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                                PECULIAR

                    _A Tale of the Great Transition_

                            BY EPES SARGENT

[Illustration]

                                NEW YORK
                   CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY
                              M DCCC LXIV

       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by
                             EPES SARGENT,
     in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
                             Massachusetts.








                           UNIVERSITY PRESS:
                      WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
                               CAMBRIDGE.




                               CONTENTS.


             CHAPTER                                             PAGE
          I. A GLANCE IN THE MIRROR                                 1
         II. A MATRIMONIAL BLANK                                    6
        III. THE WOLF AND THE LAMB                                 12
         IV. A FUGITIVE CHATTEL                                    19
          V. A RETROSPECT                                          28
         VI. PIN-HOLES IN THE CURTAIN                              34
        VII. AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS                                46
       VIII. A DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS                         57
         IX. THE UPPER AND THE LOWER LAW                           69
          X. GROUPS ON THE DECK                                    81
         XI. MR. ONSLOW SPEAKS HIS MIND                            97
        XII. THE STORY OF ESTELLE                                 105
       XIII. FIRE UP!                                             148
        XIV. WAITING FOR THE SUMMONER                             151
         XV. WHO SHALL BE HEIR?                                   158
        XVI. THE VENDUE                                           165
       XVII. SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING?                            178
      XVIII. THE UNITIES DISREGARDED                              183
        XIX. THE WHITE SLAVE                                      187
         XX. ENCOUNTERS AT THE ST. CHARLES                        200
        XXI. A MONSTER OF INGRATITUDE                             219
       XXII. THE YOUNG LADY WITH A CARPET-BAG                     224
      XXIII. WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?                        233
       XXIV. CONFESSIONS OF A MEAN WHITE                          240
        XXV. MEETINGS AND PARTINGS                                251
       XXVI. CLARA MAKES AN IMPORTANT PURCHASE                    257
      XXVII. DELIGHT AND DUTY                                     264
     XXVIII. A LETTER OF BUSINESS                                 274
       XXIX. THE WOMAN WHO DELIBERATES IS LOST                    279
        XXX. A FEMININE VAN AMBURGH                               290
       XXXI. ONE OF THE INSTITUTIONS                              300
      XXXII. A DOUBLE VICTORY                                     305
     XXXIII. SATAN AMUSES HIMSELF                                 314
      XXXIV. LIGHT FROM THE PIT                                   327
       XXXV. THE COMMITTEE ADJOURNS                               335
      XXXVI. THE OCCUPANT OF THE WHITE HOUSE                      349
     XXXVII. COMPARING NOTES                                      359
    XXXVIII. THE LAWYER AND THE LADY                              372
      XXXIX. SEEING IS BELIEVING                                  382
         XL. THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND                       392
        XLI. HOPES AND FEARS                                      397
       XLII. HOW IT WAS DONE                                      430
      XLIII. MAKING THE BEST OF IT                                442
       XLIV. A DOMESTIC RECONNAISSANCE                            455
        XLV. ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS                  464
       XLVI. THE NIGHT COMETH                                     471
      XLVII. AN AUTUMNAL VISIT                                    480
     XLVIII. TIME DISCOVERS AND COVERS                            489
       XLIX. EYES TO THE BLIND                                    493




                               PECULIAR.




                               CHAPTER I.
                        A GLANCE IN THE MIRROR.

“Wed not for wealth, Emily, without love,—’tis gaudy slavery; nor for
love without competence,—’tis twofold misery.”—_Colman’s Poor
Gentleman._


It is a small and somewhat faded room in an unpretending brick house in
one of the streets that intersect Broadway, somewhere between Canal
Street and the Park. A woman sits at a writing-table, with the fingers
of her left hand thrust through her hair and supporting her forehead,
while in her right hand she holds a pen with which she listlessly draws
figures, crosses, circles and triangles, faces and trees, on the
blotting-paper that partly covers a letter which she has been inditing.

A window near by is open at the top. March, having come in like a lion,
is going out like a lamb. A canary-bird, intoxicated with the ambrosial
breath and subduing sunshine of the first mild day of spring, is pouring
forth such a _Te Deum laudamus_ as Mozart himself would have despaired
of rivalling. Yesterday’s rain-storm purified the atmosphere, swept
clean the streets, and deodorized the open gutters, that in warm weather
poison with their effluvium the air of the great American metropolis.

On the wall, in front of the lady at the table, hangs a mirror. Look,
now, and you will catch in it the reflection of her face. Forty? Not far
from it. Perhaps four or five years on the sunny side. Fair? Many
persons would call her still beautiful. The features, though somewhat
thin, show their fine Grecian outline. The hair is of a rich flaxen, the
eyes blue and mild, the mouth delicately drawn, showing Cupid’s bow in
the curve of the upper lip, and disclosing, not too ostentatiously, the
whitest teeth.

Her dress is significant of past rather than present familiarity with a
fashionable wardrobe. If she ever wore jewels, she has parted with all
of them, for there is not even a plain gold ring on her forefinger. Her
robe is a simple brown cashmere, not so distended by crinoline as to
disguise her natural figure, which is erect, of the average height, and
harmoniously rounded. We detect this the better as she rises, looks a
moment sorrowfully in the glass, and sighs to herself, “Fading! fading!”

There is a gentle knock at the door, and to her “Come in,” an old black
man enters.

“Good morning, Toussaint,” says the lady; “what have you there?”

“Only a few grapes for Madame. They are Black Hamburgs, and very sweet.
I hope Madame will relish them. They will do her good. Will she try some
of them now?”

“They are excellent, Toussaint. And what a beautiful basket you have
brought them in! You must have paid high for all this fruit, so early in
the season. Indeed, you must not run into such extravagances on my
account.”

“Does Madame find her cough any better?”

“Thank you, Toussaint, I do not notice much change in it as yet. Perhaps
a few more mild days like this will benefit me. How is Juliette?”

“_Passablement bien._ Pretty well. May I ask—ahem! Madame will excuse
the question—but does her husband treat her with any more consideration
now that she is ill?”

“My good Toussaint, I grieve to say that Mr. Charlton is not so much
softened as irritated by my illness. It threatens to be expensive, you
see.”

“Ah! but that is sad,—sad! I wish Madame were in my house. Such care as
Juliette and I would take of her! You look so much like your mother,
Madame! I knew her before her first marriage. I dressed her hair the day
of her wedding. People used to call her proud. But she was always kind
to me,—very kind. And you look like her so much! As I grow old I think
all the more of my old and early friends,—the first I had when I came to
New York from St. Domingo. Most of them are dead, but I find out their
children if I can; and if they are sick I amuse myself by carrying them
a few grapes or flowers. They are very good to indulge me by accepting
such trifles.”

“Toussaint, the goodness is all on your side. These grapes are no
trifle, and you ought to know it. I thank you for them heartily. Let me
give you back the basket.”

“No, please don’t. Keep it. Good morning, Madame! Be cheerful. _Le bon
temps reviendra._ All shall be well. _Bon jour! Au revoir_, Madame!”

He hurries out of the room, but instantly returns, and, taking a leaf of
fresh lettuce out of his pocket, reaches up on tiptoe and puts it
between the bars of the bird-cage. “I was nigh forgetting the lettuce
for the bird,” says he. “Madame will excuse my _gaucherie_.” And, bowing
low, he again disappears.

The story of Emily Bute Charlton may be briefly told. Her mother, Mrs.
Danby, was descended from that John Bradshaw who was president of the
court which tried Charles the First, and who opposed a spirited
resistance to the usurpation of Cromwell in dissolving the Parliament.
Mrs. Danby was proud of her family tree. In her twentieth year she was
left a widow, beautiful, ambitious, and poor, with one child, a
daughter, who afterwards had in Emily a half-sister. This first daughter
had been educated carefully, but she had hardly reached her seventeenth
year when she accepted the addresses of a poor man, some fifteen years
her senior, of the name of Berwick. The mother, with characteristic
energy, opposed the match, but it was of no use. The daughter was
incurably in love; she married, and the mother cast her off.

Time brought about its revenges. Mr. Berwick had inherited ten acres of
land on the island of Manhattan. He tried to sell it, but was so
fortunate as to find nobody to buy. So he held on to the land, and by
hard scratching managed to pay the taxes on it. In ten years the city
had crept up so near to his dirty acres that he sold half of them for a
hundred thousand dollars, and became all at once a rich man. Meanwhile
his wife’s mother, Mrs. Danby, after remaining fourteen years a widow,
showed the inconsistency of her opposition to her daughter’s marriage by
herself making an imprudent match. She married a Mr. Bute, poor and
inefficient, but belonging to “one of the first families.” By this
husband she had one daughter, Emily, the lady at whose reflection in the
mirror we have just been looking.

Emily Bute, like her half-sister, Mrs. Berwick, who was many years her
senior, inherited beauty, and was quite a belle in her little sphere in
Philadelphia, where her family resided. Her mother, who had repelled
Berwick as a son-in-law in his adversity, was too proud to try to
propitiate him in his prosperity. She concealed her poverty as well as
she could from her daughter, Mrs. Berwick, and the latter had often to
resort to stratagem in order to send assistance to the family. At last
the proud mother died; and six months afterwards her firstborn daughter,
Mrs. Berwick, died, leaving one child, a son, Henry Berwick.

Years glided on, and Mr. Bute had hard work to keep the wolf from the
door. He was one of those persons whose efforts in life are continual
failures, from the fact that they cannot adapt themselves to
circumstances,—cannot persevere during the day of small things till
their occupation, by gradual development, becomes profitable. He would
tire of an employment the moment its harvest of gold seemed remote.
Forever sanguine and forever unsuccessful, he at last found himself
reduced, with his daughter, to a mode of life that bordered on the
shabby.

In this state of things, Mr. Berwick, like a timely angel, reappeared,
rich, and bearing help. He was charmed with Emily, as he had formerly
been with her half-sister. He proposed marriage. Mr. Bute was enchanted.
He could not conceive of Emily’s hesitating for a moment. Were her
affections pre-engaged? No. She had been a little of a flirt, and that
perhaps had saved her from a serious passion. Why not, then, accept Mr.
Berwick? He was so old! Old? What is a seniority of thirty years? He is
rich,—has a house on the Fifth Avenue, and another on the North River.
What insanity it would be in a poor girl to allow such a chance to slip
by!

Still Emily had her misgivings. Her virginal instincts protested against
the sacrifice. She had an ideal of a happy life, which certainly did not
lie all in having a freestone house, French furniture, and a carriage.
She knew the bitterness of poverty; but was she quite ready to marry
without love? Her father’s distresses culminated, and drove her to a
decision. She became Mrs. Berwick; and Mr. Bute was presented with ten
thousand dollars on the wedding-day. He forthwith relieved himself of
fifteen hundred in the purchase of a “new patent-spring phaeton” and
span. “A great bargain, sir; splendid creatures; spirited, but gentle; a
woman can drive them; no more afraid of a locomotive than of a stack of
hay; the carriage in prime order; hasn’t been used a dozen times; will
stand any sort of a shock; the property of my friend, Garnett; he
wouldn’t part with the horses if he could afford to keep them; his wife
is quite broken-hearted at the idea of losing them; such a chance
doesn’t occur once in ten years; you can sell the span at a great
advance in the spring.”

This urgent recommendation from “a particular friend, entirely
disinterested,” decided Bute. He bought the “establishment.” The next
day as he was taking a drive, the shriek of a steam-whistle produced
such an effect upon his incomparable span, that they started off at
headlong speed, ran against a telegraph-pole, smashed the “new
patent-spring phaeton,” threw out the driver, and broke his neck against
a curb-stone; and that was the end of Mr. Bute for this world, if we may
judge from appearances.

Emily’s marriage did not turn out so poorly as the retributions of
romance might demand. But on Mr. Berwick’s death she followed her
mother’s example, and married a second time. She became Mrs. Charlton.
Some idea of the consequences of this new alliance may be got from the
letter which she has been writing, and which we take the liberty of
laying before our readers.




                              CHAPTER II.
                          A MATRIMONIAL BLANK.

            “Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
            And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow.”
                                             _Shakespeare._


                     TO HENRY BERWICK, CINCINNATI.

DEAR HENRY: You kindly left word for me to write you. I have little of a
cheering nature to say in regard to myself. We have moved from the house
in Fourteenth Street into a smaller one nearer to the Park and to Mr.
Charlton’s business. His complaints of his disappointment in regard to
my means have lately grown more bitter. Your allowance, liberal as it
is, seems to be lightly esteemed. The other day he twitted me with
_setting a snare_ for him by pretending to be a rich widow. O Henry,
what an aggravation of insult! I knew nothing, and of course said
nothing, as to the extent of your father’s wealth. I supposed, as every
one else did, that he left a large property. His affairs proved to be in
such a state that they could not be disentangled by his executors till
two years after his death. Before that time I was married to Mr.
Charlton.

Had I but taken your warning, and seen through his real feelings! But he
made me think he loved me for myself alone, and he artfully excited my
distrust of you and your motives. He represented his own means as ample;
though for that I did not care or ask. Repeatedly he protested that he
would prefer to take me without a cent of dowry. I was simpleton enough
to believe him, though he was ten years my junior. I fell foolishly in
love, soon, alas! to be rudely roused from my dream!

It seems like a judgment, Henry. You have always been as kind to me as
if you were my own son. Your father was so much my senior, that you may
well suppose I did not marry him from love. I was quite young. My
notions on the subject of matrimony were unformed. My heart was free. My
father urged the step upon me as one that would save him from dire and
absolute destitution. What could I do, after many misgivings, but yield?
What could I _do_? I now well see what a woman of real moral strength
and determination could and ought to have done. But it is too late to
sigh over the past.

I behaved passably well, did I not? in the capacity of your step-mother.
I was loyal, even in thought, to my husband, although I loved him only
with the sort of love I might have entertained for my grandfather. You
were but two or three years my junior, but you always treated me as if I
were a dowager of ninety. As I now look back, I can see how nobly and
chivalrously you bore yourself, though at the time I did not quite
understand your over-respectful and distant demeanor, or why, when we
went out in the carriage, you always preferred the driver’s company to
mine.

Your father died, and for a year and a half I conducted myself in a
manner not unworthy of his widow and your mother. At the end of that
period Mr. Charlton appeared at Berwickville. He dressed pretty well,
associated with gentlemen, was rather handsome, and professed a sincere
attachment for myself. Time had dealt gently with me, and I was not
aware of that disparity in years which I afterwards learned existed
between me and my suitor. In an unlucky moment I was subdued by his
importunities. I consented to become his wife.

The first six months of our marriage glided away smoothly enough. My new
husband treated me with all the attention which I supposed a man of
business could give. If the vague thought now and then obtruded itself
that there was something to me undefined and unsounded in his character,
I thrust the thought from me, and found excuses for the deficiency which
had suggested it. One trait which I noticed caused me some surprise. He
always discouraged my buying new dresses, and grew very economical in
providing for the household. I am no epicure, but have been accustomed
to the best in articles of food. I soon discovered that everything in
the way of provisions brought into the house was of a cheap or
deteriorated quality. I remonstrated, and there was a reform.

One bright day in June, two gentlemen, Mr. Ken and Mr. Turner, connected
with the management of your father’s estate, appeared at Berwickville.
They came to inform me that my late husband had died insolvent, and that
the house we then occupied belonged to his creditors, and must be sold
at once. Mr. Charlton received this intelligence in silence; but I was
shocked at the change wrought by it on his face. In that expression
disappointment and chagrin of the intensest kind seemed concentrated.
Nothing was to be said, however. There were the documents; there were
the facts,—the stern, irresistible facts of the law. The house must be
given up.

After these bearers of ill-tidings had gone, Mr. Charlton turned to me.
But I will not pain you by a recital of what he said. He rudely
dispelled the illusions under which I had been laboring in regard to
him. I could only weep. I could not utter a word of retaliation. Whilst
he was in the midst of his reproaches, a servant brought me a letter.
Mr. Charlton snatched it from my hand, opened, and read it. Either it
had a pacifying effect upon him, or he had exhausted his stock of
objurgations. He threw the letter on the table and quitted the room.

It was your letter of condolence and dutiful regard, promising me an
allowance from your own purse of a hundred dollars a month. What coals
of fire it heaped on my head! To please Mr. Charlton I had quarrelled
with you,—forbidden you to visit or write me,—and here was your return!
The communication coming close upon the dropping of my husband’s
disguise almost unseated my reason. What a night of tears that was! I
recalled your warnings, and now saw their truth,—saw how truly
disinterested you were in them all. How generous, how noble you appeared
to me! How in contrast, alas! with him I had taken for better or worse!

I lay awake all night. Of course I could not think of accepting your
offer. In the first place, my past treatment of you forbade it. And then
I knew that your own means were narrow, and that you had just entered
into an engagement of marriage with a poor girl. But when, the next day,
I communicated my resolve to my husband, he calmly replied: “Nonsense!
Write Mr. Berwick, thanking him for his offer, and telling him that,
small as the sum is, considering your wants, you accept it.” What a poor
thing you must have thought me, when you got my cold letter of
acceptance. Do me the justice to believe me when I affirm that every
word of it was dictated by my husband. How I have longed to see you in
person, to tell you all that I have endured and felt! But this
circumstances have prevented. And now I am possessed with the idea that
I never shall see you in this life again. And that is why I make these
confessions. Your marriage, your absence in Europe, your recent return,
and your hurried departure for the West, have kept me uncertain as to
where a message would reach you. Yesterday I got a few affectionate
lines from you, telling me a letter, if mailed at once, would reach you
in Cincinnati, or, if a week later, in New Orleans. And so I am devoting
the forenoon to this review of my past, so painful and sad.

Let me think of your happier lot, and rejoice in it. So your affairs
have prospered beyond all hope! Through your wife you are unexpectedly
rich in worldly means. Better still, you are rich in affection. Your
little Clara is “the brightest, the loveliest, the sunniest little thing
in the wide world.” So you write me; and I can well believe it from the
photograph and the lock of hair you send me. Bless her! What would I
give to hug her to my bosom. And you too, Henry, you too I could kiss
with a kiss that should be purely maternal,—a benediction,—a kiss your
wife would approve, for, after all, you are the only child I have had.
Mr. Charlton has always said he would have no children till he was a
rich man. He and the female physician he employs have nearly killed me
with their terrible drugs. Yes, I am dying, Henry. Even the breath of
this sweet spring morning whispers it in my ear. Bless you and yours
forever! What a mistake my life has been! And yet, how I craved to love
and be loved! You will think kindly of me always, and teach your wife
and child to have pleasant associations with my name.

All the rich presents your father made me have been sold by Mr.
Charlton; but I have one, that he has not seen,—a costly and beautiful
gold casket for jewels, which I reserve as a present for your little
Clara. I shall to-morrow pack it up carefully, and take it to a friend,
who I know will keep and deliver it safely. That friend, strange as it
may sound to you, is the venerable old black hair-dresser, Toussaint,
who lives in Franklin Street. Your father used to say he had never met a
man he would trust before Toussaint; and I can say as much. Toussaint
used to dress my mother’s hair; he is now my adviser and friend.

Born a slave in the town of St. Mark in St. Domingo in 1766, Pierre
Toussaint was twelve years the junior of that fellow-slave, the
celebrated Toussaint l’Ouverture, born on the same river, who converted
a mob of undrilled, uneducated Africans into an army with which he
successively overthrew the forces of France, England, and Spain. At the
beginning of the troubles in the island, in 1801, Pierre was taken by
his master, the wealthy Mons. Berard, to New York. Berard, having lost
his immense property in St. Domingo, soon died, and Pierre, having
learnt the business of a hair-dresser, supported Madame Berard by his
labors some eight years till her death, though she had no legal claim
upon his service. Bred up, as he was, indulgently, Pierre’s is one of
those exceptional cases in which slavery has not destroyed the moral
sense.

I know of few more truly venerable characters. A pious Catholic, he is
one of the stanchest of friends. One of his rules through life has been,
never to incur a debt,—to pay on the spot for everything he buys. And
yet he is continually giving away large sums in charity. One day I said,
“Toussaint, you are rich enough; you have more than you want; why not
stop working now?” He answered, “Madame, I have enough for myself, but
if I stop work, I have not enough for others!” By the great fire of
1835, Toussaint lost by his investments in insurance companies. The
Schuylers and the Livingstons passed around a subscription-paper to
repair his losses; but he stopped it, saying he would not take a cent
from them, since there were so many who needed help more than he.

An old French gentleman, a white man, once rich, whom Toussaint had
known, was reduced to poverty and fell sick. For several months
Toussaint and his wife, Juliette, sent him a nicely cooked dinner; but
Toussaint would not let him know from whom it came, “because,” said the
negro, “it might hurt his pride to know it came from a black man.”
Juliette once called on this invalid to learn if her husband could be of
any help. “O no,” said the old Monsieur, “I am well known; I have good
friends; every day they send me a dinner, served up in French style.
To-day I had a charming vol-au-vent, an omelette, and green peas, not to
speak of salmon. I am a person of some importance, you see, even in this
strange land.” And Juliette would go home, and she and Toussaint would
have a good laugh over the old man’s vauntings.[1]

But what has possessed me to enter into all these details! I know not,
unless it is the desire to escape from less agreeable thoughts.

I have a request to make, Henry. You will think me fanciful, foolish,
perhaps fanatical; and yet I am impelled, by an unaccountable
impression, to ask you to give up the tickets you tell me you have
engaged in the Pontiac, and to take passage for New Orleans in some
other boat. If you ask me _why_, the only explanation I can give is,
that the thought besets me, but the reason of it I do not know. Do you
remember I once capriciously refused to let your father go in the cars
to Springfield, although his baggage was on board? Those cars went
through the draw-bridge, and many lives were lost. Write me that you
will heed my request.

And now, Henry, son, nephew, friend, good by! Tell little Clara she has
an aunt or grandmother (which, shall it be?) in New York who loves to
think of her and to picture the fair forehead over which the little curl
you sent me once fell. By the way, I have examined her photograph with a
microscope, and have conceived a fancy that her eyes are of a slightly
different color; one perhaps a gray and the other a mixed blue. Am I
right? Tell your wife how I grieve to think that circumstances have not
allowed us to meet and become personally acquainted. You now know all
the influences that have kept us apart, and that have made me seem
frigid and ungrateful, even when my heart was overflowing with
affection. What more shall I say, except to sum up all my love for you
and all my gratitude in the one parting prayer, Heaven bless you and
yours!

                                        Your mother, EMILY CHARLTON.




                              CHAPTER III.
                         THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.

            “Bitten by rage canine of dying rich;
            Guilt’s blunder! and the loudest laugh of hell!”
                                                  _Young._


The poor little lady! First sold by a needy parent to an old man, and
then betrayed by her own uncalculating affections to a young one, whose
nature had the torpor without the venerableness of age! Her heart, full
of all loving possibilities, had steered by false lights and been
wrecked. Brief had been its poor, shattered dream of household joys and
domestic amenities!

It was the old, old story of the cheat and the dupe; of credulous
innocence overmatched by heartless selfishness and fraud.

The young man “of genteel appearance and address” who last week, as the
newspapers tell us, got a supply of dry-goods from Messrs. Raby & Co.,
under false pretences, has been arrested, and will be duly punished.

But the scoundrel who tricks a confiding woman out of her freedom and
her happiness under the false pretences of a disinterested affection and
the desire of a loving home,—the swindler who, with the motives of a
devil of low degree, affects the fervor and the dispositions of a loyal
heart,—for such an impostor the law has no lash, no prison. To play the
blackleg and the sharper in a matter of the affections is not penal.
Success consecrates the crime; and the victim, when her eyes are at
length opened to the extent of the deception and the misery, must
continue to submit to a yoke at once hateful and demoralizing; she must
submit, unless she is willing to brave the ban of society and the
persecutions of the law.

Ralph Charlton, when he gave his wife Berwick’s letter the night before,
had supposed she would sit down to pen an answer as soon as she was
alone. And so the next morning, after visiting his office in Fulton
Street, he retraced his steps, and re-entered his house soon after
Toussaint had left, and just as Mrs. Charlton had put her signature to
the last page of the manuscript, and, bowing her forehead on her palms,
was giving vent to sobs of bitter emotion.

Charlton was that prodigy in nature,—a young man in whom an avarice that
would have been remarkable in a senile miser had put in subjection all
the other passions. Well formed and not ungraceful, his countenance was
at first rather prepossessing and propitiatory. It needed a keener eye
than that of the ordinary physiognomist to penetrate to the inner
nature. It was only when certain expressions flitted over the features
that they betrayed him. You must study that countenance and take it at
unawares before you could divine what it meant. Age had not yet hardened
it in the mould of the predominant bias of the character. Well born and
bred, he ought to have been a gentleman, but it is difficult for a man
to be that and a miser at the same time. There was little in his style
of dress that distinguished him from the mob of young business-men,
except that a critical eye would detect that his clothes were well
preserved. Few of his old coats were made to do service on the backs of
the poor.

Charlton called himself a lawyer, his specialty being conveyancing and
real estate transactions. His one purpose in life was to be a rich man.
To this end all others must be subordinate. When a boy he had been
taught to play on the flute; and his musical taste, if cultivated, might
have been a saving element of grace. But finding that in a single year
he had spent ten dollars in concert tickets, he indignantly repudiated
music, and shut his ears even to the hand-organs in the street. He had
inherited a fondness for fine horses. Before he was twenty-five he would
not have driven out after Ethan Allen himself, if there had been any
toll-gate keepers to pay. His taste in articles of food was nice and
discriminating; but he now bought fish and beef of the cheapest, and
patronized a milkman whose cows were fed on the refuse of the
distilleries.

Charlton was not venturous in speculation. The boldest operation he ever
attempted was that of his marriage. Before taking that step he had
satisfied himself in regard to the state of the late Mr. Berwick’s
affairs. They could be disentangled, and made to leave a balance of half
a million for the heirs, if a certain lawsuit, involving a large amount
of real estate, should be decided the right way. Charlton burrowed and
inquired and examined till he came to the conclusion that the suit would
go in favor of the estate. On that hint he took time by the forelock,
and married the widow. To his consternation matters did not turn out as
he had hoped.

As Charlton entered his wife’s room, on the morning she had been writing
the letter already presented, “What is all this, madam?” he exclaimed,
advancing and twitching away the manuscript that lay before her.

The lady thus startled rose and looked at him without speaking, as if
struggling to comprehend what he had done. At length a gleam of
intelligence flashed from her eyes, and she mildly said, “I will thank
you to give me back those papers: they are mine.”

“_Mine_, Mrs. Charlton! Where did you learn that word?” said the
husband, really surprised at the language of his usually meek and
acquiescent helpmate.

“Do you not mean to give them back?”

“Assuredly no. To whom is the letter addressed? Ah! I see. To Mr. Henry
Berwick. Highly proper that I should read what my wife writes to a young
man.”

“Then you do not mean to give the letter back, Charlton?”

Another surprise for the husband! At first she used to speak to him as
“Ralph,” or “dear”; then as “Mr. Charlton”; then as “Sir”; and now it
was plain “Charlton.” What did it portend?

The lady held out her hand, as if to receive the papers.

“Pooh!” said the husband, striking it away. “Go and attend to your
housework. What a shrill noise your canary is making! That bird must be
sold. There was a charge of seventy-five cents for canary-seed in my
last grocer’s bill! It’s atrocious. The creature is eating us out of
house and home. Bird and cage would bring, at least, five dollars.”

“The letter,—do you choose to give it back?”

“If, after reading it, I think proper to send it to its address, it
shall be sent. Give yourself no further concern about it.”

Mrs. Charlton advanced with folded arms, looked him unblenchingly in the
face, and gasped forth, with a husky, half-chocked utterance, “Beware!”

“Truly, madam,” said the astonished husband, “this is a new character
for you to appear in, and one for which I am not prepared.”

“It is for that reason I say, Beware! Beware when the tame, the
submissive, the uncomplaining woman is roused at last. Will you give me
that letter?”

“Go to the Devil!”

Mrs. Charlton threw out her hand and clutched at the manuscript, but her
husband had anticipated the attempt. As she closed with him in the
effort to recover the paper, he threw her off so forcibly that she fell
and struck her head against one of the protuberant claws of the legs of
her writing-table.

Whatever were the effects of the blow, it did not prevent the lady from
rising immediately, and composing her exuberant hair with a gesture of
puzzled distress that would have excited pity in the heart of a Thug.
But Charlton did not even inquire if she were hurt. After a pause she
seemed to recover her recollection, and then threw up her head with a
lofty gesture of resolve, and quitted the room.

Her husband sat down and read the letter. His equanimity was unruffled
till he came to the passage where the writer alludes to the gold casket
she had put aside for little Clara. At that disclosure he started to his
feet, and gave utterance to a hearty execration upon the woman who had
presumed to circumvent him by withholding any portion of her effects. He
opened the door and called, “Wife!” No voice replied to his summons. He
sought her in her chamber. She was not there. She had left the house. So
Dorcas, the one overworked domestic of the establishment, assured him.

Charlton saw there was no use in scolding. So he put on his hat and
walked down Broadway to his office. Here he wrote a letter which he
wished to mail before one o’clock. It was directed to Colonel Delaney
Hyde, Philadelphia. Having finished it and put it in the mail-box,
Charlton took his way at a brisk pace to the house of old Toussaint.

That veteran himself opened the door. A venerable black man, reminding
one of Ben Franklin in ebony. His wool was gray, his complexion of the
blackest, showing an unmixed African descent. He was of middling height,
and stooped slightly; was attired in the best black broadcloth, with a
white vest and neckcloth, and had the manners of a French marquis of the
old school.

“Is my wife here?” asked Charlton.

“Madame is here,” replied the old man; “but she suffers, and prays to be
not disturbed.”

“I must see her. Conduct me to her.”

“_Pardonnez._ Monsieur will comprehend as I say the commands of Madame
in this house are sacred.”

“You insolent old nigger! Do you mean to tell me I am not to see my own
wife?”

“_Precisement._ Monsieur cannot see Madame Charlton.”

“I’ll search the house for her, at any rate. Out of the way, you blasted
old ape!”

Here a policeman, provided for the occasion by Toussaint, and who had
been smoking in the front room opening on the hall, made his appearance.

“You can’t enter this house,” said Blake, carelessly knocking the ashes
from his cigar. Charlton had a wholesome respect for authority. He drew
back on seeing the imperturbable Blake, with the official star on his
breast, and said, “I came here, Mr. Blake, to recover a little gold box
that I have reason to believe my wife has left with this old nigger.”

“Well, she might have left it in worse hands,—eh, Toussaint?” said
Blake, resuming his cigar; and then, removing it, he added, “If you call
this old man a nigger again, I’ll make a nigger of you with my fist.”

Toussaint might have taken for his motto that of the old eating-house
near the Park,—“_Semper paratus_.” The gold box having been committed to
him to deposit in a place of safety, he had meditated long as to the
best disposition he could make of it. As he stood at the window of his
house, looking thoughtfully out, he saw coming up the street a gay old
man, swinging a cane, humming an opera tune, and followed by a little
dog. As the dashing youth drew nearer, Toussaint recognized in him an
old acquaintance, and a man not many years his junior,—Mr. Albert
Pompilard, stock-broker, Wall Street.

