not often!” said Kiddie Katydid. “I met him here once. And that was enough for me. I never felt more uncomfortable in all my life.” He shuddered as he spoke and looked over his shoulder. ”

“ Kiddie inquired.
Rube looked out across the lake.
"I got a idea of paddlin' across an' makin' camp in one of them cañons," he said.
"Tut!" objected Kiddie. "You want to do some exploring, eh? Want ter get into some lonesome place where nobody has ever been before? What's the matter with this forest? I reckon we're the first civilized humans that have ever spent a night in it. ”

“ Rube could distinguish the chiefs by their feathered war bonnets, and amongst them he thought he recognized the young chief Broken Feather riding to and fro in the rear of his warriors as if urging them to new movements or increased effort.
Kiddie was not so easily to be distinguished, as he wore only a very simple head-dress, but Rube, knowing him by his piebald prairie pony, saw him once or twice in the forefront of the battle, and again leading a retirement to take up a fresh position on the field where the fighting was most severe. ”

“ Must sure have been young."
"Yes," said Rube, "but all that don't prove he was Injun. White men c'n be tall; white men c'n have good teeth. How d'you make out he was Injun?"
"By the shape of his skull for one thing," explained Kiddie—"the square jaw, the high cheek bones, the slopin' forehead. But more'n all I argue he was Injun because I calculate he was fixed tight in the tree, and was well on the way to bein' a naked skeleton long before any white man opened his eyes on the Rocky Mountains—yes, even perhaps before the Pilgrim Fathers landed in New England. ”

“ Thar's only one thing t' be said, Kiddie, an' that's this: the man as tried ter take your life was either a Injun wearin' white man's boots, or else a white man usin' a Injun's bow an' arrow. Beyond that, I'm makin' up my mind ter look out fer a individual—red or white—goin' around with his left arm in a sling. ”

“ From where he lay on the dewy grass beside the crowded horse-corral, with his repeating rifle across his arm, he searched into the darkness of the larch woods and down the misty slopes to the thick line of bushes bordering the hidden creek.
"Yes," he went on, speaking in a cautious undertone, "Kiddie was a marvel."
"That's so," agreed the man stationed next to him, "a marvel for scoutin', he was. Like a cat, too."
"A cat?"
"Yes," Isa Blagg nodded, "allus fell on his feet, didn't he? He allus came out on top. ”

“ And it was you, then, as came gallopin' along the trail this mornin', time the Injuns crept up to the corral? It was you as fired all them shots from behind the willows? You that raced like mad inter One Tree Gulch an' dropped your lariat over Broken Feather? Oh, Kiddie, Kiddie, I might ha' known—I might ha' known. But I never thought, never guessed it c'd be you. My! how you've growed! how you've—improved! And you ain't wearin' your earl's coronet, nor your robe trimmed round with ermine skins? You've come just like one of ourselves. ”

“ Kiddie responded slowly, keeping his Western manner of speech, as was usual with him when addressing Gideon Birkenshaw, "I've come to the conclusion as it ain't just right an' proper o' me ter live here with everything I most covet in the shape of personal comfort—a cosy home in beautiful scenery, with the perfumed pine trees all around, the woodland solitude, where I c'n study the wild critters, beasts an' birds an' insects; the creek an' the lake, where I c'n paddle an' fish; my time all my own, with no slavish duties, no tasks, no responsibilities. ”

“ Kiddie nodded, lowering his weapon, but still keeping it turned in the same direction. "You've saved your precious life. And now you'd best call off your warriors before there's any more blood spilt. D'you understand? Put an end to this needless battle, and quit right away, with what's left of your army. You're tryin' to fly a bit too high, my man. But you're not made big enough. Give up tryin'. Go back to your reservation, and try to live a decent, honourable life of peace and usefulness." ”

“ Ken himself greatly disliked the appointment, and spoke of Kidder as a ‘latitudinarian traditor,’ a ‘hireling,’ who, ‘instead of keeping his flock within the fold, encouraged them to stray,’ ‘a stranger ravaging his flock.’ Kidder seems to have been continually in trouble with the cathedral chapter; they refused to attend his ordinations, thinking that he ordained nonconformists without having properly ascertained that they had really become churchmen. ”

“ I'm sorry t' say, sir, as thar's a scratch of a bullet on the saddle. Leather's some torn; but I reckon mother c'n fix it up; same's she done my moccasins when I tore 'em in the bush, trackin' a lynx."
"The saddle is of no consequence if Regent is all right," Kiddie assured him. "Regent is the name of the bay. He's an English hunter; doesn't know anything about the work of a prairie pony."
Rube's mother had done her best to provide a good meal for the hungry men. They lingered at the table, all listening in wonder to what Kiddie told them of England and of the cities of Europe and Asia. ”

“ Well, late one night—or early one morning—Kiddie Katydid and Benjamin Bat were enjoying a chat in the tree-tops, when Benjamin put a new idea into Kiddie's head.
"We ought to have some sports right here in Farmer Green's yard," he suggested. "You're such a fine jumper that you could try your skill against Mr. Frog. And you're such a fine flier that you and [73] Freddie Firefly ought to have a race. ”