No two men could be more unlike than Toussaint and Pompilard; and yet
they were always drawn to each other by some subtle points of
attraction. Pompilard was a reckless speculator and spendthrift;
Toussaint, a frugal and cautious economist; but he had been indebted for
all his best investments to Pompilard. Bold and often audacious in his
own operations, Pompilard never would allow Toussaint to stray out of
the path of prudence. Not unfrequently Pompilard would founder in his
operations on the stock exchange. He would fall, perhaps, to a depth
where a few hundred dollars would have been hailed as a rope flung to a
drowning man. Toussaint would often come to him at these times and offer
a thousand dollars or so as a loan. Pompilard, in order not to hurt the
negro’s feelings, would take it and pretend to use it; but it would be
always put securely aside, out of his reach, or deposited in some bank
to Toussaint’s credit.

Toussaint stood at his door as Pompilard drew nigh.

“Ha! good morning, my guide, philosopher, and friend!” exclaimed the
stock-broker. “What’s in the wind now, Toussaint? Any money to invest?”

“No, Mr. Pompilard; but here’s a box that troubles me.”

“A box! Not a pill-box, I hope? Let me look at it. Beautiful! beautiful,
exceedingly! It could not be duplicated for twelve hundred dollars.
Whose is it? Ah! here’s an inscription,—‘_Henry Berwick to Emily_.’
Berwick? It was a Henry Berwick who married my wife’s niece, Miss
Aylesford.”

“This box,” interposed Toussaint, “was the gift of his late father to
his second wife, the present Mrs. Charlton.”

“Ah! yes, I remember the connection now.”

“Mrs. Charlton wishes me to deposit the box where, in the event of her
death, it will reach the daughter of the present Mrs. Berwick. Here is
the direction on the envelope.”

Pompilard read the words: “For Clara Aylesford Berwick, daughter of
Henry Berwick, Esq., to be delivered to her in the event of the death of
the undersigned, Emily Charlton.”

“I will tell you what to do,” said Pompilard. “Here come Isaac Jones of
the Chemical and Arthur Schermerhorn. Isaac shall give a receipt for the
box and deposit it in the safe of the bank, there to be kept till called
for by Miss Clara Berwick or her representative.”

“That will do,” said Toussaint.

The two gentlemen were called in, and in five minutes the proper paper
was drawn up, witnessed, and signed, and Mr. Jones gave a receipt for
the box.

Briefly Toussaint now explained to Charlton the manner in which the box
had been disposed of. Charlton was nonplussed. It would not do to
disgust the officials at the Chemical. It might hurt his credit. A
consolatory reflection struck him. “Do you say my wife is suffering?” he
asked.

“Madame will need a physician,” replied the negro. “I have sent for Dr.
Hull.”

“Well, look here, old gentleman, I’m responsible for no debts of your
contracting on her account. I call Mr. Blake to witness. If you keep her
here, it must be at your own expense. Not a cent shall you ever have
from _me_.”

“That will not import,” replied Toussaint, with the hauteur of a prince
of the blood.

Felicitating himself on having got rid of a doctor’s bill, Charlton took
his departure.

“The exceedingly poor cuss!” muttered Blake, tossing after him the stump
of a cigar.

“Let me pay you for your trouble, Mr. Blake,” said Toussaint.

“Not a copper, Marquis! I have been here only half an hour, and in that
time have read the newspaper, smoked one regalia, quality prime, and
pocketed another. If that is not pay enough, you shall make it up by
curling my hair the next time I go to a ball.”

“But take the rest of the cigars.”

“There, Marquis, you touch me on my weak point. Thank you. Good by,
Toussaint!”

Toussaint closed the door, and called to his wife in a whisper, speaking
in French, “How goes it, Juliette?”

“Hist! She sleeps. She wishes you to put this letter in the post-office
as soon as possible. If you can get the canary-bird, do it. I hope the
doctor will be here soon.”

Toussaint left at once to mail the invalid’s letter and get possession
of her bird.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                          A FUGITIVE CHATTEL.

“The providential trust of the South is to perpetuate the institution of
domestic slavery as now existing, with freest scope for its natural
development. We should at once lift ourselves intelligently to the
highest moral ground, and proclaim to all the world that we hold this
trust from God, and in its occupancy are prepared to stand or
fall.”—_Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans, 1861._


The next morning Charlton sat in his office, calculating his percentage
on a transaction in which he had just acted as mediator between borrower
and lender. The aspect of the figures, judging from his own, was
cheerful.

The office was a gloomy little den up three flights of stairs. All the
furniture was second hand, and the carpet was ragged and dirty. No broom
or dusting-cloth had for months molested the ancient, solitary reign of
the spiders on the ceiling. A pile of cheap slate-colored boxes with
labels stood against the wall opposite the stove. An iron safe served
also as a dressing-table between the windows that looked out on the
street; and over it hung a small rusty mirror in a mahogany frame with a
dirty hair-brush attached. The library of the little room was confined
to a few common books useful for immediate reference; a City Directory,
a copy of the Revised Statutes, the Clerk’s Assistant, and a dozen other
volumes, equally recondite.

There was a knock at the door, and Charlton cried out, “Come in!”

The visitor was a negro whose face was of that fuliginous hue that
bespeaks an unmixed African descent. He was of medium height, square
built, with the shoulders and carriage of an athlete. He seemed to be
about thirty years of age. His features, though of the genuine Ethiopian
type, were a refinement upon it rather than an exaggeration. The
expression was bright, hilarious, intelligent; frank and open, you would
add, unless you chanced to detect a certain quick oblique glance which
would flash upon you now and then, and vanish before you could well
realize what it meant. Across his left cheek was an ugly scar, almost
deep enough to be from a cutlass wound.

“Good morning, Peculiar. Take a chair.”

“Not that name, if you please, Mr. Charlton,” said the negro, closing
the door and looking eagerly around to see if there had been a listener.
“Remember, you are to call me Jacobs.”

“Ah yes, I forgot. Well, Jacobs, I am glad to see you; but you are a few
minutes before the time. It isn’t yet twelve. Just step into that little
closet and wait there till I call you.”

The negro did as he was directed, and Charlton closed the door upon him.
Five minutes after, the clock of Trinity struck twelve, and there was
another knock at the door.

Before we suffer it to be answered, we must go back and describe an
interview that took place some seven weeks previously, in the same
office, between Charlton and the negro.

A year before that first interview, Charlton had, in some accidental
way, been associated with a well-known antislavery counsel, in a case in
which certain agents of the law for the rendition of fugitive slaves had
been successfully foiled. Though Charlton’s services had been
unessential and purely mercenary, he had shared in the victor’s fame;
and the grateful colored men who employed him carried off the illusion
that he was a powerful friend of the slave. And so when Mr. Peculiar,
_alias_ Mr. Jacobs, found himself in New York, a fugitive from bondage,
he was recommended, if he had any little misgivings as to his immunity
from persecution and seizure, to apply to Mr. Charlton as to a fountain
of legal profundity and philanthropic expansiveness. Greater men than
our colored brethren have jumped to conclusions equally far from the
truth in regard not only to lawyers, but military generals.

Charlton’s primary investigations, in his first interview with Peek, had
reference to the amount of funds that the negro could raise through his
own credit and that of his friends. This amount the lawyer found to be
small; and he was about to express his dissatisfaction in emphatic
terms, when a new consideration withheld him. Affecting that ruling
passion of universal benevolence which the fond imagination of his
colored client had attributed to him, he pondered a moment, then spoke
as follows:

“You tell me, Jacobs, you are in the delicate position of a fugitive
slave. I love the slave. Am I not a friend and a brother, and all that?
But if you expect me to serve you, you must be entirely frank,—disguise
nothing,—disclose to me your real history, name, and situation,—make a
clean breast of it, in short.”

“That I will do, sir. I know, if I trust a lawyer at all, I ought to
trust him wholly.”

There was nothing in the negro’s language to indicate the traditional
slave of the stage and the novel, who always says “Massa,” and speaks a
gibberish indicated to the eye by a cheap misspelling of words. A
listener who had not seen him would have supposed it was an educated
white gentleman who was speaking; for even in the tone of his voice
there was an absence of the African peculiarity.

“My friends tell me I may trust you, sir,” said Jacobs, advancing and
looking Charlton square in the face. Charlton must have blenched for an
instant, for the negro, as a slight but significant compression of the
lip seemed to portend, drew back from confidence. “Can I trust you?” he
continued, as if he were putting the question as much to himself as to
Charlton. There was a pause.

Charlton took from his drawer a letter, which he handed to the negro,
with the remark, “You know how to read, I suppose.”

Without replying. Peek took the letter and glanced over it,—a letter of
thanks from a committee of colored citizens in return for Charlton’s
services in the case already alluded to. Peek was reassured by this
document. He returned it, and said, “I will trust you, Mr. Charlton.”

“Take a seat then, Jacobs, and I will make such notes of your story as I
may think advisable.”

Peek did as he was invited; but Charlton seemed interested mainly in
dates and names. A more faithful reporter would have presented the
memorabilia of the narrative somewhat in this form:

“Was born on Herbert’s plantation in Marshall County, Mississippi.
Mother a house-slave. When he was four years old she was sold and taken
to Louisiana. His real name not Jacobs. That name he took recently in
New York. The name he was christened by was PECULIAR INSTITUTION. It was
given to him by one Ewell, a drunken overseer, and was soon shortened to
Peek, which name has always stuck to him. Was brought up a body servant
till his fourteenth year. Soon found that the way for a slave to get
along was to lie, but to lie so as not to be found out. Grew to be so
expert a liar, that among his fellows he was called the lawyer. No
offence to you, Mr. Charlton.

“As soon as he could carry a plate, was made to wait at table. Used to
hear the gentlemen and ladies talk at meals. Could speak their big words
before he knew their meaning. Kept his ears and eyes well open. An old
Spanish negro, named Alva, taught him by stealth to read and write. When
the young ladies took their lessons in music, this child stood by and
learnt as much as they did, if not more. Learnt to play so well on the
piano that he was often called on to show off before visitors.

“Was whipped twice, and then not badly, at Herbert’s: once for stealing
some fruit, once for trying to teach a slave to read. Family very pious.
Old Herbert used to read prayers every morning. But he didn’t mind
making a woman give up one husband and take another. Didn’t mind
separating mother and child. Didn’t mind shooting a slave for
disobedience. Saw him do it once. Herbert had told Big Sam not to go
with a certain metif girl; for Herbert was as particular about matching
his niggers as about his horses and sheep. A jealous negro betrayed Sam.
Old Herbert found Sam in the metif girl’s hut, and shot him dead,
without giving him a chance to beg for mercy.[2] Well, Sam was only a
nigger; and didn’t Mr. Herbert have family prayers, and go to church
twice every Sunday? Who should save his soul alive, if not Mr. Herbert?

“In spite of prayers, however, things didn’t go right on the plantation.
The estate was heavily mortgaged. Finally the creditors took it, and the
family was broken up. Peculiar was sold to one Harkman, a speculator,
who let him out as an apprentice in New Orleans, in Collins’s
machine-shop for the repair of steam-engines. But Collins failed, and
then Peek became a waiter in the St. Charles Hotel. Here he stayed six
years. Cut his eye-teeth during that time. Used to talk freely with
Northern visitors about slavery. Studied the big map of the United
States that hung in the reading-room. Learnt all about the hotels, North
and South. Stretched his ears wide whenever politics were discussed.

“Having waited on the principal actors and singers of the day at the St.
Charles, he had a free pass to the theatres. Used often to go behind the
scenes. Waited on Blitz, Anderson, and other jugglers. Saw Anderson show
up the humbug, as he called it, of spiritual manifestations. Went to
church now and then. Heard some bad preachers, and some good. Heard Mr.
Clapp preach. Heard Mr. Palmer preach. After hearing the latter on the
duties of slaves, tried to run away. Was caught and taken to a new
patent whipping-machine, recently introduced by a Yankee. Here was left
for a whipping. Bought off the Yankee with five dollars, and taught him
how to stain my back so as to imitate the marks of the lash. Thus no
discredit was brought on the machine. A week after was sold to a Red
River planter, Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.

“Can never speak of this man calmly. He had a slave, a woman white as
you are, sir, that he beat, and then tried to make me take and treat as
my wife. When he found I had cheated him, he just had me tied up and
whipped till three strong men were tired out with the work. It’s a
wonder how I survived. My whole back is seamed deep with the scars. This
scar over my cheek is from a blow he himself gave me that day with a
strip of raw hide. He sold me to Mr. Barnwell in Texas as soon as I
could walk, which wasn’t for some weeks. I left, resolving to come back
and kill Ratcliff. I meant to do this so earnestly, that the hope of it
almost restored me. Revenge was my one thought, day and night. I felt
that I could not be at ease till that man Ratcliff had paid for his
barbarity. Even now I sometimes wake full of wrath from my dreams,
imagining I have him at my mercy.

“I went to Texas with a bad reputation. Was put among the naughty
darkies, and sent to the cotton-field. Braxton, the overseer, had been a
terrible fellow in his day, but I happened to be brought to him at the
time he was beginning to get scared about his soul. Soon had things my
own way. Braxton made me a sort of sub-overseer; and I got more work out
of the field-hands by kindness than Braxton had ever got by the lash.

“One day I discovered on a neighboring plantation an old woman who
proved to be my mother. She had been brought here from Louisiana. She
was on the point of dying. She knew me, first from hearing my name, and
then from a cross she had pricked in India ink on my breast. She hadn’t
seen me for sixteen years. Had been having a hard time of it. Her hut
was close by a slough, a real fever-hole, and she had been sick most of
the time the last three years.

“The old woman flashed up bright on finding me: gave me a long talk;
told me little stories of when I was a child; told me how my father had
been sold to an Alabama man, and shot dead for trying to break away from
a whipping-post. All at once she said she saw angels, drew me down to
her, and dropped away quiet as a lamb, so that, though my forehead lay
on her breast, I didn’t know when she died.

“After this loss, I was pretty serious. Wasn’t badly treated. My master,
an educated gentleman, was absent in New Orleans most of the time.
Overseer Braxton, after the big scare he got about his soul, grew to be
humane, and left almost everything to me. But I felt sick of life, and
wanted to die, though not before I had killed Ratcliff. One day I heard
that Corinna, a quadroon girl, a slave on the plantation, had fallen
into a strange state, during which she preached as no minister had ever
preached before. I had known her as a very ordinary and rather stupid
girl. Went to see her in one of her trances. Found that report had
fallen short of the real case. Was astonished at what I saw and heard.
Saw what no white man would believe, and so felt I was wiser on one
point than all the white men. My interviews with Corinna soon made me
forget about Ratcliff; and when she died, six weeks after my first
visit, felt my mind full of things it would take me a lifetime to think
out and settle.

“After Corinna’s death, I stayed some months on the plantation, though I
had a chance to leave. Stayed because I had an easy time and because I
found I could be of use to the slaves; and further, because I had
resolved, if ever I got free, it should be by freeing myself. A white
man, a Mr. Vance, whose life I had saved, wanted to buy and free me. I
made him spend his money so it would show for more than just the freeing
of one man. But Braxton, the overseer, who was letting me have pretty
much my own way, at last died; and Hawks, his successor, was of opinion
that the way to get work out of niggers was to treat them like dogs; and
so, one pleasant moonlight night, I made tracks for Galveston. Here, by
means of false papers, I managed to get passage to New Orleans, and
there hid myself on board a Yankee schooner bound for New London,
Connecticut. When she was ten days out, I made my appearance on deck,
much to the surprise of the crew. Fifteen days afterwards we arrived in
the harbor of New London.

“Old Skinner, the captain, had been playing possum with me all the
voyage,—keeping dark, and pretending to be my friend, meaning all the
while to have me arrested in port. No sooner had he dropped anchor than
he sent on shore for the officers. But the mate tipped me the wink.
‘Darkey,’ said he, ‘do you see that little green fishing-boat yonder?
Well, that belongs to old Payson, an all-fired abolitionist and friend
of the nigger. Our Captain and crew are all under hatches, and now if
you don’t want to be a lost nigger, jest you drop down quietly astern,
swim off to Payson, and tell him who you are, and that the
slave-catchers are after you. If old Payson don’t put you through after
that, it will be because it isn’t old Payson.’

“I did as the mate told me. Reached the fishing-boat. Found old Payson,
a gnarled, tough, withered old sea-dog, who comprehended at once what
was in the wind, and cried, ‘Ha! ha!’ like the war-horse that snuffs the
battle. Just as I got into the boat, Captain Skinner came up on the
schooner’s deck, and saw what had taken place. The schooner’s small boat
had been sent ashore for the officers whose business it was to carry out
the Fugitive-Slave Law. What could Skinner do? Visions of honors and
testimonials and rewards and dinners from Texan slaveholders, because of
his loyalty to the _institution_ in returning a runaway nigger, suddenly
vanished. He paced the deck in a rage. To add to his fury, old Payson,
while I stood at the bows, dripping and grinning, came sailing up before
a stiff breeze, and passed within easy speaking distance, Payson pouring
in such a volley of words that Skinner was dumbfounded. ‘I’ll make New
London too hot for you, you blasted old skinflint!’ cried Payson. ‘You’d
sell your own sister just as soon as you’d sell this nigger, you would!
Let me catch you ashore, and I’ll give you the blastedest thrashing you
ever got yet, you infernal doughface, you! Go and lick the boots of
slaveholders. It’s jest what you was born for.’

“And the little sail-boat passed on out of hearing. Payson got in the
track of one of the spacious steamboats that ply between the cities of
Long Island Sound and New York, and managed to throw a line, so as to be
drawn up to the side. We then got on board. In six hours, we were in New
York. Payson put me in the proper hands, bade me good by, returned to
his sail-boat, and made the best speed he could back to New London,
fired with hopes of pitching into that ‘meanest of all mean skippers,
old Skinner.’

“This was three years ago. The despatch agents of the underground
railroad hurried me off to Canada. As soon as I judged it safe, I
returned to New York. Here I got a good situation as head-waiter at
Bunker’s. Am married. Have a boy, named Sterling, a year old. Am very
happy with my wife and child and my hired piano. But now and then I and
my wife have an alarm lest I shall be seized and carried back to
slavery.”

Here Mr. Institution finished his story, which we have condensed,
generally using, however, his own words. Charlton did not subject him to
much cross-questioning. He asked, _first_, what was the name of the
schooner in which Peek had escaped from Texas. It was the Albatross.
Charlton made a note. _Second_, did Mr. Barnwell, Peek’s late master,
have an agent in New Orleans? Yes; Peek had often seen the name on
packages: P. Herman & Co. And, _third_, did Peek marry his wife in
Canada? Yes. Then she, too, is a fugitive slave, eh?

Peek seemed reluctant to answer this question, and flashed a quick,
distrustful glance on Charlton. The latter assumed an air of
indifference, and said, “Perhaps you had better not answer that
question; it is immaterial.”

Again Peek’s mind was relieved.

“That is enough for the present, Mr. Jacobs,” continued Charlton. “If I
have occasion to see you, I can always find you at Bunker’s, I suppose.”

“Yes, Mr. Charlton. Inquire for John Jacobs. Keep a bright lookout for
me, and you sha’n’t be the loser. Will five dollars pay you?”

Charlton wavered between the temptation to clutch more at the moment,
and the prospect of making his new client available in other ways. At
length taking the money he replied, “I will make it do for the present.
Good morning.”




                               CHAPTER V.
                             A RETROSPECT.

“Any slave refusing obedience to any command may be flogged till he
submits or dies. Not by occasional abuses alone, but by the universal
law of the Southern Confederacy, the existing system of slavery violates
all the moral laws of Christianity.”—_Rev. Newman Hall._


Before removing Peculiar from the closet which at Charlton’s bidding he
has entered, we must go back to the time when he was a slave, and
amplify and illustrate certain parts of his abridged narrative. His
life, up to the period when he comes upon our little stage, divides
itself into three eras, all marked by their separate moral experiences.
In the _first_, he felt the slave’s crowning curse,—the absence of that
sense of personal responsibility which freedom alone can give; and he
fell into the demoralization which is the inherent consequence of the
slave’s condition. In the _second_ era, he encountered his mother, and
then the frozen fountain of his affections was unsealed and melted. In
the _third_, he met Corinna, and for the first time looked on life with
the eyes of belief.

It will seem idle to many advanced minds in this nineteenth century to
use words to show the wrong of slavery. Why not as well spend breath in
denouncing burglary or murder? But slavery is still a power in the
world. We are daily told it is the proper _status_ for the colored man
in this country; that he ought to covet slavery as much as a white man
ought to covet freedom. Besides, since Peek has confessed himself at one
time of his life a liar, we must show why he ought logically to have
been one.

To blame a slave for lying and stealing, is about as fair as it would be
to blame a man for using strategy in escaping from an assassin. For the
slaveholder, if not the assassin of the slave’s life, is the assassin of
his liberty, his manhood, his moral dignity.

Mr. Pugh of Ohio, Vallandigham’s associate on the gubernatorial ticket
for 1863, presents his thesis thus: “When the slaves are fit for
freedom, they will be free.”

The profundity of this oracular proposition is only equalled in the
remark of the careful grandmother, who declared she would never let a
boy go into the water till he knew how to swim.

“_When_ the slaves are fit!” As if the road were clear for them to
achieve their fitness! Why, the slave is not only robbed of his labor,
but of his very chances as a thinking being. Yes, with a charming
consistency, the slavery barons, the Hammonds and the Davises, while
they tell us the negro is unfitted for mental cultivation, institute the
severest penal laws against all attempts to teach the slave to read!

The first natural instinct of the slave, black or white, towards his
master is, to cheat and baffle that armed embodiment of wrong, who
stands to him in the relation of a thief and a tyrant. Thus, from his
earliest years, lying and fraud become legitimate and praiseworthy in
the slave’s eyes; for slavery, except under rare conditions, crushes out
the moral life in the victim.

Any conscience he may have, being subordinate to the conscience of his
master, is kept stunted or perverted. The slave may wish to be true to
his wife; but his master may compel him to repudiate her and take
another. He may object to being the agent of an injustice; but the snap
of the whip or the revolver may be the reply to any conscientious
scruples he may offer against obedience.

In the first stage of his slave-life, Peculiar probably gave little
thought to the moral bearings of his lot; although old Alva, his
instructor, who was something of a casuist, had offered him not a few
hard nuts to crack in the way of knotty questions. But Peculiar did
precisely what you or I would have done under similar circumstances: he
taxed his ingenuity to find how he could most safely shirk the tasks
that were put upon him. Knowing that his taskmasters had no right to his
labor, that they were, in fact, robbing him of what was his own, he did
what he could to fool and circumvent them. Thus he grew to be, by a
necessity of his condition, the most consummate of hypocrites and the
most intrepid and successful of liars. At eighteen he was a match for
Talleyrand in using speech to conceal his thoughts.

He saw that, if slaves were well treated, it was because the prudent
master believed that good treatment would pay. Humanity was gauged by
considerations of cotton. Thus the very kindnesses of a master had the
taint of an intense selfishness; and Peculiar, while readily availing
himself of all indulgences, correctly appreciated the spirit in which
they were granted.

The devotional element seems to be especially active in the negro; but
it has little chance for rational development, dwarfed and kept from the
light as the intellect is. The uneducated slave, like the Italian
brigand,—indeed, like many worthy people who go to church,—thinks it an
impertinence to mix up morality with religion. He agrees fully with the
distinguished American divine, who the other Sunday began his sermon
with these words, “Brethren, I am not here to teach you morality, but to
save your souls.” As if a saving faith could exist allied to a corrupt
morality!

Peculiar could not come in contact with a sham, however solemn and
pretentious, without applying to it the puncture of his skeptical
analysis. He saw his master, Herbert, go to church on a Sunday and kneel
in prayer, and on a Monday shoot down Big Sam for attaching himself to
the wrong woman. He saw the Rev. Mr. Bloom take the murderer by the
hand, as if nothing had happened more tragical than the shooting of a
raccoon.

And then Peculiar cogitated, wondering what religion could be, if its
professors made such slight account of robbery and murder. Was it the
observance of certain forms for the propitiation of an arbitrary,
capricious, and unamiable Power, who smiled on injustice and barbarity?
The more he thought of it, the more inexplicable grew the puzzle.
Herbert evidently regarded himself as one of the elect; and Mr. Bloom
encouraged him in his security. If heaven was to be won by such kind of
service as theirs, Peculiar concluded that he would prefer taking his
chances in hell; and so he became a scoffer.

His residence in New Orleans, in enlarging the sphere of his
experiences, did not bring him the light that could quicken the
devotional part of his nature. Dwelling most of the time in a hotel
which frequently contained three or four hundred inmates, he was thrown
among white men of all grades, intellectual and moral. He instinctively
felt his superiority both ways to not a few of these. It was therefore a
swindling lie to say that the blacks were born to be the thrall of the
whites, that slavery was the proper _status_ of the black in this or any
country. If it were true that _stupid_ blacks ought to be slaves, so
must it be true of the same order of whites.

He heard preachers stand up in their pulpits, and, like the Rev. Dr.
Palmer, blaspheme God by calling slavery a Divine institution. “Would it
have been tolerated so long, if it were not?” they asked, with the
confidence of a conjurer when he means to hocus you. To which Peek might
have answered, “Would theft and murder have been tolerated so long, if
they were not equally Divine?” The Northern clergymen he encountered
held usually South-side views of the subject, and so his prejudices
against the cloth grew to be somewhat too sweeping and indiscriminate.
Judged of by its relations to slavery, religion seemed to him an
audacious system of impositions, raised to fortify a lie and a wrong by
claiming a Divine sanction for merely human creeds and inventions.

This persuasion was deepened when he found there were intelligent white
men utterly incredulous as to a future state, and that the people who
went to church were many of them practically, and many of them
speculatively, infidels. The remaining fraction might be, for all he
knew, not only devout, but good and just. Indeed, he had met some such,
but they could be almost counted on his ten fingers.

One day at the St. Charles he overheard a discussion between Mr. James
Sterling, an English traveller, and the Rev. Dr. Manners of Virginia.
Slaves are good listeners; and Peculiar had sharpened his sense of
hearing by the frequent exercise of it under difficulties. He was an
amateur in key-holes. On this occasion he had only to open a ventilating
window at the top of a partition, and all that the disputants might say
would be for his benefit.

“Will you deny, sir,” asked the reverend Doctor, “that slavery has the
sanction of Scripture?”

“I exclude that inquiry as impertinent at present,” said Sterling. “If
Scripture authorized murder, then it would not be murder that would be
right, but Scripture that would be wrong. And so in regard to slavery.
On that particular point Scripture must not be admitted as
authoritative. It cannot override the enlightened human conscience. It
cannot render null the deductions of science and of reason on a question
that manifestly comes within their sphere.”

“Ah! if you reject Scripture, then I have nothing more to say,” retorted
the Doctor. But, after a pause, he added, “Have you not generally found
the slaves well treated and contented?”

“A system under which they are well treated and made content,” replied
Sterling, “is really the most to be deplored and condemned. If slavery
could so brutalize men’s minds as to make them hug their chains and
glory in degradation, it would be, in my eyes, doubly cursed. But it is
not so; the slaves are not happy, and I thank God for it. There is
manhood enough left in them to make them at least unhappy.”[3]

“You assume the equality of the races,” interposed the Doctor.

“It is unnecessary for my argument to make any such assumption,” said
Sterling. “I have found that many black men are superior to many white
men, and some of those white men slaveholders. I do not _assume_ this. I
know it. I have seen it. But even if the black men were inferior, I
hold, that man, as man, is an end unto himself, and that to use him as a
brute means to the ends of other men is to outrage the laws of God. I
take my stand far above the question of happiness or unhappiness. Have
you noticed the young black man, called Peek, who waits behind my chair
at table?”

“Yes, a bright-looking lad. He anticipates your wants well. You have fed
him, I suppose?”

“I have given him nothing. I have put a few questions to him, that is
all; and what I have to say is, that he is superior in respect to brains
to nine tenths of the white youth who suck juleps in your bar-rooms or
kill time at your billiard-tables.”

“As soon as the Abolitionists will stop their infatuated clamor,”
replied the Doctor, “the condition of the slave will be gradually
improved, and we shall give more and more care to his religious
education.”

“So long as the negro is ruled by force,” returned Mr. Sterling, “no
forty-parson power of preaching can elevate his character. It is a
savage mockery to prate of _duty_ to one in whom we have emasculated all
power of will. We cannot make a moral intelligence of a being we use as
a mere muscular force.”

“All that the South wants,” exclaimed the Doctor, “is to be let alone in
the matter of slavery. If there are any alleviations in the system which
can be safely applied, be sure they will not be lacking as soon as we
are let alone by the fanatics of the North. Leave the solution of the
problem to the intelligence and humanity of the South.”

“Not while new cotton-lands pay so well! Be sure, reverend sir, if the
South cannot quickly find a solution of this slave problem, God will
find one for them, and that, trust me, will be a violent one. American
civilization and American slavery can no longer exist together. One or
the other must be destroyed. For my part, I can’t believe it to be the
Divine purpose that a remnant of barbarism shall overthrow the
civilization of a new world. Slavery must succumb.”[4]

“I recommend you, Mr. Sterling, not to raise your voice quite so high
when you touch upon these dangerous topics here at the South. I will bid
you good evening, sir.”




                              CHAPTER VI.
                       PIN-HOLES IN THE CURTAIN.

“The reader will here be led into the great, ill-famed land of the
   marvellous.”
                                                     _Ennemoser._

The conversation between the English traveller and the Virginia Doctor
of Divinity was brought to a close, and Peek jumped down from the table
on which he had been listening, refreshed and inspired by the eloquent
words he had taken in.

A week afterwards he made a second attempt to escape from bondage. He
was caught and sold to Mr. Carberry Ratcliff, who had an estate on the
Red River. Here, failing in obedience to an atrocious order, he received
a punishment, the scars of which always remained to show the degree of
its barbarity. He was soon after sent to Texas, where he became the
slave of Mr. Barnwell.

Here he was at first put to the roughest work in the cotton-field. It
tasked all his ingenuity to slight or dodge it. Luckily for him, about
the time of his arrival he found an opportunity to make profitable use
of the ecclesiastical knowledge he had derived from the Rev. Messrs.
Bloom and Palmer.

Braxton, the overseer, had been frightened into a concern for his soul.
He had a heart-complaint which the doctor told him might carry him off
any day in a flash. A travelling preacher completed the work of terror
by satisfying him he was in a fair way of being damned. The prospect did
not seem cheerful to Braxton. He had found exhilaration and comfort in
whipping intractable niggers. The amusement now began to pall. Besides,
the doctor had told him to shun excitement.

In this state of things, enter Mr. Peculiar Institution. That gentleman
soon learnt what was the matter; and he contrived that the overseer,
seemingly by accident, should overhear him at prayers. Braxton had heard
praying, but never any that had the unction of Peek’s. From that time
forth Peek had him completely under his control.

Peek did not abuse his authority. He ruled wisely, though despotically.
At last the accidental encounter with his dying mother introduced a new
world of thoughts and emotions. Short as was his opportunity for
acquaintance with her, such a wealth of tenderness and love as she
lavished upon him developed a hitherto inactive and undreamed-of force
in his soul. The affectional part of his nature was touched. She told
him of the delight his father used to take in playing with him, an
infant; and when he thought of that father’s fate, shot down for
resisting the lash, he felt as if he could tear the first upholder of
slavery he might meet limb from limb, in his rage.

The mother died, and then all seemed worthless and insipid to Peek.
Having seen how little heed was paid to the feelings of slaves in
separating those of opposite sex who had become attached to each other,
he early in life resolved to shun all sexual intimacies, till he should
be free. He saw that in slavery the distinction between licit and
illicit connections was a playful mockery. The thought of being the
father of a slave was horrible to him; and neither threats of the lash
nor coaxings from masters and overseers could induce him to enter into
those temporary alliances which Mr. Herbert used pleasantly to call “the
holy bonds of matrimony.” His resolution grew to be a passion stronger
even than desire.

Thus the affections were undeveloped in him till he encountered his
mother. He knew of no relative on earth, after her, to love,—no one to
be loved by. Life stretched before him flat, dull, and unprofitable; and
death,—what was that but the plunge into nothingness?

True, Mr. Herbert and the clergyman who drank claret with Mr. Herbert
after the latter had shot down Big Sam talked of a life beyond the
grave; but could such humbugs as they were be believed? Could the
stories be trustworthy, which were based mainly on the truth of a book
which all the preachers (so he supposed) declared was the all-sufficient
authority for slavery? Well might Peek distrust the promise that was
said to rest only on writings that were made to supply the apology of
injustice and bloody wrong!

While in this state of mind, he heard of Corinna, the quadroon girl.
Unattractive in person, slow of apprehension, and rarely uttering a
word, she had hitherto excited only his pity. But now she fell into
trances during which she seemed to be a new and entirely different
being. At his first interview with her when she fell into one of these
inexplicable states, she seized his hand, and imitating the look,
actions, and very tone of his dying mother, poured forth such a flood of
exhortations, comfortings, warnings, and encouragements, that he was
bewildered and confounded.

What could it all mean? The power that spoke through Corinna claimed to
be his mother, and seemed to identify itself, as far as revelations to
the understanding could go. It recalled the little incidents that had
passed between them in the presence of no other witness. It pierced to
his inmost secrets,—secrets which he well knew he had communicated to no
human being.

And yet Peek saw upon reflection that, though a preternatural faculty
was plainly at work,—a faculty that took possession of his mind as a
photographer does of all the stones, flaws, and stains in the wall of a
building,—there was no sufficient identification of that faculty with
the individual he knew as his mother. Little that might not already have
been in his own mind, long hidden, perhaps, and forgotten, was revealed
to him.

He also concluded that the intelligence, whatever it might be, was a
fallible one, and that it would be folly to give up to its guidance his
own free judgment.

He renewed his interviews daily as long as the quadroon girl lived.
Skeptical, cautious, and meditative, he must test all these phenomena
over and over again. And he did test them. He established conditions. He
made records on the spot. He removed all possibilities of collusion and
deception. And still the same phenomena!

Nor were they confined to the imperfect wonders of clairvoyance and
prophecy. Once in the broad daylight, when he was alone with the invalid
girl in her hut, and no other human being within a distance of a quarter
of a mile, she was lifted horizontally before his eyes into the air, and
kept there swaying about at least a third of a minute, while the drapery
of her dress clung to her person as if held by an invisible hand.[5]

A bandore—a stringed musical instrument the name of which has been
converted by the negroes into _banjo_—hung on a nail in the wall. One
moonlight evening, when no third person was present, this African lute
was detached by some invisible force and carried by it through the room
from one end to the other! It would touch Peek on the head, then float
away through the air, visible to sight, and sending forth from its
chords, smitten by no mortal fingers, delectable strains. The same
invisible power would tune the instrument, tightening the strings and
trying them with a delicate skill; and then it would hang the banjo on
its nail.

After this improvised concert, Peek felt all at once a warm living hand
upon his forehead, first lovingly patting it and then passing round his
cheek, under his chin, and up on the other side of his face. He grasped
the hand, and it returned his pressure. It was a hand much larger than
Corinna’s, and she lay on her back several feet from him, too far to
touch him with any part of her person. Plainly in the moonlight he could
see it,—a perfect hand, resembling his mother’s! It shaded off into
vacuity above the wrist, and, even while he held it solid and
flesh-like, melted all at once, like an impalpable ether, in his
grasp.[6]

These phenomena, with continual variations, were repeated day after day
and night after night. Flowers would drop from the ceiling into his
hands, delicious odors of fruits would diffuse themselves through the
room. A music like that of the Swiss bell-ringers would break upon the
silence, continuing for a minute or more. A pen would start up from the
table and write an intelligible sentence. A castanet would be played on
and dashed about furiously, as if by some invisible Bacchante. A
clatter, as of the hammering of a hundred carpenters, would suddenly
make itself heard. A voice would speak intelligible sentences, sometimes
using a tin trumpet for the purpose. Articles of furniture would pass
about the room and cross each other with a swiftness and precision that
no mortal could imitate. The noise of dancers, using their feet, and
keeping time, would be heard on the floor.

Once Corinna asked him to leave his watch with her. He did so. When he
was several rods from the house she called to him, “You are sure you
haven’t your watch?” “Yes, sure,” replied Peek. He hurried home, a
distance of two miles, without meeting a human being. On undressing to
go to bed, he found his watch in his vest pocket.

These physical thaumaturgies produced upon Peek a more astounding effect
than all the evidences of mind-reading and clairvoyance. In the
communications made to him by the “power,” there was generally something
unsatisfying or incomplete. He would, for instance, think of some
departed friend,—a white man, perhaps,—and, without uttering or writing
a word, would desire some manifestation from that friend. Immediately
Corinna would strip from her arm the drapery, and show on her skin,
written in clear crimson letters, some brief message signed by the right
name. And then the supposed bearer of that name (speaking through
Corinna) would correctly recall incidents of his acquaintance with
Peek.[7]

Thus much was amazing and satisfactory; but when Peek analyzed it all in
thought, he found that no sufficient proof of identification had been
given. A “power,” able to probe his own mind, might get from it all that
was spoken relative to the individual claiming identity; might even know
how to imitate that individual’s handwriting. Peek concluded that one
must be himself in a spiritual state in order to identify a spirit. The
so-called “communications” he found, for the most part, monotonous. They
were, some of them, above Corinna’s capacity, but not above his own.
Erroneous answers were not unfrequently given, especially in reply to
questions upon matters of worldly concern. He was repeatedly told of
places where he could find silver and gold, and never truly.

He concluded that to surrender one’s faith implicitly to the word of a
spirit _out_ of the flesh, either on moral or on secular questions, was
about as unwise as it would be to give one’s self up to the control of a
spirit _in_ the flesh,—a mere mortal like himself. He was satisfied by
his experience that it was not in the power of spirits to impair his own
freedom of will and independence of thought, so long as he exercised
them manfully. And this assurance was to his mind not only a guaranty of
his own spiritual relationship, but it pointed to a supreme, omniscient
Spirit, the gracious Father of all. If the words that came through
Corinna had proved, in every instance, infallible, what would Peek have
become but a passive, unreasoning recipient, as sluggish in thought as
Corinna herself!

We have said that the “communications” were generally on a level with
Peek’s own mind. There was once an exception. Said a very learned spirit
(learned, as to him it seemed) one night, speaking through Corinna:—

“Attend, even if you do not understand all that I may utter. The great
purpose of creation is to exercise and develop independent, individual
thought, and through that, a will in harmony with the Supreme Wisdom.
Men are subjected to the discipline of the earth-sphere, not to be happy
there, but to qualify themselves for happiness,—to deserve happiness.

“What would all created wonders be without thought to appreciate and
admire them? Study is worship. Admiration is worship. Of what account
would be the starry heavens, if there were not _mind_ to study and to
wonder at creation, and thus to fit itself for adoration of the Creator?

“My friend Lessing, when he was on your earth, once said, that, if God
would _give_ him truth, he would decline the gift, and prefer the labor
of seeking it for himself. But most men are mentally so inert, they
would rather believe than examine; and so they flatter themselves that
their loose, unreasoning acquiescence is a saving belief. Pernicious
error! All the mistakes and transgressions of men arise either from
feeble, imperfect thinking, or from not thinking at all.

“The heart is much,—is principal; but men must not hope to rise until
they do their own thinking. They cannot think by proxy. They must
exercise the mind on all that pertains to their moral and mental growth.
You may perhaps sometimes wish that you too, like this poor, torpid,
parasitical creature, Corinna, might be a medium for outside spirits to
influence and speak through. But beware! You know not what you wish.
Learn to prize your individuality. The wisdom Corinna may utter does not
become hers by appropriation. In her mind it falls on barren soil.

“We all are more or less mediums; but the innocent man is he who resists
and overcomes temptation, not he who never felt its power; and the wise
man is he who, at once recipient and repellent, seeks to appropriate and
assimilate with his being whatever of good he can get from all the
instrumentalities of nature, divine and human, angelic and demoniac.”

Peek derived an indefinable but awakening impression from these words,
and asked, “Is the Bible true?”

The reply was: “It is true only to him who construes it aright. If you
find in it the justification of American slavery, then to you it is not
true. All the theologies which would impose, as essentials of faith,
speculative dogmas or historical declarations which do not pertain to
the practice of the highest human morality and goodness, as taught in
the words and the example of Christ, are, in this respect at least,
irreverent, mischievous, and untrue.”

“How do I know,” asked Peek, “that you are not a devil?”

“I am aware of no way,” was the reply, “by which, in your present state,
you can know absolutely that I am not a devil,—even Beelzebub, the
prince of devils. Each man’s measure of truth must be the reason God has
given him. But of this you may rest assured: it is a great point gained
to be able to believe really even in a devil. Given a devil, you will
one day work yourself so far into the light as to believe in an angel.”

“Is there a God?” asked the slave.

“God is,” said the spirit, “and says to thee, as once to Pascal, ‘=Be
consoled! Thou wouldst not seek me, if thou hadst not found me.=’”

These were almost the only words Peek ever received through Corinna that
struck him by their superiority to what he himself could have imagined;
and he was impressed by them accordingly. Though they were above his
comprehension at the moment, he thought he might grow up to them, and he
caused them to be repeated slowly while he wrote them down.

Corinna died, and Peek kept on thinking.

What rapture in thought now! What a new meaning in life! What a new
universe for the heart was there in love! Henceforth the burden and the
mystery of “all this unintelligible world” was lightened if not
dissolved; for death was but the step to a higher plane of life. The
old, trite emblem of the chrysalis was no mere barren fancy. Continuous
life was now to his mind a _certainty_; arrived at, too, by the
deductions of experience, sense, and reason, as well as intimated by the
eager thirst of the heart.

The process by which he made the phenomena he had witnessed conduce to
this conclusion was briefly this. An invisible, intelligent _force_ had
lifted heavy articles before his eyes, played on musical instruments,
written sentences, and spoken words. This _force_ claimed to be a human
spirit in a human form, of tissues too fine to be visible to our grosser
senses. It could pass, like heat and electricity, through what might
seem material impediments. It had a plastic power to reincarnate itself
at will, and imitate human forms and colors, under certain
circumstances, and it gave partial proof of this by showing a hand, an
arm, or a foot undistinguishable from one of flesh and blood. On one
occasion the human form entire had been displayed, been touched, and had
then dissolved into invisibility and intangibility before him.

Now he must either take the word of this intelligent “force,” that it
was an independent spiritual entity, or he must account for its acts by
some other supposition. The “force,” in its communications to his mind,
had shown it was not infallible; it had erred in some of its
predictions, although in others it had been wonderfully correct. If its
explanation of itself was untrue,—if no outside intelligent force were
operating,—the other supposition was, that the phenomena were a
proceeding either from himself, the spectator, or from Corinna. And
here, without knowing it, Peek found himself speculating on the theory
of Count Gasparin,[8] who has had the candor to brave the laugh of
modern science (a very different thing from _scientia_) by recounting as
facts what Professor Faraday and our Cambridge _savans_ denounce as
impositions or delusions.

Peek was therefore reduced to these two explanations: either the “force”
was a spirit (call it, if you please, an outside power), as it claimed
to be, or it was a faculty unconsciously exerted by the mortals present.
In either case, it supplied an assurance of spirit and immortality; for
it might fairly be presumed that such wonderful powers would not be
wrapt up in the human organism except for a purpose; and that purpose,
what could it be but the future development of those powers under
suitable conditions? So either of Peek’s hypotheses led to the same
precious and ineffable conviction of continuous life,—of the soul’s
immortality!

On one occasion a Northern Professor, who had given his days to the
positive sciences, and who believed in matter and motion, and nothing
else, passed a week, while visiting the South for his health, with his
old friend and classmate, Mr. Barnwell; and Peek overheard the following
conversation.

“How do you get rid of all this testimony on the subject?” asked Mr.
Barnwell.

“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed the Professor. “That a poor benighted
nigger should believe this trash isn’t surprising. That poets, like
Willis and Mrs. Browning, should give in to it may be tolerated, for
they are privileged. In them the imaginative faculty is irregularly
developed. But that sane and intelligent white men like Edmonds, and
Tallmadge, and Bowditch, and Brownson, and Bishop Clark of Rhode Island,
and Howitt, and Chambers, and Coleman, and Dr. Gray, and Wilkinson, and
Mountford, and Robert Dale Owen, should gravely swallow these idiotic
stories, is lamentable indeed. The spectacle becomes humiliating, and I
sigh, ‘Poor human nature!’”

“But Peek is far from being a benighted nigger,” replied Barnwell; “he
can read and write as well as you can; he is the best shot in the
county; he is a good mechanic; for a time he waited on one of the great
jugglers at the St. Charles; he can explain or cleverly imitate all the
tricks of all the conjurers; he is not a man to be humbugged, especially
by a poor sick girl in a hut with no cellar, no apparatus, no rooms
where any coadjutor could hide. It has been the greatest puzzle of my
life to know how to explain Peek’s stories.”

“Half that is extraordinary in them,” said the Professor, “is probably a
lie, and the other half is delusion. Not one man in fifty is competent
to test such occurrences. Men’s senses have not been scientifically
trained; their love of the marvellous blinds them to the simplest
solutions of a mystery. _How to observe_ is one of the most difficult of
arts; and one must undergo rigid scientific culture in the practical
branches before he can observe properly.”

“Under your theory, Professor, ninety-eight men out of every hundred
ought to be excluded as witnesses from our courts of justice. It strikes
me that a fellow like Peek—with his senses always in good working trim,
who never misses his aim, who can hit a mark by moonlight at forty
paces, and shoot a bird on the wing in bright noonday, who can detect a
tread or a flutter of wings when to your ear all is silence—is as
competent to see straight and judge of sights and sounds as any blinkard
from a college, even though he wear spectacles and call himself
professor of mathematics. Remember, Peek is not a superstitious nigger.
He will feel personally obliged to any ghost who will show himself. He
shrinks from no haunted room, no solitude, no darkness.”

“Truly, Horace, you speak as if you half believed these absurdities.”

“No,—I wish I could. Peek once said to me, that he wouldn’t have
believed these things on _my_ testimony, and couldn’t expect me to
believe them on _his_.”

“Our business,” said the Professor, “is with the life before us. I agree
with Comte, that we ought to confine ourselves to positive, demonstrable
facts; with Humboldt, that ‘there is not much to boast of after our
dissolution,’ and that ‘the blue regions on the other side of the
grave’[9] are probably a poet’s dream. Let us not trouble ourselves
about the inexplicable or the uncertain.”

“But you do not consider, Professor, that Peek’s facts _are_ positive to
his experience. Besides, to say, with Comte, that a fact is
inexplicable, and that we can’t go beyond it, is not to demonstrate that
the fact has its cause in itself; it is merely to confess the mystery of
a cause unknown.”[10]

“Well, Horace, I’m sleepy, and must retire. I’ll find an opportunity to
cross-examine Peek before I go, and you shall see how he will contradict
and stultify himself.”

Before the opportunity was found, the Professor had _passed on_. Less
modest than Rabelais was in his last moments, he did not condescend to
say, “I go to inquire into a great possibility.” The physician in
attendance, who was a young man, and had recently “experienced
religion,” asked the Professor if he had found the Lord Jesus. To which
the Professor, making a wry face, replied, “Jargon!” “Have you no regard
for your soul?” asked the well-meaning doctor. “Can you prove to me,
young man, that I _have_ a soul?” returned the Professor, trying to
raise himself on his pillow, in an argumentative posture. “Don’t you
believe in a future state?” asked the doctor. “I believe what can be
proved,” said the Professor; “and there are two things, and only two,
that can be proved,—though Berkeley thinks we can’t prove even
those,—matter and motion.[11] All phenomena are reducible to matter and
motion,—matter and motion,—matter and mo-o-o—”

The effort was too much for the moribund Professor. He did not complete
the utterance of his formula, at least on this side of the great
curtain. Probably when he awoke in the next life, conscious of his
identity, he felt very much in the mood of that other man of science,
who, on being told that the microscope would confute an elaborate theory
he had raised, refused to look through the impertinent instrument.

For several months Peek retained his place under Braxton. But even
overseers, whip in hand, cannot frighten off Death. Braxton disappeared
through the common portal. His successor, Hawks, had a theory that the
true mode of managing niggers was to overawe them by extreme severity at
the start, and then taper off into clemency. He had been lord of the
lash a week or two, when he was asked by Mr. Barnwell how he got along
with Peek.

“Capitally!” replied Hawks. “I took care to put him through his paces at
our first meeting,—took the starch right out of him. He’d score his own
mother now if I told him to. He’s a thorough nigger—is Peek. A nigger
must fear a white man before he can like him. Peek would go through fire
and water for me now. He has behaved so well, I have given him a pass to
visit his sister at Carter’s.”

“I never knew before that Peek had a sister,” said Barnwell.

Peek did not come back from that visit.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                        AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS.

            “She is coming, my dove, my dear;
              She is coming, my life, my fate;
            The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near’;
              And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late’;
            The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear’;
              And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’”
                                       _Tennyson._


We left Peek (known in New York as Jacobs) in the little closet opening
from the apartment where Charlton sat at his papers. The knock at the
outer door was succeeded by the entrance of a person of rather imposing
presence.

Mr. Albert Pompilard stood upwards of six feet in his polished shoes and
variegated silk stockings. He was bulky, and could not conceal, by any
art of dress, an incipient paunch. But whether he was a youth of
twenty-five or a man of fifty it was very difficult to judge on a hasty
inspection. He was in reality sixty-nine. He affected an extravagantly
juvenile and jaunty style of dress, and was never twenty-four hours
behind the extreme fashions of Young America.

On this occasion Mr. Pompilard was dressed in a light-colored sack or
pea-jacket, with gaping pockets and enormous buttons, the cloth being a
sort of shaggy, woollen stuff, coarse enough for a mat. His pantaloons
and vest were of the same astounding fabric. He wore a new black hat,
just ironed and brushed by Leary; a neckerchief of a striped
red-and-black silk, loosely tied; immaculate linen; and a diamond on his
little finger. A thick gold chain passed round his neck, and entered his
vest pocket. He swung a gold-headed switch, and was followed by a little
terrier dog of a breed new to Broadway.

Mr. Pompilard’s complexion was somewhat florid, and presented few marks
of age. He wore his own teeth, which were still sound and white, and his
own hair, including whiskers, although the hue was rather too black to
be natural.

“I believe I have the honor of addressing Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard,
with the air of one who is graciously bestowing a condescension.

“That’s my name, sir. What’s your business?” replied Charlton, in the
curt, dry manner of one who gives his information grudgingly.

“My name, sir, is Pompilard. You may not be aware that there is a sort
of family connection between us.”

“Ah! yes; I remember,” said Charlton, looking inquiringly at his
visitor, but not asking him to sit down.

Pompilard returned his gaze, as if waiting for something; then, seeing
that nothing came, he lifted a chair, replaced it with emphasis on the
floor, and sat down. If it was a rebuke, Charlton did not take it,
though the terrier seemed to comprehend it fully, for he began to bark,
and made a reconnoissance of Charlton’s legs that plainly meant
mischief.

Pompilard refreshed himself for a moment with the lawyer’s alarm, then
ordered Grip to lie down under the table, which he did with a quavering
whine of expostulation.

“I see,” said Pompilard, “you almost forget the precise nature of the
connection to which I allude. Let me explain: the lady who has the honor
to be your wife is the step-mother, I believe, of Mr. Henry Berwick.”

“Both the step-mother and aunt,” interposed Charlton, somewhat mollified
by the language of his visitor.

“Yes, she was half-sister to his own mother,” resumed Pompilard. “Well,
the wife of Mr. Henry Berwick was Miss Aylesford of Chicago, and is the
niece of my present wife.”

“I understand all that,” said Charlton; and then, as the thought
occurred to him that he might make the connection useful, he rose, and,
offering his hand, said, “I am happy to make your acquaintance, Mr.
Pompilard.” That gentleman rose and exchanged salutations; and Grip,
under the table, gave a smothered howl, subsiding into a whine, as if he
felt personally aggrieved by the concession, and would like to put his
teeth in the calf of a certain leg.

“My object in calling,” said Pompilard, “is merely to inquire if you can
give me the present address of Mrs. Henry Berwick. My wife wishes to
communicate with her.”

Charlton generally either evaded a direct question or answered it by a
lie. He never received a request for information, even in regard to the
time of day, that he did not cast about in his mind to see how he could
gain by the withholding or profit by the giving. He took it for granted
that every man was trying to get the advantage of him; and he resolved
to take the initiative in that game. And so, to Pompilard’s inquiry,
Charlton replied:

“I really cannot say whether Mr. Berwick is in the country or not. The
last I heard of him he was in Paris.”

“Then your intelligence of him is not so late as mine. He arrived in
Boston some days since, but left immediately for the West by the way of
Albany. I thought your wife might be in communication with him.”

“They seldom correspond.”

“I must inquire about him at the Union Club,” said Pompilard, musingly.
“By the way, Mr. Charlton, you deal in real estate securities, do you
not?”

“Occasionally. There are some old-fashioned persons who consult me in
regard to investments.”

“Do you want any good mortgages?” asked Pompilard.

“Just at present, money is very scarce and high,” replied Charlton.

“That’s the very reason why I want it,” said his visitor. “Could you
negotiate a thirty thousand dollar mortgage for me?”

“But that’s a very large sum.”

“Another reason why I want it,” returned Pompilard. “Supposing the
security were satisfactory, what bonus should you require for getting me
the money? Please give me your lowest terms, and at once, for I have an
engagement in five minutes on ’Change.”

“Well, sir,” said Charlton, in the tone of a man to whom it is an
ordinary act to drive the knife in deep, “I think in these times five
per cent would be about right.”

“Pooh! I’ll bid you good morning, Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard, with an
air of unspeakable contempt. “Come, Grip.”

And Mr. Pompilard bowed and turned to leave, just as another knock was
heard at the door. He opened it, encountering four men, one of whom
kicked the unoffending terrier; an indignity which Pompilard resented by
switching the aggressor smartly twice round the legs, and then passed
on. He had not descended five steps when a bullet from a pistol grazed
his whiskers. “Not a bad shot that, my Southern friend!” said the old
man, deliberately continuing his descent.

Before losing sight of Pompilard we must explain why he was desirous
that his wife should communicate with Mrs. Berwick.

Inheriting a fortune from his mother, Albert Pompilard had managed to
squander it in princely expenditures before he was twenty-five years
old. The vulgar dissipations of sensualists he despised. He abstained
from wine and strong drink at a time when to abstain was to be laughed
at. With the costliest viands and liquors on his table for guests, he
himself ate sparingly and drank cold water. Had he been as scrupulously
moral in the management of his soul as he was of his body, he would have
been a saint. But he was a spendthrift and a gambler on a large scale.

Having ruined himself financially, he married. A little money which his
wife brought him was staked entire on a stock operation, and won. Thence
a new fortune larger than the first. At thirty-five he was worth half a
million. He took his wife, two daughters, and a son to Paris, gave
entertainments that made even royalty envious, and in ten years returned
to New York a bankrupt. His wife died, and Pompilard appeared once more
at the stock board. Ill-luck now pursued him with remorseless
pertinacity, but never succeeded in disturbing his equanimity. He was
frightfully in debt, but the consideration never for a moment marred his
digestion nor his slumbers. The complacency of a man contented with
himself and the world shed its beams over his features always.

At fifty, a widower, with three children, he carried off and married
Miss Aylesford, who at the time was on a visit to New York,—a girl of
eighteen, handsome, accomplished, and worth half a million. In vain had
her brother tried to open her eyes to Pompilard’s character as an
inveterate fortune-hunter and spendthrift. The wilful young lady would
have her way. Pompilard took possession, paid his debts with interest,
and, with less than one third of his wife’s property left, once more
tried his fortune in Wall Street. This time he won. At sixty he was
richer than ever. He became the owner of a domain of three hundred acres
on the Hudson,—built palatial residences,—one in the country, and one on
the favored avenue that leads to Murray Hill,—bought a steamboat to
transport his guests to and from the city,—gave a series of _fêtes_, and
kept open houses.

But soon one of those panics in the money-market which take place
periodically to baffle the calculations and paralyze the efforts of
large holders of stocks, occurred to confound Pompilard. In trying to
_hold_ his stocks, he was compelled to make heavy sacrifices, and then,
in trying to _hedge_, he heaped loss on loss. He had to sell his acres
on the Hudson,—then his town house,—finally his horses; and at
sixty-nine we find him trying to get a mortgage for thirty thousand
dollars on five or six poor little houses, the last remnant from the
wreck of his wife’s property. In the hope of effecting this he had
persuaded his wife to communicate with her niece, Mrs. Berwick.

The brother of Mrs. Pompilard, Robert Aylesford, had inherited a large
estate, which he had increased by judicious investments in land on the
site of Chicago, some years before that wonderful city had risen like an
exhalation in a night from the marsh on which it stands. His wife had
died in child-birth, leaving a daughter whom he named after her,
Leonora. His own health was subsequently impaired by a malignant fever,
caught in humane attendance on a Mr. Carteret, a stranger whom he had
accidentally met at Cairo in Southern Illinois.

Deeply chagrined at his sister’s imprudent marriage, and feeling that
his own health was failing, Aylesford conceived a somewhat romantic
project in regard to his only child, Leonora. During a winter he had
passed in Italy he had become acquainted with the Ridgways, a refined
and intelligent family from Western Massachusetts. One of the members, a
lady, kept a boarding-school of deserved celebrity in the town of
Lenbridge.

To this lady Aylesford took his little girl, then only two years old,
and said: “I wish you to bring her up under the name of Leonora
Lockhart, her mother’s maiden name, and her own, though not all of it.
When she is married, let her know that the rest of it is _Aylesford_.
She is so young she will not remember much of her father. Keep both her
and the world in ignorance of the fact that she is born to a fortune. My
wish is that she shall not be the victim of a fortune-hunter in
marriage; and you will take all needful steps to carry out my wish. I
leave you the address of my man of business, Mr. Keep, in New York, who
will supply you with a thousand dollars a year as your compensation for
supporting and educating her. Neither she nor any one else must know
that even this allotment is on her account. My physician orders me to
pass the winter in Cuba, and I may not return. Should that be my lot, I
look to you to be in the place of a parent to my child. Her relations
may suppose her dead. I shall not undeceive them. Her nearest relative
is her aunt, my sister, Mrs. Pompilard, who, in the event of my death,
will be legally satisfied that such a disposition is made of my property
that it cannot directly or indirectly fall into the hands of that
irreclaimable spendthrift, her husband. As I have lived for the last
twenty years at the West, I do not think you will have any difficulty in
keeping my secret.”

Subsequently he said: “On the day of Leonora’s marriage, should she have
passed her eighteenth year, the trustees of my property will have
directions to hand over to her the income. Till that it is done, your
lips must be sealed in regard to her prospects. In the event of her
remaining single, I have made provisions which Mr. Keep will explain to
you. I am resolved that my daughter shall not have to buy a husband.”

Mrs. Ridgway accepted the trust in the same frank spirit in which it was
offered. Mr. Aylesford took leave of his little girl, and before the
next spring she was fatherless. Her eighteenth birthday found her
developed into a young lady of singular grace and beauty, with
accomplishments which showed that the body had not been neglected in
adorning the mind. But the mystery that surrounded her family and origin
produced a shyness that kept her aloof from social intimacies. Vainly
did her attentive friends try to overcome her fondness for solitary
musings and rides. She was possessed with the idea that she was an
illegitimate child, though to this suspicion she never gave utterance
till candor seemed to compel it.

On a charming morning in June, as a young man, just escaped from a
law-office in New York for a week’s recreation among the hills of
Lenbridge, was entering “the cathedral road,” as it was called,
overarched as it was by forest-trees, and spread with an elastic mat of
pine-leaves, he saw a young lady riding a spirited horse, a
bright-colored bay, exquisitely formed, and showing high blood in every
step. The sagacious creature evidently felt the exhilaration of the
fresh, balsamic air, for he played the most amusing antics, dancing and
curvetting as if for the entertainment of a circus of spectators;
starting lightly and feigning fright at little shining puddles of water,
leaping over fallen stumps, but with such elastic ease and precision as
not to stir his rider in her seat,—and frolicking much like a pet kitten
when the ball of yarn is on the floor.

His mistress evidently understood his ways, and he hers, for she talked
to him and patted his glossy neck and seemed to encourage him in his
tricks. At last she said, “Come, now, Hamlet, enough of this,—behave
yourself!” and then he walked on quite demurely. He traversed a
cross-road newly repaired with broken stones, and entered on the forest
avenue. But all at once Hamlet seemed to go lame, and the lady
dismounted, and, lifting one of his fore-feet, tried to extract a stone
that had got locked in the hollow of his sole. Her strength was unequal
to the task. The pedestrian who had been watching her movements
approached, bowed, and offered his assistance. The lady thanked him, and
resigned into his hand the hoof of the gentle animal, who plainly
understood that something for his benefit was going on.

“The stone is wedged in so tightly, I fear it will require a chisel to
pry it out,” said the new acquaintance, whose name was Henry Berwick.
Then, after a pause, he added, “But perhaps I can hammer it out with
another stone.”

“Let me find one for you,” said Leonora, running here and there, and
searching as she held up her riding-habit.

Henry looked after her with an interest he had never felt before for any
one in the form of a young lady. How bewitchingly that black beaver with
its ostrich plumes sat on her head, but failed to hide those luxuriant
curls,—luxuriant by the grace of nature and not of the hair-dresser! And
then that face,—how full of life and tenderness and mind! And how
admirably did its red and white contrast with the surrounding blackness
of its frame! And that figure,—how were its harmonious perfections
brought out by the simple, closely fitting nankeen riding-habit trimmed
with green!

While she was engaged in her search, Mr. Henry Berwick dishonestly did
his best to loosen the shoe. All at once, in the most innocent manner,
he exclaimed, “This shoe is loose,—it has come off,—look here!”

And he held it up, just as Leonora handed him a stone.

He took the stone, and with one blow knocked out the fragment that lay
wedged in the hollow of the sole.

“Thank you, sir,” said Leonora.

“You are one of Mrs. Ridgway’s young ladies, I presume,” said Henry.

“Yes, I shall not be back in time for my music-lesson, if I do not
hurry.”

“There is a blacksmith not a quarter of a mile from here. My advice to
you is to stop and have this shoe refitted. Remember, you have a mile of
a newly macadamized road to travel before you get home, and over that
you will have to walk your horse slowly unless you restore him his
shoe.”

Leonora seemed struck by these considerations. “I will take your
advice,” she said, putting herself in the saddle with a movement so
quick and easy that Berwick could not interpose to help her. But the
horse limped so badly that she once more dismounted.

“Let me lead him for you,” said Berwick, “I shall not have to go a step
out of my way.”

“You are very obliging,” replied the lady.

And the young man led the horse, while the young lady walked by his
side.

The quarter of a mile was a remarkably long one. It was a full hour
before the blacksmith’s shed was reached, and then Berwick, secretly
giving the man of the anvil a dollar, winked at him, and said aloud,
“Call us as soon as you have fitted the shoe”; and then added, in an
_aside_, “Be an hour or so about it.”

The new acquaintances strolled together to a beautiful pond within sight
among the hills.

O that exquisite June morning, with its fresh foliage, its clear sky,
its pine odors, its wild-flowers, and its songs of birds! How
imperishable in the memories of both it became! How much happier were
they ever afterwards for the happiness of that swift-gliding moment!

Leonora spied some harebells in the crevices of the slaty rocks of a
steep declivity, and pointed them out as the first of the season.

“I must get them for you,” cried Berwick.

“No, no! It is a dangerous place,” said Leonora.

“They shall be your harebells,” said Berwick, swinging himself, by the
aid of a birch-tree that grew almost horizontally out of the cleft of a
rock, over the precipice, and snatching the flowers. Leonora treasured
them for years, pressed between the leaves of Shelley’s Poems.

Thus began a courtship which, three weeks afterwards, was followed by an
offer of marriage. Early in the acquaintance, foreseeing the drift of
Berwick’s eager attentions, Leonora had frankly communicated by letter
her suspicions in regard to her own birth.

In his reply Berwick had written: “I almost wish it may be as you
imagine, in order that I may the better prove to you the strength of my
attachment; for I do not underrate the desirableness of an honorable
genealogy. No one can prize more than I an unspotted lineage. But I
would not marry the woman who I did not think could in herself
compensate me for the absence of all advantages of family position and
wealth; and whose society could not more than m—flittedake up for the
loss of all social attractions that could be offered outside of the home
her presence would sanctify. You are the one my heart points to as able
to do all this; and so, Leonora, whether it be the bar sinister or the
ducal coronet that ought to be in your coat of arms, it matters not to
me. No herald’s pen can make you less charming in my eyes. Under any
cloud that could be thrown over your origin, to me you would always be,
as Portia was to Brutus, a fair and honorable wife;—

                 ‘As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
                 That visit this sad heart.’

And yet not sad, if you were mine! So do not think that any future
development in regard to the antecedents of yourself or of your parents
can detract from an affection based on those qualities which are of the
soul and heart, and the worth of which no mortal disaster can impair.”

To all which the imprudent young lady returned this answer: “Do not
think to outdo me in generosity. You judge me independently of all
social considerations and advantages; I will do the same by you; for I
know as little of you as you do of me.”

They met the next morning, and Berwick said: “Is not this a very
dangerous precedent we are setting for romantic young people? What if I
should turn out to be a swindler or a bigamist?”

“My heart would have prescience of it much sooner than my head,” replied
Leonora. “Women are not so often misled into uncongenial alliances by
their affections as by their passions or their calculations. The lamb,
before he has ever known a wolf, is instinctively aware of an enemy’s
presence, even while the wolf is yet unseen. If the lamb stopped to
reason with himself, he would be very apt to say, ‘Nonsense! it is no
doubt a very respectable beast who is approaching. Why should I imagine
he wants to harm me?’”

“But what if I am a wolf disguised as a lamb?” asked Berwick.

“I am so good a judge of tune,” replied Leonora, “that I should detect
the sham the moment you tried to cry _baa_. Nay, a repugnant nature
makes itself felt to me by its very presence. There are some persons the
very touch of whose hand produces an impression, I generally find to be
true, of their character.”

“An ingenious plea!” said Berwick with an affectation of sarcasm. “But
it does not palliate your indiscretion.”

“Very well, sir,” replied Leonora, “since you disapprove my
precipitancy, we will—”

Berwick interrupted the speech at the very portal of her mouth, by
surprising its warders, the lips.

And so it was a betrothal.

How admirably had Mrs. Ridgway behaved through it all! How scrupulous
she had been in withholding all intimations of Leonora’s prospective
wealth! There were young men among the Ridgways, handsome, accomplished,
just entering the hard paths of commercial or professional toil. How
easy it would have been to have hinted to some of them, “Secure this
young lady, and your fortune is made. Let a hint suffice.” But Mrs.
Ridgway was too loyal to her trust to even blindly convey by her
demeanor towards Leonora a suspicion that the child was aught more than
the dowerless orphan she appeared.

Berwick took a small house in Brooklyn, and prepared for his marriage.
Clients were as yet few and poor, but he did not shrink from living on
twelve hundred a year with the woman he loved. He was not quite sure
that his betrothed was even rich enough to refurnish her own wardrobe.
So he delicately broached the question to Mrs. Ridgway. That lady
mischievously told him that if he could let Leonora have fifty dollars,
it might be convenient. The next day Berwick sent a check for ten times
that amount.

But after the wedding, an elderly gentleman, named Keep, to whom Berwick
had been introduced a few days before, took him and the bride aside, and
delivered to him a schedule of the title-deeds of an estate worth a
million, the bequest of the bride’s father, and the income of which was
to be subject to her order.

“But this deranges all our little plans!” exclaimed the bride, with
delightful _naïveté_.

“Well, my children, you must put up with it as well as you can,” said
Mr. Keep.

Berwick took the surprise gravely and thoughtfully. With this great
enlargement of his means and opportunities, were not his
responsibilities proportionably increased?




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                     A DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS.

“Pride of race, pride in an ancestry of gentlemen, pride in all those
habitudes and instincts which separated us so immeasurably from the
peddling and swindling Yankee nation,—all this pride has been openly
cherished and avowed in all simplicity and good faith.”—_Richmond (Va.)
Enquirer._


Peek sat in the little closet which opened into Charlton’s office.
Suddenly he heard the crack of a pistol, followed by a volley of
ferocious oaths. Efforts seemed to be made to pacify the utterer, who
was with difficulty withheld by his companions from following the person
who had offended him. At these sounds Peek felt a cold, creeping
sensation down his back, and a tightness in his throat, as if it were
grasped by a hand. The pistol-shot and the nature of the oaths brought
before him the figure of the overseer with his broad-brimmed hat, his
whip, and his revolver.

All the negro’s senses were now concentrated in the one faculty of
hearing. He judged that five persons had entered the room. The angry man
had cooled down, and the voices were not raised above a whisper.

“Is he here?” asked one.

No answer was heard in reply. Probably a gesture had sufficed.

“Will he resist?”

“Possibly. These fugitives usually go armed.”

“What shall we do if he threatens to fire?”

Here an altercation ensued, during which Peek could understand little of
what was uttered. But he had heard enough. His thoughts first reverted
to his wife and his infant boy, and he pictured to himself their
destitute condition in the event of his being taken away. Then the
treachery of Charlton glared upon him in all its deformity, and he
instinctively drew from the sheath in an inside pocket of his vest a
sharp, glittering dagger-like knife. He looked rapidly around, but there
was nothing to suggest a mode of escape. The only window in the closet
was one over the door communicating with the office.

Suddenly it occurred to him that, if he were to be hemmed in in this
closet, his chances of escape would be small. It would be better for him
to be in the larger room, whether he chose to adopt a defensive or an
offensive policy. Seeing an old rope in a corner of the closet, he
seized it with the avidity a drowning man might show in grasping at a
straw.

He listened intently once more to the whisperers. A low susurration,
accompanied with a whistling sound, he identified at once as coming from
Skinner, the captain of the schooner in which he had made his escape.
Then some one sneezed. Peek would have recognized that sneeze in
Abyssinia. It must have proceeded from Colonel Delancy Hyde.

Standing on tiptoe on a coal-box, the negro now looked through a hole in
the green-paper curtain covering the glass over the door, and surveyed
the whole party. He found he was right in his conjectures. The captain
was there with one of his sailors,—an old inebriate by the name of
Biggs, both doubtless ready to swear to the slave’s identity. And the
Colonel was there as natural as when he appeared on the plantation,
strolling round to take a look at the “smart niggers,” so as to be able
to recognize them in case of need. Two policemen, armed with bludgeons,
and probably with revolvers; and Charlton, with a paper tied with red
tape in his hand, formed the other half of this agreeable company. Peek
marked well their positions, put his knife between his teeth, and
descended from the box.

Colonel Delancy Hyde is a personage of too much importance to be kept
waiting while we describe the movements of a slave. Colonel Delancy Hyde
must be attended to first. Tall, lank, and gaunt in figure,
round-shouldered and stooping, he carried his head very much after the
fashion of a bloodhound on the scent. Beard and moustache of a reddish,
sandy hue, coarse and wiry, concealed much of the lower part of a face
which would have been pale but for the floridity which bad whiskey had
imparted. The features were rather leonine than wolfish in outline (if
we may believe Mr. Livingstone, the lion is a less respectable beast
than the wolf). But the small brownish eyes, generally half closed and
obliquely glancing, had a haughty expression of penetration or of scorn,
as if the person on whom they fell would be too much honored by a full,
entire regard from those sublime orbs.

The Colonel wore a loosely fitting frock-coat and pantaloons, evidently
bought ready made. They were of a grayish nondescript material which he
used to boast was manufactured in Georgia. He generally carried his
hands in his pockets, and bestowed his tobacco-juice impartially on all
sides with the _abandon_ of a free and independent citizen who has not
been used to carpets.

There were two things of which Colonel Delancy Hyde was proud: one, his
name, the other, his Virginia birth. It is interesting to trace back the
genealogy of heroes; and we have it in our power to do this justice to
the Colonel.

In the year 1618 there resided in London a stable-keeper of doubtful
reputation, and connected with gentlemen of the turf who frequented Hyde
Park and Newmarket in the early days of that important British
institution, the horse-race. This man’s name was Hyde. He had a patron
in Sir Arthur Delancy, a dissipated nobleman, whom he admired, naming
after him a son who was early initiated in all the mysteries of
jockeyship and gambling.

Unfortunately for the youth, he did not have the wit to keep out of the
clutches of the law. Twice he was arrested and imprisoned for swindling.
A third offence of a graver character, consisting in the theft of a
pocket-book containing thirteen shillings, led to his arraignment for
grand larceny, a crime then punishable with death. The gallows began to
loom in the not remote distance with a sharpness of outline not
pictorially pleasant to the ambition of the Hyde family.

About that time the “London Company,” whose colony in Virginia was in a
languishing condition, petitioned the Crown to make them a present of
“vagabonds and condemned men” to be sent out to enforced labor. The
senior Hyde applied to Sir Arthur Delancy to save his namesake; and that
nobleman laid the case before his friend, Sir Edward Sandys, treasurer
of the company aforesaid. By their joint influence the Hydes were spared
the disgrace of seeing their eldest hung; and King James having
graciously granted the London Company’s petition for a consignment of
“vagabonds and condemned men,” a hundred were sent out (a mere fraction
of the numbers of similar gentry who had preceded them), and of this
precious lot the younger Hyde made one.[12] Just a year afterwards,
namely, in 1620, a Dutch trading-vessel anchored in James River with
twenty negroes, and this was the beginning of African slavery in North
America.

Neither threats nor lashes could induce young Mr. Hyde, this “founder of
one of the first families,” to work. Soon after his arrival on the banks
of the Chickahominy he stole a gun, and thenceforth got a precarious
living by shooting, fishing, and pilfering. He took to himself a female
partner, and faithfully transmitted to his descendants the traits by
which he was distinguished.

Not one of them, except now and then a female of the stock, was ever
known to get an honest living; and even if the poor creatures had
desired to do so, the state of society where their lot was cast was such
as to deter them from learning any mechanical craft or working
methodically at any manual employment.

Slavery had thrown its ban and its slime over white labor, branding it
with disrepute. To get bread, not by the sweat of your own brow, but by
somebody else’s sweat, became the one test of manhood and high spirit.
To be a gentleman, you must begin with robbery.

The Hydes were hardly an educated race. There was a tradition in the
family that one of them had been to school, but if he had, the fruits of
culture did not appear. They seemed to have shared the benediction of
Sir William Berkeley, once Governor of Virginia, who wrote: “I thank God
there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have
them these hundred years.”

It is true that our Colonel Delancy Hyde could read and write, although
indifferently. The labor of acquiring this ability had been enormous and
repugnant; but before his eighteenth year he had achieved it; and
thenceforth he was a prodigy in the eyes of the rest of his kin. He got
his title of Colonel from once receiving a letter so addressed from
Senator Mason, who had employed him to buy a horse. Among the Colonel’s
acquaintances who could read, this brevet was considered authoritative
and sufficient.

Not being of a thrifty and forehanded habit, the Colonel’s father never
rose to the possession of more than three slaves at a time; but he made
up for his deficiency in this respect by beating these three all the
more frequently. They were a miserable set, and, to tell the truth,
deserved many of the whippings they got. The owner was out of pocket by
them, year after year, but was too shiftless a manager to provide
against the loss, and was too proud to get rid of the encumbrances
altogether. He and his children and his neighbors were kept poor,
squalid, and degraded by a system that in effect made them the serfs of
a few rich proprietors, who, by discrediting white labor, were able to
buy up at a trifling cost the available lands, and then impoverish them
by the exhausting crops wrung from the generous soil by large gangs of
slaves under the rule of superior capital and intelligence.

And yet no lord of a thousand “niggers” could be a more bigoted upholder
than the Hydes of “our institutions, sir.” (Living by jugglery, Slavery
usually speaks of _the_ institution as our _institutions_.) They would
foam at the mouth in speaking of those men of the North who dared to
question the divinity and immutability of slavery. To deny its right to
unlimited extension was the one kind of profanity not to be pardoned. It
was worse than atheism to say that slavery was sectional and freedom
national.

To the Colonel’s not very clear geographical conceptions the white
Americans south of Mason and Dixon’s line were, with hardly an
exception, descendants of noblemen and gentlemen; while all north were,
to borrow the words of Mr. Jefferson Davis, either the “scum of Europe”
or “a people whose ancestors Cromwell had gathered from the bogs and
fens of Ireland and Scotland.”[13]

Colonel Delancy Hyde revelled in those genealogical invectives of a
similar tenor by a Richmond editor, whose fatuous and frantic iterations
that the Yankees were the descendants of low-born peasants and
blackguards, while the Southern Americans are the progeny of the English
cavaliers, betrayed a ludicrous desire to strengthen his own feeble
belief in the asseveration by loud and incessant clamor; for he had
faith in Sala’s witty saying, that, if a man has strong lungs, and will
keep bawling day after day that he is a genius or a gentleman, the
public will at last believe him.

The Colonel never tired of denouncing the Puritans:—“A canting,
hyppercritical set of cusses, sir; but they had some little fight in
’em, though they couldn’t stahnd up agin the caval’yers,—no sir-r-r!—the
caval’yers gev ’em particular hell; but the Yankee spawn of these
cusses,—they hev lost the little pluck the Puritans wonst had, and air
cowards, every mother’s son on ’em. One high-tone Southern gemmleman—one
descendant of the caval’yers—can clare out any five on ’em in a fair
fight.”

By a fair fight for a descendant of the cavaliers, the Colonel meant one
of two things: either a six-barrelled revolver against an unarmed
antagonist, or an ambush in which the aforesaid descendant could hit,
but be secure against being hit in return. One of the Colonel’s maxims
was, “Never fire unless you can take your man at a disadvantage.”

His sire having been unluckily cast in a petty lawsuit, “by a low-born
Yankee judge, sir,” Colonel Delancy Hyde drifted off to the Southwest,
and gradually emerged into the special vocation for which the
unfortunate habits of life, which the Southern system had driven him to,
seemed to qualify him. He became a sort of agent for the recovery of
runaway slaves, and in this capacity had the freedom of the different
plantations, and was frequently applied to for help by bereaved masters.
Every man is said to have his specialty: the Colonel had at last found
_his_.

In the survey which Peculiar took of the assemblage in Charlton’s
office, he saw that Charlton himself was separated from the rest in
being behind a small semicircular counter, an old piece of furniture,
bought cheap at a street auction. By getting in the lawyer’s place the
negro would have a sort of barrier, protecting him in front and on two
sides against his assailants. Behind him would be the stove.

Stealthily throwing open the closet-door he glided out, and before any
one could intercept him, he had fastened Charlton’s arms in a noose, and
was standing over him with upraised knife. So rapid, so sudden, so
unexpected had been the movement, that it was all completed before even
an exclamation was uttered. The first one to break the silence was
Charlton, who in a paroxysm of terror cried out, “Mercy! Save me,
officers! save me!”

Iverson, one of the policemen, started forward and drew a revolver; but
Peek made a shield of the body of the lawyer, who now found himself
threatened with a pistol on one side and a knife on the other, much to
his mortal dismay.

“Put down your pistol, Iverson!” he stammered. “Don’t attempt to do
anything, any of you. This g-g-gentleman doesn’t mean to do any harm. He
will listen to reason. The gentleman will listen to reason.”

“Gentleman be damned!” exclaimed Colonel Delancy Hyde. “Officer, put
down your pistol. This piece of property mustn’t be damaged. I’m
responsible for it. Peek, you imperdent black cuss, drop that
rib-tickler,—drop it right smart, or yer’ll ketch hell.”

The Colonel advanced, and Peek brought down his knife so as to inflict
on Charlton’s shoulder a gentle puncture, which drew from him a cry of
pain, followed by the exclamation, in trembling tones: “Keep off, keep
off, Colonel! Peek doesn’t mean any harm.”

Iverson made an attempt to get in the negro’s rear, but a shriek of
remonstrance from Charlton drove the officer back.

Finding now that he was master of the situation, Peek let his right arm
fall gradually to his side, and, still holding Charlton in his grasp,
said: “Gentlemen, there are just five chairs before you. Be seated, and
hear what I have to say.”

The company looked hesitatingly at one another, till Blake, one of the
policemen, said, “Why not?” and took a seat. The rest followed his
example.

And then Peek, crowding back the rage and anguish of his heart, spoke as
follows: “My name is Peculiar Institution. I came to this lawyer some
seven weeks ago for advice. I paid him money. He got me to tell him my
story. He pretended to be my friend; but thinking he could make a few
dollars more out of the slaveholder than he could out of me, he sends on
word to the man who calls himself my master;—in short, betrays me. You
see I have him in my power. What would you do with him if you were in my
place?”

“I’d cut off his dirty ears!” exclaimed Blake, carried beyond all the
discretion of a policeman by his indignation.

“What do you say, Colonel Hyde?” asked Peek.

“Wall, Peek, I don’t car’ what yer do ter him, providin’ yer’ don’t
damage yerself; but I reckon yer’d better drop that knife dam quick, and
give in. It’s no use tryin’ to git off. We’ve three witnesses here to
swar you’re the right man. The Yankees put through the Fugitive Law
right smart now. Yer stand no chance.”

“That’s all true, Colonel,” replied Peek, speaking as if arguing aloud
to himself. “The law was executed in Boston last week, where there
wasn’t half the proof you have. To do it they had to call out the whole
police force, but they _did_ it; and if such things are done in Boston,
we can’t expect much better in New York. But you see, Colonel, with this
knife in my hand, I can now do one of two things: I can either kill this
man, or kill myself. In either case you lose. The law hangs me if I kill
him, and if I kill myself the sexton puts all of me he can lay hold of
under the ground. Now, Colonel, if you refuse my terms, I’m fully
resolved to do one of these two things,—probably the first, for I have
scruples about the second.”

“The cussed nigger talks as ef he was readin’ from a book!” exclaimed
Hyde, in astonishment. “Wall, Peek, what tairms do yer mean?”

“You must promise that, on my letting this man go, you’ll allow me to
walk freely out of this room, and go where I please unattended, on
condition that I’ll return at five o’clock this afternoon and deliver
myself up to you to go South with you of my own accord, without any
trial or bother of any kind.”

The Colonel gave a furtive wink at the policeman Iverson, and replied:
“Wall, Peek, that’s no more nor fair, seein’ as you’re sich a smart
respectible nigger. But I reckon yer’ll go and stir up the cussed
abolitioners.”

“I’ll promise,” returned Peek, “not to tell any one what’s going on.”

Hyde whispered in Iverson’s ear, and the latter nodded assent.

“Wall, Peek,” said Colonel Hyde, “if yer’ll swar, so help yer Gawd,
yer’ll do as yer say, we’ll let yer go.”

“Please write down my words, sir,” said Peek, addressing Blake.

The policeman took pen and paper, and wrote, after Peek’s dictation, as
follows:—

“We the undersigned swear, on our part, so help us God, we will allow
Peculiar Institution to quit this room free and unfollowed, on his
promise that he will return and give himself up at five o’clock this P.
M. And I, Peculiar Institution, swear, on my part, so help me God, I
will, if these terms are carried out, fulfil the above-named promise.”

“Sign that, you five gentlemen, and then I’ll sign,” said Peek.

The five signed. The paper and pen were then handed to Peek, and he
added his name in a good legible hand, and gave the paper to Blake.

Having done this, he pulled the rope from Charlton’s arms, and threw it
on the floor, then returned his knife to the sheath, and picked up his
cap.

But as he started for the door, Colonel Hyde drew his revolver, stood in
his way, and said: “Now, nigger, no more damn nonsense! Did yer think
Delancy Hyde was such a simple cuss as to trust yer? Officers, seize
this nigger.”

Iverson stepped forward to obey, but Blake, with the assured gesture of
one whose superiority has been felt and admitted, motioned him aside,
and said to Hyde, “I’ll take your revolver.”

The Colonel, either thrown off his guard by Blake’s cool air of
authority, or supposing he wanted the weapon for the purpose of
overawing the negro, gave it up. Blake then walked to the door, threw it
open, and said: “Peculiar Institution, I fulfil my part of the contract.
Now go and fulfil yours; and see you don’t come the lawyer over me by
breaking your word.”

Before Colonel Delancy Hyde could recover from the amazement and wrath
into which he was put by this act, Peculiar had disappeared from the
room, and Blake, closing the door after him, had locked it, and taken
out the key and thrust it in his pocket.

“May I be shot,” exclaimed the Colonel, “but this is the damdest mean
Yankee swindle I ever had put on me yit,—damned if it ain’t! Here I’ve
been to a hunderd dollars expense to git back that ar nigger, and now
I’m tricked out of my property by the very man I hired to help me git
it. This is Yankee all through,—damned if it ain’t!”

Charlton, still pale and trembling from his recent shock, had yet
strength to put in these words: “I must say, Mr. Blake, your conduct has
been unprofessional and unhandsome. There isn’t another officer in the
whole corps that would have committed such a blunder. I shall report you
to your superiors.”

Blake shook his finger at him, and replied, “Open your lips again, you
beggarly hound, and I’ll slap your face.”

Charlton collapsed into silence. Blake took a chair and said, “Amuse
yourselves five minutes, gentlemen, and then I’ll open the door.”

“A hell of a feller fur an officer!” muttered the Colonel. “To let the
nigger slide in that ar way, afore I’d ever a chance to take from him
his money and watch, which in course owt to go to payin’ my expenses.
Cuss me if I—”

“Silence!” exclaimed Blake in a voice of thunder.

Cowed by the force of a reckless and impulsive will, all present now
kept quiet. Colonel Hyde, who, deprived of his revolver, felt his
imbecility keenly, went to the window and looked out. Iverson, who was a
coward, tried to smile, and then, seeing the expression on Blake’s face,
looked suddenly grave. Captain Skinner gave way to melancholy
forebodings. His companion, Biggs, refreshed himself with a quid of
tobacco, and stood straddling and bracing himself on his feet as if he
thought a storm was brewing, and expected a lurch to leeward to take him
off his legs. As for Charlton, he drew a slip of paper toward him, and
appeared to be carelessly figuring on it; although, when he thought
Blake was not looking, his manner changed to an eager and anxious
consideration of the matter before him.

The five minutes had nearly expired when Blake rose, turned his back to
Charlton, and seemed to be lost in reverie. Charlton took this
opportunity to hastily finish what he had been writing. He then enclosed
it in an envelope, and directed it. This done, he motioned to Iverson,
and held up the letter. The latter nodded, and pointed with a motion of
the thumb to a newspaper on the table. Charlton placed the letter under
it, coughed, and turned to warm himself at the stove. Iverson sidled
toward the newspaper, but before he could reach it, Blake turned and
dashed his fist on it, took up the letter, and whispered menacingly to
Charlton, “Utter a single word, and I’ll choke you.”

Then unlocking and opening the door, he said to the other persons in the
room, “Go! you can return, if you choose, at five o’clock.”

“Give me my revolver,” demanded the Colonel.

“Say two words, and I’ll have you arrested for trying to shoot an
unarmed man,” replied Blake.

The Colonel swallowed his rage and left the room, followed by Iverson
and the two witnesses. Blake again locked the door and took the key.

“What’s the meaning of all this?” asked Charlton, seriously alarmed.

“It means that if you open that traitor’s mouth of yours till I tell you
to, you’ll come to grief.”

Charlton subsided and was silent.

Blake unfolded the paper he had seized, and read as follows: “You will
probably find Peek, either at Bunker’s in Broadway, or at his rooms in
Greenwich Street, the side nearest the river, third or fourth house from
the corner of Dey Street.”

Blake thrust the paper back into his pocket, and, wholly regardless of
Charlton’s presence, began pacing the floor.




                              CHAPTER IX.
                      THE UPPER AND THE LOWER LAW.

“There is a law above all the enactments of human codes,—the same
throughout the world, the same in all times: it is the law written by
the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and
eternal, while men despise fraud and loathe rapine and abhor bloodshed,
they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy than man
can hold property in man.”—_Lord Brougham._


The policeman, Blake, was a Vermonter whose grandsire had been one of
the eighty men under Ethan Allen at the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. The
traditions of the Revolution were therefore something more than barren
legends in Blake’s mind. They had inspired him with an enthusiastic
admiration of the republic and its institutions. His patriotism was a
sentiment which all the political and moral corruption, with which a New
York policeman is inevitably brought in contact, could not corrode or
enfeeble.

Even slavery, being tolerated by the Constitution of the United States,
was, in his view, not to be spoken of lightly. He shut his eyes and his
ears to all that could be said in its condemnation; he opened them to
all its palliating features and facts. Did not statistics prove that the
blacks, in a state of slavery, increase in double the proportion they do
in a state of freedom, surrounded by whites? This comforting argument
was eagerly seized by Blake as a moral sedative.

The Fugitive-Slave Law he was satisfied was strictly in accordance with
both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution of the United States.
Therefore it must be honestly enforced. The Abolitionists, who were
striving to defeat the execution of the law, were almost as bad as
Mississippi repudiators who were swindling their foreign creditors. So
long as we were enjoying the benefits of the Constitution, was it not
mean and dastardly to undertake to jockey the South out of the obvious
protection of that clause in it which has reference to the “person held
to service or labor,” which we all knew to mean the slave?

Considerations like these had made Blake one of the most earnest
advocates of the enforcement of the law among his brethren of the
police; and when at last he was called on to carry it out in the case of
Peek, he felt that obedience was a duty which it would be poltroonery to
evade. He went forth, therefore, with alacrity that morning, resolved to
allow no mawkish sensibility to interfere with his obligations as an
officer and a citizen.

Accompanied by Iverson, he waited on Colonel Delancy Hyde at the New
York Hotel. They found that worthy in the smoking-room, seated at a
small marble table, with a cigar in his mouth and an emptied tumbler,
which smelt strongly of undiluted whiskey, before him. The Colonel
graciously asked the officers to “liquor.” Iverson assented, but Blake
declined.

A refusal to “liquor,” the Colonel had been bred to regard as a personal
indignity; and so, turning to Blake, he said: “Look here, stranger! I’m
Colonel Delancy Hyde. Virginia-born, be Gawd! From one of the oldest
families in the State! None of yer interloping Yankee scum! No Puritan
blood in _me_! My ahncestor was one of the cavalyers. My father was one
of the largest slave-owners in the State. Now if yer want to put an
affront on me, I’d jest have yer understand fust who yer’ve got to deal
with.”

“Bah!” said Blake, turning on his heel, and walking to the window.

Iverson, who dreaded a scene, smoothed over the affront with a lie. “The
fact is, Colonel,” whispered he, “Blake wouldn’t be fit for duty if he
were to drink with us. A spoonful upsets him; but he’s ashamed to
confess it. A weak head! You understand?”

The explanation pacified the Colonel. Indeed, his sympathies were at
once wakened for the unhappy man who couldn’t drink. This representative
of the interests of slavery certainly did not prepossess Blake in favor
of his mission; but justice must be done, notwithstanding the character
of the claimant.

An addition was now made to the circle. Captain Skinner and Biggs, the
sailor already mentioned,—a short, thick-set stump of a man, with only
one eye, and that black and overarched by a bushy, gray eyebrow,—a very
wicked-looking old fellow,—entered and made themselves known to the
Colonel. They had come up from New London, to serve as witnesses. As a
matter of policy, the Colonel could not do less than ask them to join in
the raid on the whiskey decanter; and this they did so effectually that
the last drop disappeared in Biggs’s capacious tumbler.

As it was not yet time for the appointment at Charlton’s office, the
party, all but Blake, took chairs and lighted cigars, and the Colonel
asked Captain Skinner to narrate the circumstances of Peek’s appearance
on board the Albatross.

“Well, you see, Colonel,” said Skinner, “we had been ten days out, when
one night the second mate, as he was poking about between decks, caught
a strange nigger creeping into a cotton-bale just for’ard of the
store-room. We ordered the nigger out, and he came into the cabin, and
pretended to be a free nigger, and said he’d pay his passage as soon as
he could git work in New York. In course I knew he was lyin’, but I
didn’t let on that I suspected him. I played smooth; and cuss me, if the
nigger didn’t play smooth too; for he made as if he believed me; and so
when we got to New London, afore I could git the officers on board, he
jumped into the water and swam to old Payson’s boat, and Payson he got
him on board one of the Sound steamers, and had him put through to New
York that same night. The next day Payson attakted me in the street,
knocked me down, and stamped on me, and afore I could have him tuk up,
he was on board that infernal boat of his, and off out of sight. There’s
the scar of the gash Payson left on my skull.”

Blake, at these words, left the window, and came and looked at the scar
with evident satisfaction. Colonel Hyde, with a lordly air of patronage,
held out his hand to Skinner, and said: “Capting, the scar is an honor.
Capting, yer hand. I love to meet a high-tone gemmleman, and you’re one.
Capting, allow me to shake yer hand.”

“With pleasure,” said Biggs, taking the Colonel’s hand and shaking it in
his own big, coarsely-seamed flipper, before the Captain had a chance to
reach out. The Colonel smiled grimly at Biggs’s playfulness, but said
nothing.

“Come! it’s time to go,” exclaimed Iverson, looking at his watch. The
party rose, and proceeded down Broadway to Charlton’s office. We have
already seen what transpired on their arrival. Our business is now with
what happened after their departure.

Three o’clock struck. The small hand on the dial of Trinity was fast
moving toward four; and still Blake paced the floor in Charlton’s
office. Every now and then there would be a knock at the door, and
Blake, with a menacing shake of his head, would impose silence on the
conveyancer, till the applicant for admission, tired of knocking, would
go away.

Blake’s thoughts were in the condition of a chopping sea where wind and
tide are opposing each other. Reflections that reached to the very
foundation of human society—questions of abstract right and wrong—were
combating old notions adopted on the authority of others, and as yet
untested in the cupel of his own conscience.

Brought for the first time face to face with the law for the rendition
of fugitive slaves,—encountering it in its practical operation,—he found
in it a barbarous necessity from which his heart recoiled with horror
and disgust. Must he disregard that pleading cry of conscience, that
voice of God and Christ in his soul, calling on him to do in
righteousness unto others as he would have them do unto him? Could any
human enactment exempt him from that paramount obedience?

How had he felt dwarfed in another’s presence that day! He had seen a
man, and that man a negro, putting forth his manhood in the best way he
could to parry the arm of a savage oppression, doubly fiendish in its
mockery, coming as it did under the respectable escort of the law.
Surely the negro showed himself better worthy of freedom than any white
man among his hunters.

Would the fellow keep his pledge? Would he come back? Blake now
earnestly hoped he would not. Was not any stratagem justifiable in such
a case? Should we mind resorting to deception in order to rescue
ourselves or another from a madman or a murderer? Why, then, might not
Peek violate his written promise, made as it was to men who were trying
to rob him of a freedom more precious than life to such a soul as his?

But had not he himself—he, Blake—made use of his poor show of generosity
to impress it on Peek that he must prove worthy the trust reposed in
him? This recollection brought bitter regret to the policeman. Instead
of encouraging the negro to escape, he had put scruples of conscience or
of generosity in his way, which might induce him to return. Would Blake
have done so to his own brother, under similar circumstances? Would he
not have bidden him cheat his persecutors, and make good his flight?
Assuredly yes! And yet to the poor negro he had practically said,
Return!

These reflections wrought powerfully upon Blake. Why not run and urge
the negro to escape? It was still more than an hour to five o’clock.
Yes, he would do it!

Then came a consideration to check the impulse. He, a sworn officer of
the law, should he lend himself to the defeat of the very law he had
taken it upon himself to execute? Was there not something intensely
dishonest in such a course?

Well, he could do one thing at least: he could resign his office, and
then try to undo the mischief he had perhaps done the negro by his
injunction. Yes, he would do that.

Impulsive in all his movements, Blake looked at his watch, and found he
would have just an hour in which to crowd all the action he proposed to
himself. Turning to Charlton, he said: “Your conduct to this runaway
slave will make your life insecure if I choose to go to certain men in
this city and tell them what I can with truth. What you now are
intending to do is to have the slave intercepted. I don’t ask you to
promise, simply because you will lie if you think it safe; but I say
this to you: If I find that any measures are taken before five o’clock
to catch the slave, I shall hold you responsible for them, and shall
expose you to parties who will see you are paid back for your rascality.
Take no step for an arrest, and I hold my tongue.”

Glad of such a compromise, Charlton replied: “I’m agreed. Up to five
o’clock I’ll do nothing, directly or indirectly, to intercept the
nigger.”

Blake was speedily in the street after this. He hurried to the City
Hall, found the Chief of Police, gave in his resignation, deposited
Colonel Hyde’s pistol among the curiosities of the room, and said that
another man must be found to attend to the case at Charlton’s office.
Having in this way eased his conscience, Blake ran as far as Broadway,
and jumped into an omnibus. But the omnibus was too slow, so he jumped
out and ran down Broadway to Bunker’s. How the precious time flew by!
Before he could be satisfied at Bunker’s that Peek was not there, the
clock indicated five minutes of five. He rushed out in the direction of
the slave’s lodgings. An old woman with wrinkled face, and bent form,
and carrying a broom, was showing the apartments to an applicant who
thought of moving from the story below. Where were the negro and his
wife? Gone! How long ago? More than two hours! The clock struck five.

Wholly disheartened, Blake ran back to Charlton’s office. He found it
locked. No one answered to his knock. Raising his foot he kicked open
the door with a single effort. The office was deserted. No one there! He
ran to the Jersey City ferry-boat that carries passengers for the
Philadelphia cars; it had left the wharf some twenty minutes before.
Baffled in all directions, he took his way to the police-station to find
Iverson; but that officer was on duty, nobody knew where. After waiting
at the station till nearly midnight, Blake at last, worn out with
discouragement and fatigue, went home.

What had become of Peek all this time?

Anticipating that he and his wife might at any moment find it prudent to
leave for Canada at half an hour’s notice, Peek had always kept his
affairs in a state to enable him to do this conveniently. He had hired
his rooms, furniture, and piano-forte by the week, paying for them in
advance. Two small trunks were sufficient to contain all his movable
property; and these might be packed in five minutes.

Flora, his wife, who like Peek was of unmixed blood, had been lady’s
maid in a family in Vicksburg. Here she had become an expert in washing
and doing up muslins and other fine articles of female attire. But the
lady she served died, and Flora became the property of Mr. Penfield, a
planter, who, looking on her with the eyes that a cattle-breeder might
turn on a Durham cow, ordered her to marry one Bully Bill, a lusty
African with a neck like the cylinder of a steam-engine. Flora objected,
and learning that her objections would not be respected, she ran away,
and after various fortunes settled at Montreal. Here she married Peek,
who taught her to read and write. She had been bred a pious Catholic,
and Peek, finding that they agreed in the essentials of a devout and
believing heart, never undertook to disturb her faith.

They moved to New York, and Peek with his wages as waiter, and Flora
with the money she got for doing up muslins, earned jointly an income
which placed them far above want in the region of absolute comfort and
partial refinement. Few more happy and loyal couples could have been
found even in freestone palaces on the Fifth Avenue.

“Well, Flora, how long will it take you to get ready?” said Peek,
entering the neat little kitchen, where she was at work at her
ironing-board, while little Sterling sat amusing himself on the floor in
building a house with small wooden bricks.

Flora, at once comprehending the intent of the question, replied, “I
sha’n’t want more ’n half an hour.”

“Well, a boat leaves for Albany at five,” said Peek, taking the Sun
newspaper, and cutting out an advertisement. “We’d better quit here, and
go on board just as soon as we can.”

“Le ’m me see,” said Flora, meditatively. “The grocer at the corner will
send round these muslins, ’specially if we pay him for it. My customers
owe me twenty dollars,—how shall we collek that?”

“You can write to them from Montreal.”

“Lor! so I can, Peek. Who’d have thought of it but you?”

“Come, then! Be lively. Tumble the things into the trunks. We’ll give
poor old Petticum the odds and ends we leave behind; and she’ll notify
the landlord, and take care of the rooms.”

In less than an hour’s time they had made all their preparations, and
were all three in a coach with their luggage, rattling up Greenwich
Street towards one of the Twenties. Here they went on board an old
steamer, recently taken from the regular line for freighting purposes,
and carrying only a few passengers. Having seen Flora and Sterling
safely bestowed with the luggage, and given the former his watch and all
his money, except a dollar in change, Peek said: “Now, Flora, I’ve got
to go ashore on business. If I shouldn’t be here when the boat starts,
do you keep straight on to Montreal without me. Go to the post-office
regularly twice a week to see if there’s a letter for you.”

“What is it, Peek? Tell me all about it,” said Flora, who painfully felt
there was a secret which her husband did not choose to disclose.

“Now, Flora, don’t be silly,” replied Peek, wiping the tears from her
face with his handkerchief. “I tell you, I may be aboard again before
you start,—haven’t made up my mind yet,—only, if you shouldn’t see me,
never you mind, but just keep on. Find out your old customers in
Montreal, and wait patiently till I join you. So don’t cry about it. The
Lord will take care of it all. Here’s a handbill that tells you the best
way to get to Montreal. Look out for pickpockets. I shouldn’t leave you
if I didn’t have to, Flora. I’ll tell you everything about it when we
meet. So good by.”

Having no suspicion of the actual cause of Peek’s leaving her, and
confident, through faith in him, that it must be for a right purpose,
Flora cheered up, and said: “Well, Peek, I ’spec you’ve got some little
debts to pay; but do come back to-day if you can; and keep clar’ of the
hounds, Peek,—keep clar’ of the hounds.”

And so, kissing wife and child, with an overflowing heart Peek quitted
the boat. He did not at once leave the vicinity. There was a pile of
fresh lumber not far off. Dodging out of sight behind it, and then
sitting down in a little enclosure formed by the boards, where he could
see the boat and not be seen, he tried to orient his conscience as to
his duty under the extraordinary circumstances in which he found
himself.

Go back to the life of a slave? Leave wife and child, and return to
bondage, degradation, subordination to another’s will? He looked out on
the beautiful river, flashing in the warm spring sunshine; to the
opposite shore of Hoboken, where he and Flora used to stroll on Sundays
last summer, dragging Sterling in his little carriage. Was there to be
no more of that pleasant independent life?

A slave? Liable to be kicked, cuffed, spit on, fettered, scourged by
such a creature as Colonel Delancy Hyde? No! To escape the pursuing
fiends who would force such a lot on an innocent human being, surely any
subterfuge, any stratagem, any lie, would be justifiable!

And Peek thought of the joy that Flora would feel at seeing him return,
and he rose to go back to the boat.

A single thought drew him back to his covert. “So help me God.” Had he
not pledged himself,—pledged himself in sincerity at the moment in those
words? Had he not by his act promised Blake, who had befriended him,
that he would return, and might not Blake lose his situation if the
promise were broken?

As Peek found conscience getting the better of inclination in the
dispute, he bowed his head in his hands, and wept sobbingly like a
child. Such anguish was there in the thought of a surrender! Then,
extending himself prostrate on the boards, his face down, and resting on
his arms, he strove to shut out all except the voice of God in his soul.
He uttered no word, but he felt the mastery of a great desire, and that
was for guidance from above. Tender thoughts of the sufferings and wants
of the poor slaves he had left on Barnwell’s plantation stole back to
him. Would he not like to see them and be of service to them once more?
What if he should be whipped, imprisoned? Could he not brave all such
risks, for the satisfaction of keeping a pledge made to a man who had
shown him kindness? And he recalled the words, once spoken through
Corinna, “Not to be happy, but to deserve happiness.”

Besides, might he not again escape? Yes! He would go back to Charlton’s
office. He would surrender himself as he had promised. The words which
Colonel Hyde had conceived to be of no more binding force than a wreath
of tobacco-smoke were the chain stronger than steel that drew the negro
back to the fulfilment of his pledge. “So help me God!” Could he profane
those words, and ever look up again to Heaven for succor?

And so he rose, took one despairing look at the boat, where he could see
Flora pointing out to her little boy the wonders of the river, and then
rushed away in the direction of Broadway. There was no lack of
omnibuses, but no friendly driver would give him a seat on top, and he
was excluded by social prejudice from the inside. It was twenty minutes
to five when he reached Union Park. Thence running all the way in the
middle of the street with the carriages, he reached Charlton’s office
before the clock had finished striking the hour.

There had been wrangling and high words just before his entrance.
Colonel Delancy Hyde was ejecting his wrath against the universal Yankee
nation in the choicest terms of vituperation that his limited vocabulary
could supply. The loss of both his nigger and his revolver had been too
much for his equanimity. Captain Skinner and his companion, Biggs, were
sturdily demanding their fees, which did not seem to be forthcoming.
Charlton, in abject grief of heart, was silently lamenting the loss of
his fifty dollars, forfeited by the non-delivery of the slave; and
Iverson, the policeman, was delicately insinuating in the ear of the
lawyer that he should look to him for his pay.

Peek, entering in this knotty condition of affairs, was the _Deus ex
machina_ to disentangle the complication and set the wheels smoothly in
motion. No one believed he would come back, and there issued from the
lips of all an exclamation of surprise, not unseasoned with oaths to
suit the several tastes.

“Cuss me if here ain’t the nigger himself come back!” exclaimed the
Colonel. “Wall, Peek, I didn’t reckon you was gwine to keep yer word,
and it made me swar some to see how I’d been chiselled fust out of my
revolver and then out of my nigger, by a damned Yankee policeman. But
here you air, and we’ll fix things right off, so’s to be ready for the
next Philadelphy train, if so be yer’ll go without any fuss.”

“Yes, I’ll go, Colonel,” said Peek, “but you’ll have an officer to see I
don’t escape from the cars.”

“Thar’s seventy-five dollars expense, blast yer!” exclaimed the Colonel.
“Yes, be Gawd! I’ve got to pay this man for goin’ to Cincinnati and
back. O, but old Hawks will take your damned hide off when we git you
back in Texas,—sure!”

Peek, to serve some purpose of his own, here dropped his dignity
entirely, and assumed the manner and language of the careless,
rollicking plantation nigger. “Yah! yah!” laughed he. “Wall, look
a-he-ah, Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Les make a trade,—we two,—and git rid of
the policeman altogedder. I can sabe yer fifty dollars, shoo-er-r-r,
Kunnle Delancy Hyde, if you’ll do as how dis nigger tells yer to.”

“How’ll yer do it, Peek?” asked the Colonel, much pacified by the
slave’s repetition of his entire name and title.

“I’ll promise to be a good nigger all the way to Cincinnati, and not try
to run away,—no, not wunst,—if you’ll pay me twenty-five dollars.”

“Will yer sign to that, Peek, and put in, ‘So help me Gawd’?” asked the
Colonel.

Peek started, and looked sharply at Hyde; and then quietly replied,
“Yes, I’ll do it, if you’ll gib me the money to do with as I choose; but
you must agree to le’m me write a letter, and put it in the post-office
afore we leeb.”

The Colonel considered the matter a moment, then turned to Charlton, and
said, “Draw up an agreement, and let the nigger sign it, and be sure and
put in, ‘So help me Gawd.’”

The arrangement was speedily concluded. The witnesses and the officers
were paid off. Charlton received his fifty dollars and Peek his
twenty-five. The slave then asked for pen, ink, and paper, and placed
five cents on the table as payment. In two minutes he finished a letter
to Flora, and enclosed it with the money in an envelope, on which he
wrote an address. Charlton tried hard to get a sight of it, but Peek did
not give him a chance to do this.

The Colonel and Peek then walked to the post-office, where the slave
deposited his letter; after which they passed over to Jersey City in the
ferry-boat, and took the train to Philadelphia.

As for Charlton, no sooner had his company left him, than he seized his
hat, locked up his office, and hurried to Greenwich Street, where he
proceeded to examine the lodgings vacated by Peek. He found Mrs.
Petticum engaged in collecting into baskets the various articles
abandoned to her by the negroes,—old dusters, a hod of charcoal,
kindling-wood, loaves of bread, and small collections of groceries,
sufficient for the family for a week. Mrs. Petticum appeared to have
been weeping, for she raised her apron and wiped her eyes as Charlton
came in.

“Well, have they gone?” asked he.

“Yes, sir, and the wuss for me!” said the old woman.

Charlton took his cue at once, and replied: “They were excellent people,
and I’m sorry they’ve gone. What was the matter? Were the slave-catchers
after them?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Petticum; “I shouldn’t wonder. Poor Flora! That
was all she worried about. I’d like to have got my hands in the hair of
the man that would have carried her off. Where’ll you find the white
folks better and decenter than they was?”

“Not in New York, ma’am,” said Charlton, stealthily looking about the
room, examining every article of furniture, and opening the drawers.

“The furniture belongs to Mr. Craig; but all in the drawers is mine,”
said the old woman, not favorably impressed by Charlton’s
inquisitiveness.

“O, it’s all right,” replied Charlton; “I didn’t know but I could be of
some help. You’ve no idea where they went to?”

“They didn’t tell me, and if I knowed, I shouldn’t tell you, without I
knowed they wanted me to.”

“O, it’s no sort of consequence. I’m a particular friend, that’s all,”
said Charlton. “Did you notice the carriage they went off in?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Could you tell me the number?”

“No, I couldn’t.”

Seeing an old handkerchief in one of the baskets, Charlton took it out,
and looked at the mark. He could get nothing from that; so he threw it
back. An old shoe lay swept in a corner. He took it up. Stamped on the
inner sole were the words, “J. Darling, Ladies’ Shoes, Vicksburg.”
Charlton copied the inscription in his memorandum-book before putting
the shoe back where he had found it. The Sun newspaper lay on the floor.
Taking it up, he found that an advertisement had been cut out. Selecting
an opportunity when Mrs. Petticum was not looking, he thrust the paper
in his pocket.

And then, after examining an old stove-funnel, he went out.

“He’s no gentleman, anyhow,” said Mrs. Petticum; “and I don’t believe he
ever was a friend of the Jacobses.”




                               CHAPTER X.
                          GROUPS ON THE DECK.

“Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind, bowing and nodding
assent to the Habitual and the Fashionable.”—_Coleridge._


The Pontiac had passed New Madrid on the Mississippi. She was advertised
as a first-class high-pressure boat, bound to beat any other on the
river in the long run, but with a captain and officers who were
“teetotalers,” and never raced.

The weather had been stormy for several days; but it was now a
delightful April forenoon. The sun-bright atmosphere was at once fresh
and soft, exhilarating and luxurious, in a combination one rarely enjoys
so fully as on a Western prairie. The delicate spring tracery of the
foliage was fast expanding into a richer exuberance on either bank of
the great river. The dogwood, with its blossoms of an alabaster
whiteness, here and there gleamed forth amid the tender green of the
surrounding trees,—maples, sycamores, and oaks. All at once a magnolia
sent forth a gush of fragrance from its snowy flowers. With every mile
southward the verdure grew thicker and the blossoms larger.

Two miles in the rear of the Pontiac, ploughing up the tawny waters with
her sharp and pointed beak, came the Champion, a new boat, and destined,
as many believed, to prove the fastest on the river. Whatever her
capacities, she had thus far shown herself inferior to the Pontiac in
speed. She kept within two or three miles, but failed to get much
nearer. Captain Crane of the Pontiac, a small, thin, wiry man, who had
acquired a great reputation for sagacity by always holding his tongue,
kept puffing away at a cigar, looking now and then anxiously at his
rival, but evidently happy in the assurance of victory.

The passengers of the Pontiac were distributed in groups about different
parts of the boat. Some were in the cabin playing at euchre or brag.
Some, regardless of the delicious atmosphere which they could drink in
without money and without price, were imbibing fiery liquors at the bar,
or puffing away at bad cigars on the forward part of the lower deck. A
few were reading, and here and there a lady might be seen busy with her
needle.

On the hurricane deck were those who had come up for conversation or a
promenade. Smokers were requested to keep below. The groups here were
rather more select and less numerous than on the main deck. They were
mostly gathered aft, so that the few promenaders could have a clear
space.

Among these last were a lady and two gentlemen, one on either side of
her; the younger, a man apparently about thirty-two, of middle height,
finely formed, handsome, and with the quiet, unarrogating air of one
whose nobility is a part of his nature, not a question of convention.
(The snob’s nonchalance is always spurious. He hopes to make you think
he is unconscious of your existence, and all the while is anxiously
trying to dazzle or stun you by his appearance.)

The other gentleman was also one to whom that much-abused name would be
unhesitatingly applied. He seemed to be about fifty-five, with a person
approaching the portly, dignified, gray-haired, and his face indicating
benevolence and self-control.

The lady, who appeared to be the wife of the younger man, was half a
head shorter than he, and a model of delicate beauty in union with high
health. Personally of a figure and carriage which Art and Grace could
hardly improve, she was dressed in a simple gray travelling-habit, with
a velvet hat and ostrich-plumes of the same color. But she had the rare
skill of making simplicity a charm. Flounces, jewels, and laces would
have been an impertinence. While she conversed, she seemed to take a
special interest in a group that occupied two “patent life-preserving
stools” near the centre of the deck. A young boy held in his lap a
little girl, seemingly not more than two years old, and pointed out
pictures to her from a book, while a mulatto woman, addressed as Hattie,
who appeared to have the infant in charge, joined in their juvenile
prattle, and placed her arm so as to assist the boy in securing his
hold.

“Your son seems to know how to fascinate children,” said the lady,
addressing the elder gentleman; “he has evidently won the heart of my
little Clara.”

“He has a sister just about her age in Texas,” replied the father; “he
is glad to find in your little girl a substitute for Emily.”

“You live in Texas then?” asked the younger gentleman.

“Yes; let me introduce myself, since I was the first to broach
conversation. My name is John Onslow, and my home is in Southwestern
Texas, though I was born in Mississippi, whence I removed some six or
seven years ago. My family consists of a wife, two sons, and a daughter.
The younger of my sons, Robert, sits yonder. The elder, William Temple,
is a student at Yale. I inherited several hundred slaves. I have
gradually liberated them all. In Texas I am trying the experiment of
free labor; but it is regarded with dislike by my slave-holding
neighbors, and they do not scruple, behind my back, to call me an
Abolitionist. I have been North to buy farming implements, and to offer
inducements to German immigrants. There, sir, you have my story; and if
you are a Yankee, you will appreciate my candor.”

“And requite it, I suppose you think,” returned the younger gentleman,
laughing. “It strikes me that it is you, Mr. Onslow, who are playing the
Yankee. You have been talking, sir, with one Henry Berwick, New-Yorker
by birth, retired lawyer by profession, and now on his way to New
Orleans to attend to some real estate belonging to his wife. That little
girl is his daughter. This lady is his wife. My dear, this is our
fellow-passenger, Mr. Onslow. Allow me to introduce him to your better
acquaintance.”

The lady courtesied, flashing upon the stranger a smile that said as
eloquently as smile could say, “I need no vouchers; I flatter myself I
can distinguish a gentleman.”

As she turned aside her glance it met that of a third person, till then
unnoticed. He was pacing the deck and held an opera-glass in his hand,
with which he looked at places on either bank. He was slightly above the
middle height, compactly built, yet rather slender than stout, erect,
square-shouldered, neatly limbed. He might be anywhere between thirty
and thirty-five years of age. His hair was here and there threaded with
gray, and his cheeks were somewhat sunken, although there was nothing to
suggest the lassitude of ill-health in his appearance. His complexion
was that of a man who leads an active out-of-door life; but his hands
were small and unmarked by toil. He wore his beard neatly trimmed. His
finely curved Roman features and small expressive mouth spoke refinement
and strength of will, not untempered with tenderness; while his dark
gray eyes seemed to penetrate without a pause straight to their object.
A sagacious physiognomist would have said of him, “That man has a story
to tell; life has been to him no holiday frolic.” In the expression of
his eyes Mrs. Berwick was reminded of Sir Joshua’s fine picture of “The
Banished Lord.” This stranger, as he passed by, looked at her gravely
but intently, as if struck either by her beauty or by a fancied
resemblance to some one he had known. There was that in his glance which
so drew her attention, she said to her husband, “Who is that man?”

“I have not seen him before,” replied Mr. Berwick. “Probably he came on
board at New Madrid.”

They walked to the extent of their promenade forward, and turning saw
this stranger leaning against the bulwarks. His low-crowned hat of a
delicate, pliable felt, with its brims half curled up, his well-cut
pantaloons of a coarse but unspotted fabric, and his thin overcoat of a
light gray, showed that the Broadway fashions of the hour were not
unfamiliar to the wearer. This time he did not look up as the three
passed. His gaze seemed intent on the children; and the soft smile on
his lips and the dewy suffusion in his eyes betrayed emotion and tender
meditation.

“Well, Leonora, what is your judgment? Is he, too, a gentleman?” asked
Mr. Berwick of his wife.

“Yes; I will stake my reputation as a sibyl on it,” she replied.

“Ah! you vain mother!” said Berwick, laughing. “You say that, because he
seems lost in admiration of our little Clara. Isn’t her weakness
transparent, Mr. Onslow? What think _you_ of this new-comer?”

“He certainly has the air of a gentleman,” said Onslow “and yet he looks
to me very much like a fellow I once had up before me for
horse-stealing. Was he too much interested in looking at your wife, or
did he purposely abstain from letting me catch his eye? I shouldn’t
wonder if he were either a steamboat gambler or a horse-thief!”

“Atrocious!” exclaimed Mrs. Berwick. “I don’t believe a word of it. That
man a horse-thief! Impossible!”

“On closer examination, I think I must be mistaken,” rejoined Mr.
Onslow. “If I remember aright, the fellow with whom I confound him had
red hair.”

“There! I knew you must be either joking or in error,” said the lady.

“And now,” continued Mr. Onslow, “I have a vague recollection of meeting
him at the hotel where I stopped in Chicago last week.”

“Ah! if he is a Chicago man, I must be right in my estimate of him,”
said Mrs. Berwick.

“Why so? Why should you be partial to Chicago?”

“Because my father was one of the first residents of the place.”

“What was his name?”

“Robert Aylesford.”

As she uttered this word they repassed the stranger. To their surprise
he repeated, in a tone of astonishment, “Aylesford!” then seemed to fall
into a fit of musing. Before they again reached the spot, he had walked
away, and taken a seat in an arm-chair aft, where he occupied himself in
wiping the opera-glass with his handkerchief. If he had recognized
Onslow, he had not betrayed it.

Here the attention of all on the upper deck was arrested by an explosion
of wrathful oaths.

A tall, gaunt, round-shouldered man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of
some coarse, home-made cloth, had ascended the stairs with a lighted
cigar in his mouth. One of the waiters of the boat, a bright-looking
mulatto, followed him, calling, “Mister! Mister!”

The tall man paid no heed to the call, and the mulatto touched him on
the shoulder, and said, “We don’t allow smoking on this deck,” whereupon
the tall man angrily turned on him and, with eyes blazing with savage
fire, exclaimed: “What in hell air yer at, nigger? Ask my pardon, blast
yer, or I’ll smash in yer ugly profile, sure!”

“Ask your pardon for what?”

“For darrin’ to put yer black hand on me, confound yer!”

The mulatto replied with spirit: “You don’t bully this child, Mister. I
merely did my duty.”

“Duty be damned! I’ll stick yer, sure, if yer don’t apologize right off,
damned lively!” And the tall man unsheathed a monstrous bowie-knife.

Mr. Onslow approached, and mildly interposed with the remark, “It was
natural for the waiter to touch you, since he couldn’t make you hear.”

“Who the hell air you, sir?” said the tall man. “I reckon I kn settle
with the nigger without no help of yourn.”

“Yes,” said another voice; “if the gentleman demands it, the nigger must
ask his pardon.”

Mr. Onslow turned, and to his surprise beheld the stranger with the
opera-glass.

“Really, sir,” said Mr. Onslow, “I hope you do not wish to see a man
degrade himself merely because he isn’t white like ourselves.”

“The point can’t be argued, sir,” said the stranger, putting his glass
in his pocket. Then seizing the mulatto by the throat, he thrust him on
his knees. “Down, you black hound, and ask this gentleman’s pardon.”

To everybody’s surprise, the mulatto’s whole manner changed the minute
he saw the stranger; and, sinking on his knees, he crossed his arms on
his breast, and, with downcast eyes, said, addressing the tall man, “I
ask pardon, sir, for putting my hand on you.”

“Wall, that’s enough, nigger! I pardon yer,” said the mollified tall
man, returning his bowie-knife to its sheath. “Niggers mus’ know thar
places,—that’s all. Ef a nigger knows his place, I’d no more harm him
nor I’d harm a val’able hoss.”

The mulatto rose and walked away; but with no such show of chagrin as a
keen observer might have expected; and the tall man, turning to him of
the opera-glass, said, “Sir, ye ’r a high-tone gemmleman; an’ cuss me
but I’m proud of yer acquaint. Who mowt it be I kn call yer, sir?”

“Vance of New Orleans,” was the reply.

“Mr. Vance, I’m yourn. I know’d yer mus’ be from the South. Yer mus’
liquor with me, Mr. Vance. Sir, ye’r a high-tone gemmleman. I’m Kunnle
Hyde,—Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Virginia-born, be Gawd! An’ I’m not ashamed
ter say it! My ahnces’tors cum over with the caval’yers in King James’s
time,—yes, sir-r-r! My father was one of the largest slave-owners in the
hull State of Virginia,—yes, sir-r-r! Lost his proputty, every damned
cent of it, sir, through a low-lived Yankee judge, sir!”

“I could have sworn, Colonel Hyde, there was no Puritan blood in your
veins.”

“That’s a fak!” said the Colonel, grimly smiling his gratification.
Then, throwing his cigar overboard, he remarked: “The Champion’s nowhar,
I reckon, by this time. She ain’t in sight no longer. What say yer to a
brandy-smash? Or sh’l it be a julep?”

“The bar is crowded just now; let’s wait awhile,” replied Vance.

Here Mr. Onslow turned away in disgust, and, rejoining the Berwicks,
remarked to the lady, “What think you of your gentleman now?”

“I shall keep my thoughts respecting him to myself for the present,” she
replied.

“My wife piques herself on her skill in judging of character by the
physiognomy,” said Mr. Berwick, apologetically; “and I see you can’t
make her believe she is wrong in this case. She sometimes gets
impressions from the very handwriting of a person, and they often turn
out wonderfully correct.”

“Has Mrs. Berwick the gift of second-sight? Is she a seeress?”

“Her faculty does not often show itself in soothsaying,” said Berwick.
“But I have a step-mother who now and then has premonitions.”

“Do they ever find a fulfilment?”

“One time in a hundred, perhaps,” said Berwick. “If I believed in them
largely, I should not be on board this boat.”

“Why so?” inquired Onslow.

“She predicts disaster to it.”

“But why did you not tell me that before?” asked Mrs. Berwick.

“Simply, my dear, because you are inclined to be superstitious.”

“Hear him, Mr. Onslow!” said Mrs. Berwick. “He calls me superstitious
because I believe in spirits, whereas it is that belief which has cured
me of superstition.”

“I can readily suppose it,” replied Onslow. “The superstitious man is
the _un_believer,—he who thinks that all these phenomena can be produced
by the blind, unintelligent forces of nature, by a mechanical or
chemical necessity.”

“I may believe in spirits in their proper places,” said Berwick, “and
not believe in their visiting this earth.”

“But what if their condition is such that they are independent of those
restrictions of space or place which are such impediments to us poor
mortals?”

“Do you, too, then, believe in ghosts?” asked Berwick.

“Yes; I am a ghost myself,” said Onslow.

Berwick started at the abruptness of the announcement, then smiled, and
replied, “Prove it.”

“That I will, both etymologically and chemically,” rejoined Onslow. “The
words _ghost_ and _gas_ are set down by a majority of the philologists
as from the same root, whether Gothic, Saxon, or Sanscrit, implying
vapor, spirit. The fermenting _yeast_, the steaming _geyser_, are allied
to it. Now modern science has established (and Professor Henry will
confirm what I say) that man begins his earthly existence as a
microscopic vesicle of almost pure and transparent water. It is not true
that he is made of dust. He consists principally of solidified air. The
ashes which remain after combustion are the only ingredient of an earthy
character that enters into the composition of his body. All the other
parts of it were originally in the atmosphere. Nay, a more advanced
science will probably show that even his ashes, in their last analysis,
are an invisible, gaseous substance. Nine tenths of a man’s body, we can
even now prove, are water; and water, we all know, may be decomposed
into invisible gases, and then made to reappear as a visible liquid.
Science tells me, dear madam, that as to my body I am nothing but forty
or fifty pounds of carbon and nitrogen, diluted by five and a half
pailfuls of water. Put me under hydraulic pressure, and you can prove
it. So I do seriously maintain, that I am as much entitled to the
appellation of a ghost (that is, a gaseous body) as was the buried
majesty of Denmark, otherwise known as Hamlet’s father.”

“And I assert that Mr. Onslow has proved his point admirably,” said Mrs.
Berwick, clapping her little hands.

“I confess I never before considered the subject in that light,”
rejoined her husband.

“If science can prove,” continued Mr. Onslow, “that nine tenths of my
present body may be changed to a gaseous, invisible substance (invisible
to mortal eyes), with power to permeate what we call matter, like
electricity, is it so very difficult to imagine that a spirit in a
spiritual body may be standing here by our side without our knowing it?”

“I see you haven’t the fear of Sir David Brewster and the North British
Review before your eyes, Mr. Onslow.”

“No, for I do not regard them as infallible either in questions of
physical or of metaphysical science. Rather, with John Wesley, the
founder of Methodism, would I say, ‘With my latest breath will I bear
testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible
world, that, namely, of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the
testimony of all ages.’”

While this discussion was proceeding, Colonel Hyde and his new
acquaintance were pacing the larboard side of the deck, pausing now and
then at the railing forward of the wheel-house and looking down on the
lower deck, where, seated upon a coil of cables, were four negroes, one
of them, and he the most intelligent-looking of the lot, being
handcuffed.

“How are niggers now?” asked Mr. Vance.

“Niggers air bringin’ fust-rate prices jest now,” replied the Colonel;
“and Gov’nor Wise he reckons ef we fix Californy and Kahnsas all right,
a prime article of a nigger will fotch twenty-five hunderd dollars,
sure.”

“What’s the prospect of doing that?”

“Good. The South ain’t sleeping,—no, not by a damned sight. Californy’s
bound to be ourn, an’ the Missouri boys will take car’ of Kahnsas.”

“I see the North are threatening to send in armed immigrants,” said
Vance; “and one John Brown swears Kansas shall be free soil.”

“John Brown be damned!” replied the Colonel. “One common Suthun man is
more’n a match fur five of thar best Yankees, any day. Kahnsas must be
ourn, ef we hev to shoot every white squatter in the hull terrertory. By
the way, that’s a likely yuller gal, sittin’ thar with the bebby. That
gal ud bring sixteen hunderd dollars _sure_ in Noo Orleenz.”

“Whose niggers are those I see forward there, on the cables?” asked
Vance.

“Them niggers, Mr. Vance, air under my car’, an’ I’m takin’ ’em to Texas
fur Kunnle Barnwell. The feller yer see han’cuffed thar an’ sleepin’,
run away three or four yars ago. At last the Kunnle heerd, through
Hermin & Co., that Peek (that’s his name) was in New York; an’ so the
Kunnle gits me ter go on fur him; an’ cuss me ef I didn’t ketch him
easy. The other three niggers air a lot the Kunnle’s agent in St. Louis
bowt fur him last week.”

“How did you dodge the Abolitionists in New York?” inquired Vance. “You
went before the United States Commissioner, I suppose, and proved your
claim to the article.”

“Damned ef I did! Arter I’d kotched Peek, he said, ef as how I’d let him
go home, an’ settle up, he’d return, so help him Gawd, an’ give hisself
up without no fuss or trial. Wall, I’m a judge of niggers,—kn see right
through ’em,—kn ollerz tell whan a nigger’s lying. I seed Peek was in
airnest, and so I let him go; and may I be shot but he cum back jest at
the hour he said he would.”

“Very extraordinary!” said Vance, musingly. “You must be a great judge
of character, Colonel Hyde.”

“Wall, what’s extrordinerer still,” continued the Colonel, “is this:
Peek wanted money ter send ter his wife, and cuss me ef he didn’t offer
ter go the hull way ter Cincinnati without no officers ter guard him, ef
I’d give him twenty-five dollars. In coorse I done it, seein’ as how I
saved fifty dollars by the operation. The minute he got on board this
’ere boat I hahd him han’cuffed, fur I knowed his promise wahn’t good no
longer, anyhow.”

“Colonel, what’s your address?” asked Mr. Vance. “If ever I lose a
nigger, you’re the man I must send for to help me find him.”

The Colonel drew forth from his vest pocket a dirty card, and presented
it to Mr. Vance. It contained these words: “Colonel Delancy Hyde, Agent
for the Recovery of Escaped Slaves. Address him, care of J.
Breckenridge, St. Louis; Hermin & Co., New Orleans.”

“Shall be proud to do yer business, Mr. Vance,” said the Colonel.

“I must have a talk with that handcuffed fellow of yours by and by,”
remarked Vance.

“Do!” returned the Colonel. “Yer’ll find him a right knowin’ nigger. He
kn read an’ write, an’ that air’s more ’n we kn say of some white folks
in our part of the kintry.”

“Do the owners hereabouts lose many slaves now-a-days?”

“Not sence old Gashface was killed last autumn.”

“Who’s Gashface? Is it a real name?” asked Vance.

“Nobody ever knowed his raal name,” returned the Colonel; “an’ so we
called him Gashface, seem’ as he’d a bad gash over his left cheek. He
was a half mulatto, with woolly hair, an’ so short-sighted he weared
specs. Wall, that bloody cuss hahz run off more niggers nor all the
abolitioners in the Northwest,—damned ef he haint! Two millions of
dollars wouldn’t pay fur all the slaves he’s helped across the line. He
guv his hull time ter the work, an’ was crazy mad on that one pint. Last
yar the planters clubbed together an’ made up a pus of five thousand
dollars fur the man that ’ud shoot the cuss. Two gemmlemen from
Vicksburg went inter the job, treed him, shot him dead, an’ tuk the five
thousand dollars. An almighty good day’s work!”[14]

“How did the planters know they had got the right man?” asked Vance.

“Wall, there wah n’t much doubt about that, yer see,” said the Colonel.
“Them as shot him war’ high-tone gemmlemen, both on ’em, an’ knowed the
cuss well. So did I, an’ they paid me a cool hunderd,—damned if they
didn’t!—to come on an’ swar ter the body.”

“Let’s go and have a talk with your smart nigger,” interrupted Vance.

“Agreed!” replied the Colonel with an oath; and the two descended a
short ladder, and stood on the lower deck in front of Peek, who was
leaning against a green sliding box of stones, used for keeping the boat
rightly trimmed.

“Wake up here, Peek,” said Hyde, kicking him not very gently; “here’s my
friend, Mr. Vance, come ter see yer.”

The slave started, and his eyes had a lurid glitter as they turned on
Hyde; but they opened with a wild and pleased surprise as they caught
the quick, intelligible glance of Vance, whose right hand was pointing
to an inner pocket of his coat. The change of expression in the slave
was, however, too subtle and evanescent for any one except Vance himself
to recognize it; and he was not moved by it to take other notice of the
negro than to imitate the Colonel’s example by pushing Peek with his
foot, at the same time saying, “I wish I had you on a sugar-plantation
down in Louisiana, my fine fellow! I’d teach you to run away! You
wouldn’t try it more than once, I’m thinking.”

“Look he-ah, stranger,” exclaimed Peek, rising to his feet, with a look
of savage irritation, and clenching his fists, in spite of the irons on
his wrists, “you jes’ put yer foot on me agin, and I’ll come at yer,
shoo-ar!”

“You’ll do that, will you,” said Vance, laying both hands on the slave’s
throat, shaking him, and muttering words audible to him only.

Peek, seeming to struggle, thrust his fettered hands into the bosom of
his antagonist, as if to knock him down; but Vance pushed him up against
the bulwarks of the boat, and held him there, with his grasp on his
throat, till the slave begged humbly for mercy. Vance then let him go,
and turning to Colonel Hyde, with perfect coolness, said, “That’s the
way to let a nigger know you’re master.” To which the Colonel, unable to
repress his admiration, replied: “I see as how yer understand ’em, from
hide to innards, clar’ through. A nigger’s a nigger, all the world over.
Now let’s liquor.”

They went to the bar, around which a motley group of smokers and
drinkers were standing. The bar-keeper was a black man, and between him
and Vance there passed a flash of intelligence.

“What shall it be, Mr. Vance?” asked the Colonel.

“Gin for me,” was the reply.

“Make me a whiskey nose-tickler,” said the Colonel, who seemed to be not
unfamiliar with the fancy nomenclature of the bar-room.

The bar-keeper, with that nimbleness and dexterity which high art alone
could have inspired, compounded a preparation of whiskey, lemon, and
sugar with bitters, crushed ice, and a sprig of mint, and handed it to
the Colonel, at the same time placing a decanter labelled “GIN” before
Vance. The latter poured out two thirds of a tumbler of what seemed to
be the raw spirit, and, adding neither water nor sugar, touched glasses
with the Colonel, and swallowed it off as if it had been a spoonful of
_eau sucré_. So overpowered with admiration at the feat was the Colonel,
that he paused a full quarter of a minute before doing entire justice to
the “nose-tickler” which had been brewed for him.

Some of the loungers now drew round the Colonel, and asked him to join
them in a game of euchre. He looked inquiringly at Vance, and the latter
said, “Go and play, Colonel; I’ll rejoin you by and by.” Then, in a
confidential whisper, he added, “I must find out about that yellow
girl,—whether she’s for sale.”

The Colonel winked, and answered, “All right,” and Vance walked away.

“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Leonidas Quattles, a long-haired, swarthy youth,
who looked as if he might be half Indian.

“That’s Mr. Vance of Noo Orleenz,” replied the Colonel; “he’s my
partik’lar friend, an’ a perfek high-tone gemmleman, I don’t car’ whar’
the other is.”

“How stands the Champion now?” said another of the party.

“Three miles astern, and thar she’ll stick,” exclaimed Quattles.

As Vance reascended to the upper deck, he encountered the children at
play. Little Clara Berwick, in high glee, was running as fast as her
infantile feet could carry her, pursued by Master Onslow, while Hattie,
the mulatto woman in attendance, held out the child’s bonnet, and begged
her to come and have it on. But Clara, with her light-brown ringlets
flying on the breeze, was bent on trying her speed, and the boy, fearful
that she would fall, was trying to arrest her. Before he could do this,
his fears were realized. Clara tripped and fell, striking her forehead.
Vance caught her up, and her parents, with Mr. Onslow and Hattie,
gathered round her, while the boy looked on in speechless distress.

The little girl was so stunned by the blow, that for nearly a minute she
could neither cry nor speak. Then opening her eyes on Mr. Vance, who,
seating himself, held her in his lap, she began to grieve in a low,
subdued whimper.

“The dear little creature! How she tries to restrain her tears!” said
Vance. “Cry, darling, cry!” he added, while the moisture began to
suffuse his own eyes.

Then, taking from his pocket a small morocco case, he said to Mrs.
Berwick, “I have some diluted arnica here, madam, the best lotion in the
world for a bruise. With your permission I will apply it.”

“Do so,” said the mother. “I know the remedy.”

And, pulling from a side pocket of his coat a fresh handkerchief of the
finest linen, he wet it with the liquid, and applied it tenderly to the
bruise, all the while engaging the child’s attention with prattle suited
to her comprehension, and telling her what a brave good little girl she
was.

“What is your name?” he asked.

She tried to utter it, but, failing to make herself understood, the
mother helped her to say, “Clara Aylesford Berwick.”

“Aylesford!” said Vance, thoughtfully. Then, gazing in the child’s face,
he rejoined: “How strange! Her eyes are dissimilar. One is a decided
gray, the other a blue.”

“Yes,” said Berwick; “she gets the handsome eye from me; the other from
her mamma.”

“Conceited man! cease your trifling!” interposed the lady.

Vance picked up from the deck a little sleeve-button of gold and coral.
It had been dropped in the child’s fall.

“This must belong to Miss Clara,” said Vance, “for it bears the initials
C. A. B.”

The mother took it and fixed it in the little dimity pelisse which the
child wore.

Hattie now offered to receive Miss Clara from Vance’s arms; but, with an
utterance and gesture of remonstrance, the child signified she did not
choose to be parted without a kiss; so he bent down and kissed her,
while she threw her little arms about his neck. Then seeing the boy, who
felt like a culprit for chasing her, she called him to her and gave him
absolution by the same token. Thanking Vance for his service, Mr.
Berwick walked away with Leonora.

“That’s a noble boy of yours, sir,” said Vance, addressing himself to
Mr. Onslow.

All the father’s displeasure vanished with the compliment, and he
replied, “Yes, Robert _is_ a noble boy; that’s the true word for him.”

“I fear,” resumed Vance, “I gave you some cause just now to form a bad
opinion of me because of my conduct to one of the waiters.”

“To be frank,” replied Onslow, “I _did_ feel surprise that you should
take not only the strong side, but the wrong one.”

“Mr. Onslow, did you ever read Parnell’s poem of the ‘Hermit’?”

“Yes, it was one of the favorites of my youth.”

“And do you remember how many things seemed wrong to the hermit that he
afterwards found to be right?”

“I perceive the drift of your allusion, sir,” returned Onslow; “but I am
puzzled, nevertheless.”

“Perhaps one of these days you will be enlightened.” Then, changing the
subject, Vance remarked, “How do you succeed in Texas in your attempt to
substitute free labor for that of slaves?”

“My success has been all I could have hoped; but the more successful I
am, the more imminent is my failure.”

“Why so? That sounds like a paradox.”

“The rich slave-owners look with fear and dislike on my experiment.”

“What else could you expect, Mr. Onslow? Take a case, publicly vouched
for as true. Not long since a New York capitalist purchased mineral
lands in Virginia, with a view to working them. He went on the ground
and hired some of the white inhabitants of the neighborhood as laborers.
All promised well, when lo! a committee of slaveholders, headed by one
Jenkins,[15] waited on him, and told him he must discharge his hands and
hire _slaves_. The white laborers offered to work at reduced wages
rather than give up their employment, but they were overawed, and their
employer was compelled by the slave despots to abandon his undertaking
and return to a State where white laborers have rights.”

“And yet,” said Onslow, “there are politicians who try to persuade the
people that the enslaving of a black man removes him from competition
with white labor; whereas the direct effect of slavery is to give to
slaveholders the monopoly and control of the most desirable kinds of
labor, and to enable them to degrade and impoverish the white laboring
man!”

Here the furious ringing of a bell called the gentlemen to dinner.




                              CHAPTER XI.
                      MR. ONSLOW SPEAKS HIS MIND.

                 “How faint through din of merchandise
                       And count of gain
                 Has seemed to us the captive’s cries!
                 How far away the tears and sighs
                       Of souls in pain!”
                                          _Whittier._


An opportunity for resuming the conversation did not occur till long
after sundown, and when many of the passengers were retiring to bed.

“I have heard, Mr. Onslow,” said Vance, “that since your removal to
Texas you have liberated your slaves.”

“You have been rightly informed,” replied Onslow.

“And how did they succeed as freedmen?”

“Two thirds of them poorly, the remaining third well.”

“Does not such a fact rather bear against emancipation, and in favor of
slavery?”

“Quite the contrary. I am aware that the enthusiastic Mr. Ruskin
maintains that slavery is ‘not a political institution at all, but an
inherent, natural, and eternal inheritance of a large portion of the
human race.’ But as his theory would involve the enslaving of white men
as well as black, I think we may dismiss it as the sportive extravagance
of one better qualified to dogmatize than argue.”

“But is he not right in the application of his theory to the black
race?”

“Far from it. Look at the white men you and I knew some twenty-five
years ago. How many of them have turned out sots, gluttons, thieves,
incapables! Shall the thrifty and wise, therefore, enslave the imprudent
and foolish? Assuredly not, whatever such clever men as Mr. Ruskin and
Mr. Thomas Carlyle may say in extenuation of such a proceeding.”

“Do not escaped or emancipated negroes often voluntarily return to
slavery?”

“Not often, but occasionally; and so occasionally a white man commits an
offence in order that he may be put in the penitentiary. A poor negro is
emancipated or escapes. He goes to Philadelphia or New York, and has a
hard time getting his grub. In a year or two he drifts back to his old
master’s plantation, anxious to be received again by one who can insure
to him his rations of mush; and so he declares there’s no place like
‘old Virginny for a nigger.’ Then what pæans go up in behalf of the
patriarchal system! What a conclusive argument this that ‘niggers will
be niggers,’ and that slavery is right and holy! Slave-drivers catch at
the instance to stiffen up their consciences, and to stifle that inner
voice that is perpetually telling them (in spite of the assurances of
bishops, clergymen, and literary _dilettanti_ to the contrary) that
slavery is a violation of justice and of that law of God written on the
heart and formulized by Christ, that we must do unto others as we would
have them do unto us, and that therefore liberty is the God-given right
of every innocent and able-minded man. Instances like that I have
supposed, instead of being a palliation of slavery, are to my mind new
evidences of its utter sinfulness. A system that can so degrade humanity
as to make a man covet repression or extinction for his manhood must be
devilish indeed.”

“But, Mr. Onslow, do not statistics prove that the blacks increase and
multiply much more in a state of slavery than in any other? Is not that
a proof they are well treated and happy?”

“That is the most hideous argument yet in favor of the system. In
slavery women are stimulated by the beastly ambition of contending which
shall bear ‘the most little nigs for massa’! Among these poor creatures
the diseases consequent upon too frequent child-bearing are dreadfully
prevalent. Surely the welfare of a people must be measured, not by the
mere amount of animal contentment or of rapid breeding with which they
can be credited, but by the sum of manly acting and thinking they can
show. A whole race of human beings is not created merely to eat mush,
hoe in cotton-fields, and procreate slaves. The example of one such
escaped slave as Frederick Douglas shows that the blacks are capable of
as high a civilization as the whites.”

“Do they not seem to you rather feeble in the moral faculty?”

“No more feeble than any race would be, treated as they have been. The
other day there fell into my hands a volume of sermons for pious
slaveholders to preach to their slaves. It is from the pen of the
excellent Bishop Meade of Virginia. The Bishop says to poor Cuffee:
‘Your bodies, you know, are not your own; they are at the disposal of
those you belong to; _but your precious souls are still your own_.’ What
impious cajolery is this? The master has an unlimited, irresponsible
power over the slave, from childhood up,—can force him to act as he
wills, however conscience may protest! The slave may be compelled to
commit crimes or to reconcile himself to wrongs, familiarity with which
may render his soul, like his body, the mere unreasoning, impassive tool
of his master. And yet a bishop is found to try to cozen Cuffee out of
the little common sense slavery may have left him, by telling him he is
responsible for that soul, which may be stunted, soiled, perverted in
any way avarice or power may choose.”

“Well, Mr. Onslow, will you deny that slavery has an ennobling effect in
educating a chivalrous, brave, hospitable aristocracy of whites,
untainted by those meannesses which are engendered by the greed of gain
in trading communities?”

“I will not deny,” replied Onslow, “that the habit of irresponsible
command may develop certain qualities, sometimes good, sometimes bad, in
the slave-driver; and so the exercise of the lash by the overseer may
develop the extensor muscles of the arm; but the evils to the whites
from slavery far, far outbalance the benefits. First, there are the five
millions of mean, non-slaveholding whites. These the system has reduced
to a condition below that of the slave himself, in many cases. Slavery
becomes at once their curse and their infatuation. It fascinates while
it crushes them; it drugs and stupefies while it robs and degrades.”

“But may we not claim advantages from the system for the few,—for the
upper three hundred thousand?”

“That depends on what you may esteem advantages. Can an injustice be an
advantage to the perpetrator? The man who betrays a moneyed trust, and
removes to Europe with his family, may in one sense derive an advantage
from the operation. He may procure the means of educating and amusing
himself and his children. So the slaveholder, by depriving other men of
their inherent rights, may get the means of benefiting himself and those
he cares for. But if he is content with such advantages, it must be
because of a torpid, uneducated, or perverted conscience. Patrick Henry
was right when he said, ‘Slavery is inconsistent with the religion of
Christ.’ O’Connell was right when he declared, ‘No constitutional law
can create or sanction slavery.’ I have often thought that
Mississippians would never have been reconciled to that stupendous
public swindle, politely called repudiation, if slavery had not first
prepared their minds for it by the robbery of labor. And yet we have men
like Jefferson Davis,[16] who not only palliate, but approve the cheat.
O the atrocity! O the shame! With what face can a repudiating community
punish thieves?”

“Shall we not,” asked Vance, “at least grant the slaveholder the one
quality he so anxiously claims,—that which he expresses in the word
_chivalry_?”

Mr. Onslow shrugged his shoulders, and replied: “Put before the
chivalrous slaveholder a poor fanatic of an Abolitionist, caught in the
act of tampering with slaves, and then ask this representative of the
chivalry to be magnanimous. No! the mean instincts of what he deems
self-interest will make him a fiend in cruelty. He looks upon the
Abolitionist very much as a gunpowder manufacturer would look upon the
wandering Celt who should approach his establishment with a lighted pipe
in his mouth; and he cheerfully sees the culprit handed over to the
tender mercies of a mob of ignorant white barbarians.”

“Do you, then, deny that slavery develops any high qualities in the
master?”

“And if it did, what right have I to develop my high qualities at
another’s expense? Yes! Jefferson is right when he says: ‘The whole
commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most
boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part and
degrading submissions on the other. The man must be a prodigy who can
retain his manners and his morals undepraved by such circumstances.’”

Mr. Onslow paced the deck for a moment, and then, returning, exclaimed:
“O the unspeakable crimes, barbarities, and deviltries to which the
system has educated men here at the South during the last thirty years!
Educated not merely the poor and ignorant, but the rich and refined! The
North knows hardly a tithe of the actual horrors. Worse than the wildest
religious fanaticism, slavery sees men tortured, hung, mutilated,
subjected to every conceivable indignity, cruelty, agony, simply because
the victim is unsound, or suspected to be unsound, on the one supreme
question. I myself have been often threatened, and sometimes the
presentiment is strong upon me that my end will be a bloody one. I
should not long be safe, were it not that in our region there are brave
men who, like me, begin to question the divinity of the obscene old
hag.”

Mr. Onslow again walked away, and then, coming close up to Vance, said
in low tones: “But retribution must come,—as sure as God lives,
retribution must come, and that speedily! Slavery must die, in order
that Freedom and Civilization may live. I see it in all the signs of the
times, in all the straws that drift by me on the current of events.
Retribution must come,—come with bloodshed, anguish, and desolation to
both North and South,—to Slavery, with spasms of diabolical cruelty,
violence, and unholy wrath, and to Freedom with trials long and
doubtful, but awaking the persistent energy which a righteous cause will
inspire, and leading ultimately to permanent triumph and to the
annihilation on this continent of the foul power which has ruled us so
long, and which shall dare to close in deadly combat with the young
genius of universal Liberty.”

Vance grasped Onslow by the hand, but seemed too excited to speak. Then,
as if half ashamed of his emotion, he said, “Will there be men at the
South, think you, to array themselves on the side of freedom, in the
event of a collision?”

“There will be such men, but, until the slave-power shall be annihilated
forever, they will be a helpless minority. A few rich leaders control
the masses which Slavery has herself first imbruted. Crush out slavery,
and there will be regenerators of the land who will spring up by
thousands to welcome their brethren of the North, whose interests, like
theirs, lie in universal freedom and justice.”

“You do not, then, believe those who tell us there is an eternal
incompatibility between the people of the slaveholding and
non-slaveholding States?”

“Bah! These exaggerations, the rhetoric of feeble spirits, and the logic
of false, are stuff and rubbish to any true student of human nature.
There is no incompatibility between North and South, except what slavery
engenders and strives to intensify. Strike away slavery, and the people
gravitate to each other by laws higher than the bad passions of your
Rhetts, Yanceys, and Maurys. The small-beer orators and forcible-feeble
writers of the South, who are eternally raving about the mean, low-born
Yankees, and laboring to excite alienation and prejudice, are merely the
tools of a few plotting oligarchs who hope to be the chiefs of a
Southern Confederacy.”

“And must civil war necessarily follow from a separation?”

“As surely as thunder follows from the lightning-rent! Yes, Webster is
undoubtedly right: there can be no such thing as peaceable secession,
and I rejoice that there cannot be.”

“But would not a civil war render inevitable that alienation which these
Richmond scribblers are trying to antedate?”

“No. Enmity would be kept up long enough for the slave-power to be
scotched and killed, and then the people of both sections would see that
there was nothing to keep them apart, that their interests are
identical. The true people of the South would soon realize that the
three hundred thousand slaveholders are even more _their_ enemies than
enemies of the North. A reaction against our upstart aristocracy (an
aristocracy resting on tobacco-casks and cotton-bales) would ensue, and
the South would be republicanized,—a consummation which slavery has thus
far prevented. South Carolina was Tory in the Revolution, just as she is
now. Abolish slavery, and we should be United States in fact as well as
in name. Abolish slavery, and you abolish sectionalism with it. Abolish
slavery, and you let the masses North and South see that their welfare
lies in the preservation of the republic, one and indivisible.”

“And do you anticipate civil war?”

“Yes, such a civil war as the world has never witnessed.[17] The devil
of slavery must go out of us, and as it is the worst of all the devils
that ever afflicted mankind, it can go out only through unprecedented
convulsions and tearings and agonies. The North must suffer as well as
the South, for the North shares in the guilt of slavery, and there are
thousands of men there who shut their eyes to its enormities. Believe
me, their are high spiritual laws underlying national offences; and the
Nemesis that must punish ours is near at hand. Slavery must be
destroyed, and war is the only instrumentality that I can conceive of
energetic enough to do it. Through war, then, must slavery be
destroyed.”

“And I care not how soon!” said Vance. Then, lowering his tone, he
remarked: “Have you not been imprudent in confiding your views to a
stranger, who could have you lynched at the next landing-place by
reporting them?”

“Perhaps. But I bide the risk; you have not been so shrewd an actor,
sir, that I have not seen behind the mask.”

Vance started at the word _actor_, then said, looking up at the stars:
“What a beautiful night! Does not the Champion seem to be gaining on
us?”

“I have been thinking so for some minutes,” replied Onslow. “Good night,
Mr.——. Excuse me. I haven’t the pleasure of knowing your name.”

“And yet we have met before, Mr. Onslow, and under circumstances that
ought to make me remembered.”

“To what do you allude?”

“I was once brought before you for horse-stealing, and, what is more,
you found me guilty of the charge, and rightly.”

“Then my recollection was not at fault, after all!” exclaimed Onslow,
astonished. “But were you indeed guilty?”

“I certainly took a horse, but it was a case of necessity. A friend of
mine, a colored man, in defence of his liberty, had wounded his master,
so called, and was flying for life. To save him I robbed the
robber,—took his horse and gave it to his victim, enabling the latter to
get off safely. The fact of my taking the horse was clearly proved, but
my motive was not discovered. If it had been, Judge Lynch would surely
have relieved you of the care of me. You, as justice of the peace,
remanded me to prison for trial. That night I escaped. In an outer room
of the jail I found a knife and half of a slaughtered calf. The knife I
put in my pocket. The carcass I threw over my shoulder, and ran. In the
morning I found five valuable bloodhounds on my track. I climbed a tree,
and when they came under it, I fed them till they were all tame, and
allowed me to descend; and then I cut their throats, lest they should be
used to hunt down fugitives from slavery. Two days afterwards I was safe
on board a steamboat, on my way North.”

“Who, then, _are_ you, sir?” asked Onslow.

Vance whispered a word in reply.

Mr. Onslow seemed agitated for a moment, and then exclaimed, “But I
thought he was dead!”

“The report originated with those who took the reward offered for his
head. Mr. Onslow, I have repaid your frankness with a similar frankness
of my own. To-morrow morning, at ten o’clock, meet me here, and you
shall hear more of my story. Good night.”

The gentlemen parted, each retiring to his state-room for repose.




                              CHAPTER XII.
                         THE STORY OF ESTELLE.

             “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
             Tears from the depth of some divine despair,
             Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
             In looking on the happy autumn-fields
             And thinking of the days that are no more.”
                                              _Tennyson._


Balmy, bright, and beautiful broke the succeeding morning. Every
passenger as he came on deck looked astern to see what had become of the
Champion. She still kept her usual distance, dogging the Pontiac with
the persistency of a fate. Captain Crane said nothing, but it was
noticeable that he puffed away at his cigar with increased vigor.

Mr. Vance encountered the Berwicks once more on the hurricane deck and
interchanged greetings. Little Clara recognized her friend of the day
before, and, jumping from Hattie’s lap, ran and pulled his coat, looking
up in his face, and pouting her lips for a kiss.

“I fancy I see two marked traits in your little girl, already,” said
Vance to the mother, after he had saluted the child; “she is strong in
the affections, and has a will-power that shows itself in self-control.”

“You are right,” replied the mother; “I have known her to bite her lips
till the blood came, in her effort to keep from crying.”

“Such is her individuality,” continued Vance. “I doubt if circumstances
of education could do much to misshape her moral being.”

“Ah! that is a fearful consideration,” said the lady; “we cannot say how
far the best of us would have been perverted if our early training had
been unpropitious.”

“I knew your father, Mrs. Berwick. He found me, a stranger stricken down
by fever, forsaken and untended, in a miserable shanty called a tavern,
in Southern Illinois, in the sickly season. He devoted himself to me
till I was convalescent. I shall never forget his kindness. Will you
allow mg to look at that little seal on your watch-chain? It ought to
bear the letters ‘W. C. to R. A.’ Thank you. Yes, there they are! I sent
him the seal as a memento. The cutting is my own.”

“I shall regard it with a new interest,” said Mrs. Berwick, as she took
it back.

Mr. Onslow here appeared and bade the party good morning.

“I feel that I am among friends,” said Vance. “I last night promised Mr.
Onslow a story. Did you ever hear of the redoubtable Gashface, Mr.
Berwick?”

“Yes, and I warn you, sir, that I am quite enough of an Abolitionist to
hold his memory in a sort of respect.”

“Bold words to utter on the Southern Mississippi! But do not be under
concern: I myself am Gashface. Yes. The report of his being killed is a
lie. Are you in a mood to hear his story, Mrs. Berwick?”

“I shall esteem it a privilege, sir.”

“The last time I told it was to your father. Be seated, and try and be
as patient as he was in listening.”

The party arranged themselves in chairs; and Mr. Vance was about to take
up his parable, when the figure of Colonel Delancy Hyde was seen
emerging from the stairs leading from the lower deck.

“Hah! Mr. Vance, I’m yourn,” exclaimed the Colonel, with effusion. “Been
lookin’ fur yer all over the boat. Introduce yer friends ter me.”

Vance took from his pocket the Colonel’s card, and read aloud the
contents of it.

“From Virginia, ma’am,” supplemented the Colonel, who was already
redolent of Bourbon; “the name of Delancy Hyde hahz been in the family
more ’n five hunderd yarz. Fak, ma’am! My father owned more slaves nor
he could count. Ef it hahdn’t been fur a damned Yankee judge, we sh’d
hahv held more land nor you could ride over in a day. Them low-born
Yankees, ma’am, air jes’ fit to fetch an’ carry for us as air the master
race; to larn our childern thar letters an’ make our shoes, as the
Greeks done fur the Romans, ma’am. Ever read the Richmond newspapers,
ma’am? John Randolph wunst said he’d go out of his way to kick a sheep.
I’d go out of my way, ma’am, to kick a Yankee.”

“If you’re disposed to listen to a story, Colonel,” said Vance, “take a
chair.” And he pointed to one the furthest from Mrs. Berwick. “I am
about to read an autobiography of the fellow Gashface, of whom you have
heard.”

And Vance drew from his pocket a small visiting card crowded close with
stenographic characters in manuscript.

“An’ that’s an auter—what d’ yer call it,—is it?” asked the Colonel.
“Cur’ous!”

The Colonel reinforced himself with a plug of tobacco, and Vance began
to recite what he called, for the occasion, “The Autobiography of
Gashface.” But we prefer to name it

                     =The Story of Estelle.=

I was born in New Orleans, and am the son of William Carteret. He was a
Virginian by birth, the younger son of a planter, whose forefather, a
poor Yorkshire gentleman, came over from England with Sir Thomas Dale in
the year 1611. You might think me false to my father’s native State if I
did not vindicate my claim to a descent from one of the first Virginia
families. You must be aware that all the gentle blood that flowed from
Europe to this continent sought Virginia as its congenial reservoir. It
would be difficult to find a low-born white man in the whole eastern
section of the State.

[“That’s a fak!” interposed the Colonel.]

My grandfather died in 1820, leaving all his property to his eldest son,
Albert. (Virginia then had her laws of primogeniture.) Albert generously
offered to provide for my father, but the latter, finding that Albert
could not do this without reducing the provision for his sisters,
resolved to seek fortune at the North. He went to New York, where he
studied medicine. But here he encountered Miss Peyton, a beautiful girl
from Virginia, nobly supporting herself by giving instruction in music.
He married her, and they consoled themselves for their poverty by their
fidelity and devotion to each other. The loss of their first child, in
consequence, as my father believed, of the unhealthy location of his
house, induced him to make extraordinary efforts to earn money.

After various fruitless attempts to establish himself in some lucrative
employment, he made his _début_, under an assumed name, at the Park
Theatre, in the character of Douglas, in Home’s once famous tragedy of
that name. My father’s choice of this part is suggestive of the moderate
but respectable character of his success. He played to the judicious
few; but their verdict in his favor was not sufficiently potent to make
him a popular actor. He soon had to give up the high starring parts, and
to content himself with playing the gentleman of comedies or the second
part in tragedies. In this humbler line he gained a reputation which has
not yet died out in theatrical circles. He could always command good
engagements for the theatrical season in respectable stock-companies. He
was fulfilling one of these engagements in New Orleans when I was born.

A month afterwards he ended his career in a manner that sent a thrill
through the public heart. He was one evening playing Othello for his own
benefit. Grateful for a crowded house, he was putting forth his best
powers, and with extraordinary success. Never had such plaudits greeted
and inspired him. The property-man, whose duty it is to furnish all the
articles needed by the actor, had given him at rehearsal a blunted
dagger, so contrived with a spring that it seemed to pierce the breast
when thrust against it. At night this false dagger was mislaid, and the
property-man handed him a real one, omitting in the hurry of the moment
to inform him of the change. In uttering the closing words of his part,—

              “I took by the throat the circumci-sed dog,
              And smote him _thus_,”—

my father inflicted upon himself, not a mimic, but a real stab, so
forcible that he did not survive it ten minutes.

Great was my mother’s anguish at her loss. She was not left utterly
destitute. My father had not fallen into the besetting sins of the
profession. He saw in it a way to competence, if he would but lead a
pure and thrifty life. In the seven years he had been on the stage he
had laid up seven thousand dollars. Pride would not let him allow my
mother to labor for her support. But now she gladly accepted from the
manager an offer of twenty-five dollars a week as “walking lady.” On
this sum she contrived for seventeen years to live decently and educate
her son liberally.

At last sickness obliged her to give up her theatrical engagement. She
had invested her seven thousand dollars in bonds of the Planters’ Bank
of Mississippi, to the redemption of which the faith of that State was
pledged. The repudiation of the bonds by the State authorities, under
the instigation of Mr. Jefferson Davis, deprived her of her last
resource. Impoverished in means, broken in health, and unable to labor,
she fell into a decline and died.

The humane manager gave me a situation in his company. I became an
actor, and for seven years played the part of second young gentleman in
comedies and melodramas; also such parts as Horatio in “Hamlet” or
Macduff in “Macbeth.” But my heart was not in my vocation. It had
chagrins which I could not stomach.

One evening I was playing the part of a lover. The _dramatis persona_ of
whom I was supposed to be enamored was represented by Miss B——, rather a
showy, voluptuous figure, but whom I secretly disliked for qualities the
reverse of those of Cæsar’s wife. Instead of allowing my aversion to
appear, I played with the appropriate ardor. In performing the
“business” of the part, I was about to _kiss_ her, when I heard a loud,
solitary hiss from a person in an orchestra box. He was a man of a full
face, very fair red-and-white complexion, and thick black
whiskers,—precisely what a coarse feminine taste would call “a handsome
fellow.” Folding my arms, I walked towards the foot-lights, and asked
what he wanted. “None of your business, you damned stroller!” replied
he; “I have a right to hiss, I suppose.” “And I have a right to
pronounce you a blackguard, I suppose,” returned I. The audience
applauded my rebuke, and laughed at the handsome man, who, with scarlet
cheeks, rose and left the house. I learned he was a Mr. Ratcliff, a rich
planter, and an admirer of Miss B——.

Soon after this adventure I quitted the profession, and for some time
gave myself up to study. My tastes were rather musical than histrionic;
and having from boyhood been a proficient on the piano-forte, I at last,
when all my money was exhausted, offered my services to the public as a
teacher.

My first pupil was Henri Dufour, the only son of the widow of a French
physician. It was soon agreed that, for the greater convenience of
Henri, and in payment for his tuition, I should become a member of the
family, which was small, consisting only of himself, his mother, Jane, a
black slave, and Estelle, a white girl who occupied the position of a
humble companion of the widow.

[At this point in the narrative, Mr. Quattles appeared at the head of
the stairs, and, with his forefinger placed on the side of his long
nose, winked expressively at Colonel Hyde. The latter rose, and said,
“Sorry to go, Mr. Vance; but the fak is, I’m in fur a hahnd at euchre,
an’ jest cum up ter see ef you’d jine us.”

“You’re too gallant a man, Colonel Delancy Hyde,” replied Vance, “not to
agree with me, when I say, Duty to ladies first.”

“Yer may bet yer pile on that, Mr. Vance; the ladies fust ollerz; but
Madame will ’scuze _me_, I reckon. Hahd a high old time, ma’am, last
night, an’ an almighty bahd streak of luck. Must make up fur it
somehow.”

“Business before pleasure, Colonel,” said Vance. “We’ll excuse you.”

And the Colonel, with a lordly sweep of his arm, by way of a bow, joined
his companion, Quattles, to whom he remarked, “A high-tone Suthun
gemmleman that, and one as does credit to his raisin’.” The companions
having disappeared, Vance proceeded with his story.]

Let me call up before you, if I can, the image of Estelle. In person
about three inches shorter than I (and I am five feet six), slender,
lithe, and willowy, yet compactly rounded, straight, and singularly
graceful in every movement; a neck and bust that might have served
Powers for a model when the Greek Slave was taking form in his brain; a
head admirably proportioned to all these symmetries; a face rather
Grecian than Roman, and which always reminded me of that portrait of
Beatrice Cenci by Guido, made so familiar to us through copies and
engravings; a portrait tragic as the fate of the original in its serene
yet mournful expression. But Estelle’s hair differed from that of
Beatrice in not being auburn, but of a rare and beautiful olive tint,
almost like the bark of the laburnum-tree, and exquisitely fine and
thick. In complexion she could not be called either a blonde or a
brunette; although her dark blue eyes seemed to attach her rather to the
former classification. She was one of the few beautiful women I have
seen, whose beauty was not marred by a besetting self-consciousness of
beauty, betrayed in every look and movement, and even in the tones of
the voice. In respect to her personal charms Estelle was as unconscious
as a moss-rose.

Mrs. Dufour was an invalid, selfish, parsimonious, and exacting; but
Estelle, in devotion to that lady’s service and in adaptation to her
caprices, showed a patience and a tact so admirable that it was
difficult to guess whether they were the result of sincere affection or
of a simple sense of duty.

Henri, my pupil in music, was a youth of sixteen, who inherited not only
his mother’s morbid constitution, but her ungenerous qualities of heart
and temper. Arrogant and vain, he seemed to regard me in the light of a
menial, and I could not find in him intellect enough to make him
sensible of his folly.

I spent my last twenty dollars in advertising; but no new pupil appeared
in answer to my insinuating appeal. My wardrobe began to get impaired;
my broadcloth to lose its nap, and my linen to give evidence of
premeditated poverty. One day I marvelled at finding in my drawer a
shirt completely renovated, with new wristbands, bosom, and collar. The
next week the miracle was repeated. Had Mrs. Dufour opened her heart and
her purse? Impossible! Had Jane, my washerwoman, slyly performed the
service? She honestly denied it. I pursued my investigations no further.

The next Sunday, in putting on my best pantaloons, I found in the right
pocket two gold quarter-eagles. Yes! There could now be no doubt. I had
misjudged Mrs. Dufour. Her stinginess was all a pretence. Touched with
gratitude, yet humiliated, I went to return the gold. It was plain that
Madame knew nothing about it. I looked at Estelle, who sat at a window
mending a muslin collar.

“Can you explain, Mademoiselle?” I asked.

“Explain what?” she inquired, as if she had been too absorbed in her own
thoughts to hear a word of the conversation.

“Can you explain how those gold pieces came into my pocket?”

Without the least sign of guilt, she replied, “I cannot explain, sir.”

Was she deceiving me? I thought not. Though we had met twice a day at
meals for weeks, her demeanor towards me had been always distant and
reserved.

It was my habit daily, after giving a morning lesson to my pupil, to
walk a couple of hours on the Levee. One forenoon, on account of the
heat of the weather, I returned home an hour earlier than usual. Henri
and his mother were out riding. As I entered the house I heard the sound
of the piano, and stopped in the hall to listen. It was Estelle at the
instrument.

I had left on the music-stand a rough score of my arrangement of that
remarkable composition, then newly published in Europe, the music and
words of which Colonel Pestal wrote with a link of his fetters on his
prison-wall the day before his execution. I had translated the original
song, and written it on the same page with the music. What was my
astonishment to hear the whole piece,—this new _De Profundis_, this
mortal cry from the depths of a proud, indignant heart,—a cry condensed
by music into tones the most apt and fervid,—now reproduced by Estelle
with such passionate power, such reality of emotion, that I was struck
at once with admiration and with horror.

They were not, then, for Pestal so much as for Estelle,—those utterances
of holy wrath and angelic defiance! The words by themselves are
simple,—commonplace, if you will.[18] But, conveyed to the ear through
Pestal’s music and Estelle’s voice, they seemed vivid with the very
lightning of the soul. As she sang, the victim towered above the
oppressor like an archangel above a fiend. The prison-walls fell
outward, and the welcoming heavens opened to the triumphant captive.

I entered the room. She turned suddenly. Her face had not yet recovered
from the expression of those emotions which the song had called up. She
rose with the air of an avenging goddess. Then, seeing me, she drew up
her clasped hands to her bosom with a gesture full of grace and eloquent
with deprecation, and said, “Forgive me if I have disturbed your
papers.”

“Estelle!” I began. Then, seeing her look of surprise, I said, “Excuse
me if the address is too familiar; but I know you by no other name.”

“Estelle is all sufficient,” she replied.

“Well, then, Estelle, you have moved me by your singing as I was never
moved before,—so terribly in earnest did you seem! What does it mean?”

“It means,” she replied, “that you have adapted the music to a faithful
translation of the words.”

“I have heard you play,” said I, “but why have you kept me in ignorance
of your powers as a singer?”

“My powers, such as they are,” she said, “have been rarely used since I
left the convent. I can give little time now to music. Indeed, the hour
I have given to it this morning was stolen, and I must make up for it.
So good by.”

“Stay, Estelle,” said I, seizing her hand. “There is a mystery which
hangs over you like a cloud. Tell me what it is. Your eyes look as if a
storm of unshed tears were brooding behind them. Your expression is
always sad. Can I in any way help you? Can I render a true brother’s
service?”

She stood, looking me in the face, and it was plain, from a certain
convulsed effort at deglutition, that she was striving to swallow back
the big grief that heaved itself up from her heart. She wavered as if
half inclined to reveal something. There was the noise of a carriage at
the door; and, pressing my hand gently, she said, with an effort at a
smile that should have been a sob, “Thank you; you cannot—help me; my
mistress is at the door; good by.” And dropping my hand, she glided out
of the room.

I can never forget her as she then appeared in her virginal, spring-like
beauty, with her profuse silky hair parted plainly in front, and folded
in a classic knot behind, with her dress of a light gauze-like material,
and an unworked muslin collar about her neck having a simple blue ribbon
passing under it and fastened in front with a little cross of gold. How
unpretending and unadorned,—and yet what a charm was lent to her whole
attire by her consummate grace of person and of action!

Mrs. Dufour entered, and I did not see Estelle again that day.

                               ----------

It was that fearful summer when the fever seemed to be indiscriminate in
its ravages. Not only transient visitors in the city, but old residents
long acclimated, natives of the city, physicians and nurses, were
smitten down. Many fled from the pest-ridden precincts. Whole blocks of
houses were deserted. There were few doors at which Death did not knock
for one or more of the inmates.

My pupil, Henri Dufour, was taken ill on a Saturday, and on Wednesday
his mortal remains were conveyed to the cemetery. I had tended him day
and night, and was much worn down by watchings and anxiety. Jane, a
hired black domestic, was wanted by her owner, and left us. All the work
of our diminished household now fell on Estelle. As for Madame Dufour,
she lived in a hysterical fear lest the inevitable summoner should visit
her next. She was continually imagining that the symptoms were upon her.
One day she fell into an unusual state of alarm. I was alone with her in
the house. Estelle had gone out without asking permission,—an
extraordinary event. I did what I could for the invalid, and, by her
direction, called in a physician whose carriage she had seen standing at
a neighboring door.

The poor little doctor seemed flurried and overworked, and an odor of
brandy came from his breath. He assured Mrs. Dufour that her symptoms
were wholly of the imagination, and that if she would keep tranquil, all
danger would speedily pass. He administered a dose of laudanum. It
afterwards occurred to me that he had given three times the usual
quantity. He received his fee and departed; and I sat down behind the
curtain of an alcove so as to be within call.

Three minutes had not elapsed when Estelle burst into the room, and in a
voice low and husky, as if with overpowering agitation, exclaimed: “You
have deceived me, Madame! Mr. Semmes tells me you never gave him any
orders about a will. Do you mean to cheat me? Beware! Tell me this
instant! tell me! Will you do it? Will you do it?”

“Estelle! how can you?” whined Mrs. Dufour. “At such a time, when the
slightest agitation may bring on the fever, how can you trouble me on
such a subject?”

“No evasion!” exclaimed Estelle, in imperious tones. “I demand it,—I
exact it,—now—this instant! You shall—you shall perform it!”

Madame had some vague superstitious notion connected with the signing of
a will, and she murmured: “I shall do nothing at present; I’m not in a
state to sign my name. The doctor said I must be tranquil. How can you
be so selfish, Estelle? Do you imagine I’m going to die, that you are so
urgent just now?”

“You told me three months ago,” replied Estelle, “that the will had been
regularly signed and witnessed. You lied! If you now refuse to make
amends, do not hope for peace either in this world or the next. No
priest shall attend you here, and my curses shall pursue you down to
hell to double the damnation your sin deserves! Will you sign, if I
bring the notary?”

Mrs. Dufour began to moan, and complain of her symptoms, while I could
hear Estelle pacing the room like a caged tigress. Suddenly she stood
still, and cried, “Do you still refuse?”

The moaning of the invalid had been succeeded by a stertorous breathing,
as if she had been suddenly overcome by sleep.

“She is stone,—stone! She sleeps!—she has no heart!” groaned Estelle.

I now left the alcove. Estelle knelt weeping with her face on the sofa.
I touched her on the head, and she started up alarmed. She saw tears of
sympathy on my cheek. I drew her away with my arm about her waist, and
said, “Come! come and tell me all.”

She let me lead her down-stairs into the parlor. I placed her in an
arm-chair, and sat on a low ottoman at her feet. “Tell me all, Estelle,”
I repeated. “What does it mean?”

I then drew from her these facts. Her mother, though undistinguishable
from a white woman, had been a slave belonging to a Mr. Huger, a
sugar-planter. She was _reputed_ to be the daughter of what the Creoles
call a _meamelouc_, that is, the offspring of a white man and a metif
mother, a metif being the offspring of a white and a quarteron. This
account of the genealogy of Estelle’s mother I never had occasion to
doubt till years afterwards. The father of Estelle was Albert Grandeau,
a young Parisian of good family. Being suddenly called home from
Louisiana to France by the death of his parents, he left America,
promising to return the following winter, and purchase the prospective
mother of his child and take her to Paris. This he honestly intended to
do; but alas for good _intentions_! It is good _deeds_ only that are
secure against the caprices of Fate. The vessel in which Grandeau sailed
foundered at sea, and he was among the lost. Estelle’s mother died in
child-birth.

And then Estelle,—on the well-known principle of Southern law, “_proles
sequitur ventrem_,”—in spite of her fair complexion, was a slave. Mr.
Huger dying, she fell to the portion of his unmarried daughter, Louise,
who was a member of the newly established Convent of St. Vivia. She took
Estelle, then a mere child, with her to bring up. Fortunately for
Estelle, there were highly accomplished ladies in the convent, to whom
it was at once a delight and a duty to instruct the little girl. French,
English, and Italian were soon all equally familiar to her, and before
she was seventeen she surpassed, in needlework and music, even her
teachers. But the convent of St. Vivia had been cheated in the title of
its estate; and through failure of funds, it was at length broken up.
Soon afterwards, Louise Huger, whose health had always been feeble, died
suddenly, leaving Estelle to her sister, Mrs. Dufour, with the request
that measures should be at once taken to secure the maiden’s freedom, in
the contingency of Mrs. Dufour’s demise. It was the failure of the
latter to take the proper steps for Estelle’s manumission that now
roused her anger and anxiety.

These disclosures on the part of Estelle awoke in me conflicting
emotions.

Shall I confess it? Such was the influence of education, of inherited
prejudice, and of social proscription, that when she told me she was a
slave, I shuddered as a high-caste Brahmin might when he finds that the
man he has taken by the hand is a Pariah. Estelle was too keen of
penetration not to detect it; and she drew her robe away from my touch,
and moved her chair back a little.

My ancestors, with the exception of my father, had been slaveholders
ever since 1625. I had lived all my life in a community where slavery
was held a righteous and a necessary institution. I had never allowed
myself to question its policy or its justice. Skepticism as to a God or
a future state was venial, nay, rather fashionable; but woe to the youth
who should play the Pyrrhonist in the matter of slavery!

Yet it was not fear, it was not self-interest, that made me acquiesce;
it was simply a failure to exercise my proper powers of thought. I took
the word of others,—of interested parties, of social charlatans, of
sordid, self-stultified fanatics,—that the system was the best possible
one that could be conceived of, both for blacks and whites. From the
false social atmosphere in which I had grown up I had derived the
accretions that went to build up and solidify my moral being.

And so if St. Paul or Fenelon, Shakespeare or Newton, had come to me
with ebonized faces, I should have refused them the privileges of an
equal. To such folly are we shaped by what we passively receive from
society! To such outrages on justice and common sense are we reconciled
simply by the inertness of our brains, not to speak of the hollowness of
our hearts!

Estelle paused, and almost despaired, when she saw the effect upon me of
her confession. But I pressed her to a conclusion of her story, and then
asked, “Who has any claim upon you, in the event of Madame Dufour’s
dying intestate?”

“Nearly all her property,” replied Estelle, “is mortgaged to her nephew,
Carberry Ratcliff, and he is her only heir.”

“Give me some account of him.”

“He is a South Carolinian by birth. Some years ago he married a Creole
lady, by whom he got a fine cotton-plantation on the Red River, stocked
with several hundred slaves. He has a house and garden in Lafayette, but
lives most of the time on his plantation at Loraine.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“Yes; the first time only ten days ago, and he has been here four times
since to call on Madame Dufour, though he rarely used to visit her
oftener than twice a year.”

As Estelle spoke, her eyes flashed, and her breast heaved.

“How did he behave to you, Estelle?”

“How should the lord of a plantation behave to a comely female slave? Of
course he insulted me both with looks and words. What more could you
expect of such a connoisseur in flesh and blood as the planter who
recruits his gangs at slave-auctions? Do not ask me how he behaved.”

I rose, deeply agitated, and paced the room.

“What sort of a looking man is this Mr. Ratcliff?”

She went to an _étagère_ in a corner, opened a little box, and took from
it a daguerrotype, which she placed in my hand.

Looking at the likeness, I recognized the man who once insulted me at
the theatre.

“I must go and attend to Madame Dufour,” said Estelle.

“Let me accompany you,” said I.

She made no objection. We went together into the chamber. Estelle rushed
to the bedside,—shook the invalid,—called her aloud by name,—put her ear
down to learn if she breathed,—put her hand on the breast to find if the
heart beat,—then turned to me, and shrieked, “She is dead!”

What was to be done?

I led Estelle into the parlor. She sat down. Her face was of a frightful
pallor; but there was not the trace of a tear in her eyes. The
expression was that of blank, unmitigated despair.

“Poor, poor child!” I murmured. “What can I do for her? Estelle, you
must be saved,—but how?”

My words and my look seemed to inspire her with a hope. She rose, sank
upon both knees before me, lifted up her clasped hands, and said: “O
sir! O Mr. Carteret! as you are a man, as you reverence the recollection
of your mother, save me,—save me from the consequences of this death! I
am now the slave of Mr. Ratcliff; and what that involves to me you can
guess, but I, without a new agony, cannot explain. Save me, dear sir!
Good sir, kind sir, for God’s love, save me!” And then, with a wild cry
of despair, she added: “I will be yours,—body and soul, I will be yours,
if you will only save me! I will be your slave,—your _anything_,—only
let me belong to one I can love and respect. Do not, do not cast me
off!”

“Cast you off, dear child? Never!” said I, and, raising her to her feet,
I kissed her forehead.

That first kiss! How shall I analyze it? It was pure and tender as a
mother’s, notwithstanding the utter abandonment signified in the
maiden’s words. That very self-surrender was her security. Had she been
shy, I might have been less cold. But her look of disappointment showed
she attributed that coldness to some less flattering cause,—plainly to
indifference, if not to personal dislike. She could not detect in me the
first symptom of what she instinctively knew would be a guaranty of my
protection, stronger than duty.

Like all the slaves and descendants of slaves in Louisiana, of all
grades of color, she had been bred up to a knowledge that it was a
consequence of her condition that there could be no marriage union
between her and a respectable white man. Impressed with this conviction,
she had pleaded to be allowed to remain in some convent, though it were
but as a servant, for the remainder of her life. The selfishness of her
mistress and owner, Miss Huger, put it out of her power to make this
choice effectual. Her kind-hearted Catholic instructors consoled her, as
well as they could, by the assurance that, being a slave, the sin of any
mode of life to which she might be forced would be attended with
absolution. But she had the horror which every pure nature, strong in
the affections, must feel, under like circumstances, at the prospect of
constraint. Since her life was to be that of a slave, O that her master
might be one she could love, and who could love her! The first part of
the dream would be realized if I could buy her. What misery to think
that the latter part must remain unfulfilled!

I led her to a chair. She sat down and burst into a passion of tears. In
vain I tried to console her by words. Supporting her head with one hand,
I then with the other smoothed back the beautiful hair from her
forehead. Gradually she became calm. I knelt beside her, and said:
“Estelle, compose yourself. I promise you I will risk everything, life
itself, to save you from the fate you abhor. Now summon your best
faculties, and let us together devise some plan of proceeding.”

She lifted my hand to her lips in gratitude, made me take a seat by her
side, and said: “Mr. Ratcliff or his agent may be here any minute, and
then you would be powerless. The first step is to leave this house, and
seek concealment.”

“Do you know any place of refuge?”

“Yes; I know a mulatto woman, named Mallet, who has a little stall on
Poydras Street for the sale of baskets. She occupies a small tenement
near by, and has two spare rooms. I think we can trust her, for I once
tended one of her children who died; and she does not know that I am a
slave.”

“But, Estelle, I grieve to say it,—I am poor, almost destitute. My
friends are chiefly theatrical people, poor like myself, and most of
them are North at this season.”

“Do not let that distress you,” she said; “I am the owner of a gold
watch, for which we can get at least fifty dollars.”

“And mine will bring another fifty,” returned I. “Let us go, then, at
once, since here you are in danger.”

An old negro, well known to the family, and who carried round oranges
for sale, at this moment stopped at the door. I gave him a dollar, on
condition that he would occupy and guard the house till some one should
come to relieve him. I then, at Estelle’s suggestion, sent a letter to
the Superintendent of Burials, announcing Madame Dufour’s death, and
requesting him to attend to the interment. I also enclosed the address
of Mr. Ratcliff and Mr. Semmes as the persons who would see all expenses
paid. To this I signed my real name.

It was agreed that Estelle should leave at once. She gave me written
directions for finding our place of rendezvous. There was before it an
old magnolia-tree which I was particularly to note. I was to follow soon
with such articles of attire, belonging to her and to myself, as I could
bring, and I was to return for more if necessary. We parted, and I think
she must have read something not sinister in the expression of my face,
for her own suddenly brightened, and, with a smile ineffably sweet in
its thankfulness, she said, “_Au revoir!_”

Our plans were all successfully carried out. The wardrobe of neither of
us was extensive. Two visits to the house enabled me to remove all that
we required. My letter to the Superintendent of Burials I had dropped
into his box, and that afternoon I saw him enter the house, so that I
knew the proper attentions to the dead would not be wanting.

Mrs. Mallet gladly received us on our own terms. Estelle had
appropriated for me the better of the two little rooms, and had arranged
and decked it so as to wear an appearance of neatness and comfort, if
not of luxury. I expostulated, but she would not listen to my occupying
the inferior apartment. Her own preferences must rule.

Ever dear to memory must be that first evening in our new abode! There
was one old fauteuil in her room, and, placing Estelle in that, I sat on
a low trunk by her side, where I could lean my elbow on the arm of the
chair. It was a warm, but not oppressive July evening, with a bright
moon. The window was open, and in the little area upon which it looked a
lemon-tree rustled as the breeze swelled, now and then, to a whisper.

We were alone. I asked a thousand questions. I extorted the secret of my
mended clothes and the mysterious gold pieces. That air of depression
which had always been so marked in Estelle had vanished. She spoke and
looked like a new being. I put a question in French, and she answered in
that language with a fluency and a purity of accent that put me to the
blush for my own lingual shortcomings. I spoke of books, and was
surprised to find in her a bold, detective taste in recognizing the
peculiarities, and penetrating to the spiritual life, of the higher
class of thinkers and literary artists, whether French, English, or
American.

I asked her to sing. In subdued tones, but with an exquisite accuracy,
she sang some of the favorite airs by Mozart, Bellini, and Donizetti,
using the Italian as if it were her native tongue.

And there, in that atmosphere of death, while the surrounding population
were being decimated by the terrible pestilence, I drank in my first
draughts of an imperishable love.

I looked at my watch. It was half an hour after midnight. How had the
hours slipped by! We must part.

“Estelle!” I exclaimed with emotion; but I could not put into words what
I had intended to say. Then, taking her hand, I added, “You have given
me the most delightful evening of my life.”

No light was burning in the room, but by the moonbeams I could see her
face all luminous with joy and triumph. My second kiss was bestowed; but
this time it was on her lips,—brief, but impassioned. “Good night,
Estelle!” I whispered; and, forcing myself instantly away, I closed the
door.

I entered my apartment, and went to bed, but not to sleep. Tears that I
could not repress gushed forth. A strange rapture possessed me. Nature
had proved itself stronger than convention. The impulsive heart was more
than a match for the calculating head. For the first time in my life I
saw the new heavens and the new earth which love brings in. Estelle now
seemed all the dearer to me for her very helplessness,—for the
degradation and isolation in which slavery had placed her. Were she a
princess, could I love her half as well? But she shall be treated with
all the consideration due to a princess! Passion shall take no advantage
of her friendlessness and self-abandonment.

Then came thoughts of the danger she was in,—of what I should do for her
rescue; and it was not till light dawned in the east that I fell into a
slumber.

We gave up nearly the whole of the next day to the discussion of plans.
In pursuance of that on which we finally fixed, Estelle wrote a letter
to Mr. Ratcliff in these words:—

  “TO CARBERRY RATCLIFF, Esq.:—Sir: By the time this letter reaches you
  I shall be out of your power, and with my freedom assured. Still I
  desire to be at liberty to return to New Orleans, if I should so
  elect, and therefore I request you to name the sum in consideration of
  which you will give me free papers. A friend will negotiate with you.
  Let that friend have your answer, if you please, in the form of an
  advertisement in the Picayune, addressed to

                                                           ESTELLE.”

Two days afterwards we found the following answer in the newspaper
named:—

  “TO ESTELLE: For fifty dollars, I will give you the papers you desire.

                                                              C. R.”

Long and anxiously we meditated on this reply. I dreaded a trap. Was it
not most likely that Ratcliff, in naming so low a figure, hoped to
secure some clew to the whereabouts of Estelle?

While I was puzzling myself with the question, Estelle suggested an
expedient. The answer to the advertisement undoubtedly came from
Ratcliff, and we had a right to regard it as valid. Why not address a
letter, with fifty dollars, to Ratcliff, and have it legally registered
at the post-office?

“Admirable!” exclaimed I, delighted at her quickness.

“No, it is not admirable,” she replied. “An objection suggests itself.
Some one will have to go to the post-office to register the letter, and
he may be known or tracked.”

I reflected a moment, and then said: “I think I can guard against such a
danger. Having been an actor, I am expert at disguises. I will go as an
old man.”

The plan was approved and put into effect. The two watches were disposed
of at a jeweller’s for a hundred and ten dollars. In an altered hand I
wrote Ratcliff a letter, enclosed in it a fifty-dollar bill, and bade
him direct his answer simply to Estelle Grandeau, Cincinnati, Ohio. I
added one dollar for the purpose of covering any expense he might be at
for postage. Then, at the shop of a theatrical costumer, I disguised
myself as a man of seventy, and went to the post-office. There I had the
letter and its contents of money duly registered.

As I was returning home in my disguise, I saw the old negro I had left
in charge at Mrs. Dufour’s. He did not recognize me, and was not
surprised at my questions. From him I learned, that before he left the
house a gentleman (undoubtedly Ratcliff) had called, and had seemed to
be in a terrible fury on finding that Estelle had gone away some hours
before; but his rage had redoubled when he further ascertained that a
young man was her attendant.

The interesting question now was, Had Ratcliff any clew to my identity?
My true name, William Carteret, under which I had been known at Mrs.
Dufour’s, was not the name I had gone by on the stage. Here was one
security. Still it was obvious the utmost precaution must be used.

My plans were speedily laid. Not having money enough to pay the passage
of both Estelle and myself up the Mississippi, I decided that Estelle
should go alone, disguised as an old woman. I engaged a state-room, and
paid for it in advance. I had much difficulty in persuading her to
accede to the arrangement, so painful was the prospect of a separation;
but she finally consented. At my friend the costumer’s I fitted her out
in a plain, Quaker-like dress. She was to be Mrs. Carver, a
schoolmistress, going North. The next morning I covered her beautiful
hair with a grayish wig; and then, by the aid of a hare’s foot and some
pigments, added wrinkles and a complexion suitable to a maiden lady of
fifty. With a veil over her face, she would not be suspected.

The hour of parting came. I put a plain gold ring on her finger. “Be
constant,” I said. “Forever!” she solemnly replied, pressing the ring to
her lips with tears of delight. The carriage was at the door. The
farewell kiss was exchanged. Her little trunk was put on the driver’s
foot-board. Mrs. Mallet entered and took a seat, and Estelle was about
to follow, when suddenly a faintness seized me. She detected it at once,
turned back, and exclaimed in alarm: “You are not well. What is the
matter?”

“Nothing, that a glass of wine will not cure,” I replied. “There! It is
over already. Do not delay. Your time is limited. Driver! Fast, but
steady! Here’s a dollar for you! There! Step in, Estelle.”

She looked at me hesitatingly. I summoned all my will to check my
increasing faintness. Urging her into the carriage, I closed the door,
and the horses started. Estelle watched me from the window, till an
angle in the street hid me from her view. Then, staggering into the
house, I crawled up-stairs to my chamber, and sank upon the bed.

                               ----------

The next ten days were a blank to consciousness. Fever and delirium had
the mastery of my brain. On the eleventh morning I seemed to wake
gradually, as if from some anxious dream. I lay twining my hands feebly
one over the other. Then suddenly a speck in the ceiling fixed my
attention. Raising myself on the pillow, I looked around. Very gently
and slowly recollection came back. The appearance of Mrs. Mallet soon
seemed a natural sequence. She smiled, gave an affirmative shake of the
head, as if to tell me all was well, and at her bidding, I lay down and
slept. The following day I was strong enough to inquire after Estelle.

“Be good, and you shall see her,” was the reply.

“What! Did she not take passage in the boat?”

“There! Do not be alarmed; she will explain it all.”

And as she spoke, Estelle glided in, held up her forefinger by way of
warning, and, smiling through her tears, kissed my forehead. I felt a
shock of joy, followed by anxiety. “Why did you not go?” I asked.

“I found I could dispose of my state-room, and I did it, for I was too
much concerned about your health to go in peace. It was fortunate I
returned. You have had the fever, but the danger is over.”

“How long have I lain thus?”

“This is the twelfth day.”

“Have I had a physician?”

“No one but Estelle; but then she is an expert; she once walked the
hospitals with the Sisters of Charity.”

My convalescence was rapid. By the first of September I was well enough
to take long strolls in the evening with Estelle. On the fifth of that
month, early one starlit night, I said to her, “Come, Estelle, put on
your bonnet and shawl for a walk.”

She brought them into my room, and placed them on the bed.

“Where shall we go?” she inquired.

“To the Rev. Mr. Fulton’s,” I replied; “that is, if you will consent to
be—”

“To be what?” she asked, not dreaming of my drift.

“To be married to me, Estelle!”

The expressions that flitted over her face,—expressions of doubtful
rapture, pettish incredulity, and childlike eagerness,—come back vividly
to my remembrance.

“You do not mean it!” at length she murmured, reproachfully.

“From my inmost heart I mean it, and I desire it above all earthly
desires,” I replied.

She sank to the floor, and, clasping my knees with her arms, bowed her
head upon them, and wept. Then, starting up, she said: “What! Your wife?
Really your wife? Mistress and wife in one? Me,—a slave? Can it be,
William, you desire it?”

It was the first time she had called me by my first name.

“Have you considered it well?” she continued. “O, I fear it would be
ungenerous in me to consent. Such an alliance might jeopard all your
future. You are young, well-connected, and can one day command all that
the best society of the country can offer. No, William, not for me,—not
for me the position of your wife!”

I replied to these misgivings by putting on her shawl, then her bonnet,
the tying of which I accompanied with a kiss that brought the roses to
her cheeks.

“Estelle,” I said, “unless we are very different from what we believe,
the step is one we shall not regret. I must be degenerate indeed, if I
can ever find anything in life more precious than the love you give and
inspire. But perhaps you shrink from so binding a tie.”

“Shrink from it?” she repeated, in a tone of abandonment to all that was
rapturous and delightful in her conceptions, though the tears gushed
from her eyes. “O, generous beyond my dreams! Would I might prove to you
of what my love is capable, and how you have deepened its unfathomable
depths by this last proof of your affection!”

We went forth under the stars that beautiful evening to the well-known
minister’s house. He received us kindly, asked us several questions,
and, having satisfied himself of our intelligence and sincerity, united
us in marriage. We gave him our real names,—William Carteret and Estelle
Grandeau,—and he promised to keep the secret.

Six weeks flew by, how swiftly! The pressure which circumstances had put
upon Estelle’s buoyancy of character being taken away, she moved the
very embodiment of joy. It was as if she was making up for the past
repression of her cheerfulness by an overflow, constant, yet gentle as
the superflux of a fountain. Her very voice grew more childlike in its
tones. A touching gratitude that never wearied of making itself felt
seemed added to an abounding tenderness towards me.

She had a quick sense of the humorous which made hers an atmosphere of
smiles. She would make me laugh by the odd and childish, yet charming
pet phrases she would lavish upon me. She would amuse me by her anxiety
in catering for me at meal-time, and making her humble fare seem
sumptuous by her devices of speech, as well as by her culinary arts. The
good nuns with whom she had lived had made her a thorough housekeeper,
and a paragon of neatness. She wanted further to be my valet, my very
slave, anticipating my wants, and forestalling every little effort which
I might put forth.

My object now was to raise the sum necessary for our departure from the
city. I took pupils in music among the humblest classes,—among the free
blacks and even the slaves. I would be absent from nine o’clock in the
morning till five in the afternoon. Estelle aided me in my purpose. She
learned from Mrs. Mallet the art of making baskets, and contrived some
of a new pattern which met a ready sale. We began to lay up five,
sometimes six dollars a day.

Once I met Mr. Ratcliff in Carondelet Street. He evidently recognized
me, for he turned on me a glance full of arrogance and hate. The
encounter made me uneasy, but, thinking the mention of it might produce
needless anxiety, I said nothing about it to Estelle. We were sitting
that very evening in our little room. Estelle, always childlike, was in
my lap, questioning me closely about all the incidents of the day,—what
streets I had walked through; what persons I had seen; if I had been
thinking of her, &c. I answered all her questions but one, and she
seemed content; and then whispered in my ears the intelligence that she
was likely to be the mother of my child. Delightful announcement! And
yet with the thrill of satisfaction came a pang of solicitude.

“Do you believe,” prattled Estelle, “there ever were two people so
happy? I can’t help recalling those words you read me the other night
from your dear father’s last part, ‘If it were now to die, ’t were now
to be most happy.’ It seems to me as if the felicity of a long life had
been concentrated into these few weeks, and as if we were cheating our
mortal lot in allowing ourselves to be quite so happy.”

Was this the sigh of her presaging heart?

I resolved on immediate action. The next day (a Wednesday) I passed upon
the Levee. After many inquiries, I found a ship laden with cotton that
would sail the following Sunday for Boston. The captain agreed to give
up his best state-room for a hundred dollars. It should be ready for our
occupancy on Saturday. I closed with his offer at once. Estelle rejoiced
at the arrangement.

“What has happened to-day?” I asked her.

“Nothing of moment,” she replied. “Two men called to get names for a
Directory.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That if they wanted my husband’s name, they must get it from him
personally.”

“You did well. Were they polite?”

“Very, and seemed to seek excuses for lingering; but, getting no
encouragement, they left.”

Could it be they were spies? The question occurred to me, but I soon
dismissed it as improbable.

And yet they were creatures employed by Carberry Ratcliff to find out
what they could about the man who had offended him.

Ratcliff was the type of a class that spring from slavery as naturally
as certain weeds spring from a certain quality of manure. He was such a
man as only slavery could engender. The son of a South Carolina planter,
he was bred to believe that his little State—little in respect to its
white population—was yet the master State of the Union, and that his
family was the master family of the State. The conclusion that he was
the master man of his family, and consequently of the Union, was not
distant or illogical. As soon as he could lift a pistol he was taught to
fire at a mark, and to make believe it was an Abolitionist. Before he
was twelve years old he had fired at and wounded a free negro, who had
playfully answered an imperious order by mimicking the boy’s strut. Of
this achievement the father was rather proud.

Accustomed to regard the lives and persons of slaves as subject to his
irresponsible will, or to the caprices of his untrained and impure
passions, he soon transferred to the laboring white man and woman the
contempt he felt for the negro. We cannot have the moral sense impaired
in one direction without having it warped and corrupted throughout.

Wrong feeling must, by an inexorable law, breed wrong thinking. And so
Ratcliff looked upon all persons, whether white or black, who had to
earn their bread by manual labor, as (in the memorable words of his
friend Mr. Hammond, United States Senator from South Carolina) “Mudsills
and slaves.” For the thrifty Yankee his contempt was supreme, bitter,
almost frantic.

By mismanagement and extravagance his family estate was squandered, and,
the father having fallen in a duel with a political adversary, Ratcliff
found himself at twenty-one with expensive tastes and no money. He
borrowed a few hundred dollars, went to Louisiana, and there married a
woman of large property, but personally unattractive. Revengeful and
unforgetting as a savage where his pride was touched, and more cruel
than a wolf in his instincts, Ratcliff had always meant to requite me
for the humiliation I had made him experience. He had lost trace of me
soon after the incident at the theatre. No sooner had I passed him in
Carondelet Street than he put detectives on my track, and my place of
abode was discovered. He received such a report of my wife’s beauty as
roused him to the hope of an exquisite revenge. Doubtless he found an
opportunity of seeing Estelle without being seen; and on discovering in
her his slave, his surprise and fury reached an ungovernable height.

Let me not dwell on the horrors of the next few days. We had made all
our arrangements for departure that Saturday morning.

Estelle, in her simple habit, never looked so lovely. A little
cherry-colored scarf which I had presented her was about her neck, and
contrasted with the neutral tint of her robe. The carriage for our
conveyance to the ship was at the door. Our light amount of luggage was
put on behind. We bade our kind hostess good by. Estelle stepped in, and
I was about to follow, when two policemen, each with a revolver in his
hand, approached from a concealment near by, shut the carriage door,
and, laying hands upon me, drew me back. At the same moment, from the
opposite side of the street, Ratcliff, with two men wearing official
badges, came, and, opening the opposite door of the coach, entered and
took seats. So sudden were these movements, that they were over before
either Estelle or I could offer any resistance.

The coachman at once drove off. An imploring shriek from Estelle was
followed by a frantic effort on her part to thrust open the door of the
coach. I saw her struggling in the arms of the officers, her face wild
with terror, indignation, rage. Ratcliff, who had taken the seat
opposite to her, put his head out of the coach, and bowed to me
mockingly.

One of my stalwart captors held a pistol to my head, and cautioned me to
be “asy.” For half a minute I made no resistance. I was calculating how
I could best rescue Estelle. All the while I kept my eyes intently on
the departing carriage.

My captors held me as if they were prepared for any struggle. But I had
not been seven years on the stage without learning something of the
tricks of the wrestler and the gymnast. Suddenly both policemen found
their legs knocked from under them, and their heads in contact with the
pavement. A pistol went off as they fell, and a bullet passed through
the crown of my hat; but before they could recover their footing, I had
put an eighth of a mile between us.

Where was the carriage? The street into which it had turned was
intersected by another which curved on either side like the horns of a
crescent. To my dismay, when I reached this curve, the carriage was not
to be seen. It had turned into the street either on the right or on the
left, and the curve hid it from view. Which way? I could judge nothing
from the sound, for other vehicles were passing. I stopped a man, and
eagerly questioned him. He did not speak English. I put my question in
French. He stopped to consider,—believed the carriage had taken the left
turning, but was not quite certain. I ran leftward with all my speed.
Carriages were to be seen, but not one with the little trunk and valise
strapped on behind. I then turned and ran down the right turning.
Baffled! At fault! In the network of streets it was all conjecture.
Still on I ran in the desperate hope of seeing the carriage at some
cross street. But my efforts were fruitless.

Panting and exhausted, I sought rest in a “magasin” for the sale of
cigars. A little back parlor offered itself for smokers. I entered. A
waiter brought in three cigars, and I threw a quarter of a dollar on the
table. But I was no lover of the weed. The tobacco remained untouched. I
wanted an opportunity for summoning my best thoughts.

Even if I had caught the coach, would not the chances have been against
me? Clearly, yes. Further search for it, then, could be of no avail.
Undoubtedly Ratcliff would take Estelle at once to his plantation, for
there he could have her most completely in his power. Let that
calculation be my starting-point.

How stood it in regard to myself? Did not my seizure by the policemen
show that legal authority for my arrest had been procured? Probably. If
imprisoned, should I not be wholly powerless to help Estelle? Obviously.
Perhaps the morning newspapers would have something to say of the
affair? Nothing more likely. Was it not, then, my safest course to keep
still and concealed for the present? Alas, yes! Could I not trust
Estelle to protect her own honor? Ay, she would protect it with her
life; but the pang was in the thought that her life might be sacrificed
in the work of protection.

The “magasin” was kept by Gustave Leroux, an old Frenchman, who had been
a captain under Napoleon, and was in the grand army in its retreat from
Moscow. A bullet had gone through his cheeks, and another had taken off
part of his nose.

I must have sat with the untouched cigars before me nearly three hours.
At last, supposing I was alone, I bowed my forehead on my hand, and
wept. Suddenly I looked up. The old Frenchman, with his nose and cheek
covered with large black patches, was standing with both hands on the
table, gazing wistfully and tenderly upon me.

“What is it, my brave?” he asked in French, while tears began to fill
his own eyes. I looked up. There was no resisting the benignity of that
old battered face. I took the two hands which he held out to me in my
own. He sat down by my side, and I told him my story.

After I had finished, he sat stroking his gray moustache with forefinger
and thumb, and for ten minutes did not speak. Then he said: “I have seen
this Mr. Ratcliff. A bad physiognomy! And yet what Mademoiselle
Millefleurs would call a pretty fellow! Let us see. He will carry the
girl to Lorain, and have her well guarded in his own house. As he has no
faith in women, his policy will be to win her by fine presents, jewels,
dresses, and sumptuous living. He will try that game for a full month at
least. I think, if the girl is what you tell me she is, we may feel
quite secure for a month. That will give us time to plan a campaign.
Meanwhile you shall occupy a little room in my house, and keep as calm
as you can. My dinner will be ready in ten minutes. You must try to coax
an appetite, for you will want all your health and strength. _Courage,
mon brave!_”

This old soldier, in his seventieth year, had done the most courageous
act of his life. Out of pure charity he had married Madame Ponsard, five
years his elder, an anti-Bonapartist, and who had been left a widow,
destitute, and with six young parentless grandchildren. Fifty years back
he had danced with her when she was a belle in Paris, and that fact was
an offset for all her senile vanity and querulousness. It reconciled
him, not only to receiving the lady herself, large, obese, and rubicund,
and, worst of all, anti-Bonapartist, but to take her encumbrances, four
girls and two boys, all with fearful appetites and sound lungs. But the
old Captain was a sentimentalist; and the young life about him had
rejuvenated his own. After all, there was a selfish calculation in his
lovely charities; for he knew that to give was to receive in larger
measure.

I accepted his offer of a shelter. The next morning he brought me a copy
of the Delta. It contained this paragraph:

“We regret to learn that Mr. Julian Talbot, formerly an actor, and well
known in theatrical circles, was yesterday arrested in the atrocious act
of abducting a female slave of great personal beauty, belonging to the
Hon. Carberry Ratcliff. The slave was recovered, but Talbot managed to
escape. The officers are on his track. It is time an example was made of
these sneaking Abolitionists.”

                               ----------

“O insupportable, O heavy hour!” I tried to reconcile myself to delay. I
stayed a whole fortnight with Leroux. At last I procured the dress of a
laboring Celt, and tied up in a bundle a cheap dress that would serve
for a boy. I then stuck a pipe through my hat-band, and put a shillelah
under my arm. A mop-like red wig concealed a portion of my face.
Lamp-black and ochre did the rest. Leroux told me I was premature in my
movements, but, without heeding his expostulations, I took an
affectionate leave of him and of Madame, whose heart I had won by
talking French with her, and listening to her long stories of the
ancient _régime_.

I went on board a Red River boat. One of the policemen who arrested me
was present on the watch; but I stared him stupidly in the face, and
passed on unsuspected.

Ratcliff was having a canal dug at Lorain for increasing the facilities
of transporting cotton; and as the work was unhealthy, he engaged
Irishmen for it. The killing an Irishman was no loss, but the death of a
slave would be a thousand dollars out of the master’s pocket. I easily
got a situation among the diggers. How my heart bounded when I first saw
Ratcliff! He came in company with his superintendent, Van Buskirk, and
stood near me some minutes while I handled the spade.

For hours, every night during the week, I watched the house to discover
the room occupied by Estelle. On Sunday I went in the daytime. From the
window of a room in the uppermost story a little cherry-colored scarf
was flaunting in the breeze. I at once recognized its meaning. Some
negroes were near by under a tree. I approached, and asked an ancient
black fellow, who was playing on an old cracked banjo, what he would
take for the instrument.

“Look yere, Paddy,” said he, “if yer tink to fool dis chile, yer’ll fine
it airn’t to be did. So wood up, and put off ter wunst, or yer’ll kotch
it, shoo-ah.”

“But, Daddy, I’m in right earnest,” replied I. “If you’ll sell that
banjo at any price within reason, I’ll buy it.”

“It’ll take a heap more’n you kn raise ter buy dis yere banjo; so,
Paddy, make tracks, and jes’ you mine how yer guv dis yere ole nigger
any more ob yer sarss.”

“I’ll pay you two dollars for that banjo, Daddy. Will you take it?” said
I, holding out the silver.

The old fellow looked at me incredulously; then seized the silver and
thrust the banjo into my hand, uttering at the same time such an
expressive “Wheugh!” as only a negro can. Then, unable to restrain
himself, he broke forth: “Yah, yah, yah! Paddy’s got a bargain dis time,
shoo-ah. Yah, yah, yah! Look yere, Paddy. Dat am de most sooperfinest
banjo in dese parts; can’t fine de match ob it in all Noo Orleenz. Jes’
you hole on ter dem air strings, so dey won’t break in two places ter
wonst, and den fire away, and yer’ll ’stonish de natives, shoo-ah. Yah,
yah, yah! Takes dis ole nigg to sell a banjo. Yah! yah!”

Every man who achieves success finds his penalty in a train of
parasites; and Daddy’s case was not exceptional. As he started in a bee
line for his cabin, to boast of his acuteness in trade to an admiring
circle, he was followed by his whole gang of witnesses.

All this time I could see Ratcliff with a party of gentlemen on his
piazza. They were smoking cigars; and, judging from the noise they made,
had been dining and drinking. I slipped away with the banjo under my
arm.

That night I returned and played the air of “Pestal” as near to the
house as I deemed it prudent to venture. I would play a minute, and then
pause. I had not done this three times, when I heard Estelle’s voice
from her chamber, humming these words in low but audible tones:

            “Hark! methinks I hear celestial voices sing,
            Soon thou shalt be free, child of misery,—
            Rest and perfect joy in heaven are waiting thee;
            Spirit, plume thy wings and flee!”

I struck a few notes, by way of acknowledgment, and left.

The next night I merely whistled the remembered air in token of my
presence. A light appeared for a moment at the window, and then was
removed. I crept up close to the house. On that side of it where Estelle
was confined there were no piazzas. I had not waited two minutes when
something touched my head and bobbed before my eyes. It was a little
roll of paper. I detached it from the string to which it was tied; and
then, taking from my pocket an old envelope, I wrote on it in the dark
these words: “To-morrow night at ten o’clock down the string. If
prevented, then any night after at the same hour. Love shall find a way.
Forever.”

The letter which I found folded in the paper lies yet in my pocket-book,
but I need not look at it in order to repeat it entire. It is in these
words:—‚Î

  “What shall I call thee? Dearest? But that word implies a comparative;
  and whom shall I compare with thee? Most precious and most beloved? O,
  that is not a tithe of it! Idol? Darling? Sweet? Pretty words, but
  insufficient. Ah! life of my life, there are no superlatives in
  language that can interpret to thee the unspeakable affection which
  swells in my heart and moistens my eyes as I commence this letter! Can
  we by words give an idea of a melody? No more can I put on paper what
  my heart would be whispering to thine. Forgive the effort and the
  failure.

  “I have the freedom of the upper story of the house, and my room is
  where you saw the scarf. Two strong negro women, with sinister faces,
  and employed as seamstresses, watch me every time I cross the
  threshold. At night I am locked in. The windows, as you may see, are
  always secured by iron bars.

  “Ratcliff hopes to subdue me by slow approaches. O, the unutterable
  loathing which he inspires! He has placed impure books in my way. He
  sends me the daintiest food and wines. I confine myself to bread,
  vegetables, and cream. He cannot drug me without my knowledge. Twice
  and sometimes three times a day he visits me, and, finding me firm in
  my resolve, retires with a self-satisfied air which maddens me. He
  evidently believes in my final submission. No! Sooner, death! on my
  knees I swear it.

  “Yesterday he sent splendid dresses, laces, jewels, diamonds. He
  offers me a carriage, an establishment, and to settle on me enough to
  make me secure for the future. How he magnifies my hate by all these
  despicable baits!

  “Sweet, be very prudent. While steadily maintaining towards this
  wretch, whom the law calls my master, the demeanor that may best
  assure him of my steadfast resolve, I take care not to arouse his
  anger; for I know what you want is opportunity. He may any time be
  called off suddenly to New Orleans. Be wary. Tell me what you propose.
  A string shall be let down from my window to-morrow night at ten by
  stealth, for I am watched. God keep thee, my husband, my beloved! How
  I shudder at thought of all thy dangers! Be sure, O William, tender
  and true, my heart will hold eternally one only image. Adieu!

                                                           ESTELLE.”

The next night I put her in possession of a rope and a boy’s dress, also
of two files, with directions for filing apart the iron bars. I saw it
would not be difficult to enable her to get out of the house. The
dreadful question was, How shall we escape the search which will at once
be made? For a week we exchanged letters. At last she wrote me that
Ratcliff would the next day leave for New Orleans for his wife. I wrote
to Estelle to be ready the ensuing night, and on a signal from me to let
herself down by the rope.

These plans were successfully carried out. Disguised as a laboring boy,
Estelle let herself down to the ground. Once more we clasped each other
heart to heart. I had selected a moonless night for the escape. In order
to baffle the scent of the bloodhounds that would be put on our track, I
took to the river. In a canoe I paddled down stream some fifteen miles
till daylight. There, at a little bend called La Coude, we stopped. It
now occurred to me that our safest plan would be to take the next boat
up the river, and return on our course instead of keeping on to the
Mississippi. Our pursuers would probably look for us in any direction
but that.

The Rigolette was the first boat that stopped. We went on board, and the
first person we encountered was Ratcliff! He was returning, having
learnt at the outset of his journey that his wife had left New Orleans
the day before. Estelle was thrown off her guard by the suddenness of
the meeting, and uttered a short, sharp cry of dismay which betrayed
her. Poor child! She was little skilled in feigning. Ratcliff walked up
to her and removed her hat.

I had seen men in a rage, but never had I witnessed such an infuriated
expression as that which Ratcliff’s features now exhibited. It was
wolfish, beastly, in its ferocity. His smooth pink face grew livid.
Seizing Estelle roughly by the arm, he—whatever he was about to do, the
operation was cut short by a blow from my fist between his eyes which
felled him senseless on the deck.

The spectacle of a rich planter knocked down by an Irishman was not a
common one on board the Rigolette. We were taken in custody, Estelle and
I, and confined together in a state-room.

Ratcliff was badly stunned, but cold water and brandy at length restored
him. At Lorain the boat stopped till Van Buskirk and half a dozen low
whites, his creatures and hangers-on, could be summoned to take me in
charge. Ratcliff now recognized me as his acquaintance of the theatre,
and a new paroxysm of fury convulsed his features. I was searched,
deprived of my money, then handcuffed; then shackled by the legs, so
that I could only move by taking short steps. Estelle’s arms were
pinioned behind her, and in that state she was forced into an open
vehicle and conveyed to the house.

I was placed in an outbuilding near the stable, a sort of dungeon for
refractory slaves. It was lighted from the roof, was unfloored, and
contained neither chair nor log on which to sit. For two days and nights
neither food nor drink was brought to me. With great difficulty, on
account of my chain, I managed to get at a small piece of biscuit in my
coat-pocket. This I ate, and, as the rain dripped through the roof, I
was enabled to quench my thirst.

On the third day two men led me out to an adjoining building, and
down-stairs into a cellar. As we entered, the first object I beheld sent
such a shock of horror to my heart that I wonder how I survived it. Tied
to a post, and stripped naked to her hips, her head drooping, her breast
heaving, her back scored by the lash and bleeding, stood Estelle. Near
by, leaning on a cotton-bale, was Ratcliff smoking a cigar. Seated on a
block, his back resting against the wall, with one leg over the other,
was a white man, holding a cowskin, and apparently resting from his
arduous labors as woman-whipper. Forgetting my shackles, and uttering
some inarticulate cry of anguish, I strove to rush upon Ratcliff, but
fell to the ground, exciting his derision and that of his creatures, the
miserable “mean” whites, the essence of whose manhood familiarity with
slavery had unmoulded till they had become bestial in their feelings.

Estelle, roused by my voice, turned on me eyes lighted up by an
affection which no bodily agony could for one moment enfeeble, and said,
gaspingly: “My own husband! You see I keep my oath!”

“Husband indeed! We’ll see about that,” sneered Ratcliff. “Fool! do you
imagine that a marriage contracted by a slave without the consent of the
master has any validity, moral or legal?”

I turned to him, and uttered—I know not what. The frenzy which seized me
lifted me out of my normal state of thought, and by no effort of
reminiscence have I ever since been able to recall what I said.

I only remember that Ratcliff, with mock applause, clapped his hands and
cried, “Capital!” Then, lighting a fresh cigar, he remarked: “There is
yet one little ceremony more to be gone through with. Bring in the
bridegroom.”

What new atrocity was this?

A moment afterwards a young, lusty, stout, and not ill-looking negro,
fantastically dressed, was led in with mock ceremony, by one of the mean
whites, a whiskey-wasted creature named Lovell. I looked eagerly in the
face of the negro, who bowed and smirked in a manner to excite roars of
laughter on the part of Ratcliff and his minions.

“Well, boy, are you ready to take her for better or for worse?” asked
the haughty planter.

The negro bowed obsequiously, and, jerking off his hat, scratched his
wool, and, with a laugh, replied: “’Scuze me, massa, but dis nigger
can’t see his wife dat is to be ’xposed in dis onhan’some mahnner to de
eyes of de profane. If Massa Ratcliff hab no ’jection, I’ll jes’ put de
shawl on de bride’s back. Yah, yah, yah!”

“O, make yourself as gallant as you please now,” said the planter,
laughing. “Let’s see you begin to play the bridegroom.”

Gracious heavens! Was I right in my surmises? Under all his harlequin
grimaces and foolery, this negro, to my quickened penetration, seemed to
be crowding back, smothering, disguising, some intense emotion. His
laugh was so extravagantly African, that it struck me as imitative in
its exaggeration. I had heard a laugh much like it from the late Jim
Crow Rice on the stage. Was the negro playing a part?

He approached Estelle, cut the thongs that bound her to the post, threw
her shawl over her shoulders, and then, falling on one knee, put both
hands on his heart, and rolled up his eyes much after the manner of
Bombastes Furioso making love to Distaffina. The Ratcliffites were in
ecstasies at the burlesque. Then, rising to his feet, the negro
affectedly drew nearer to Estelle, and, putting up his hand, whispered,
first in one of her ears, then in the other. I could see a change,
sudden, but instantly checked, in her whole manner. Her lips moved. She
must have murmured something in reply.

“Look here, Peek, you rascal,” cried Ratcliff, “we must have the benefit
of your soft words. What have you been saying to her?”

“I’ze been tellin’ her,” said the negro, with tragic gesticulation,
pointing to himself and then at me, “to look fust on dis yere pikter,
den on dat. Wheugh!”

Still affecting the buffoon, he came up to me, presenting his person so
that his face was visible only to myself. There was a divine pity in his
eyes, and in the whole expression of his face the guaranty of a high and
holy resolve. “She will trust me,” he whispered. “Do you the same.”

To the spectators he appeared to be mocking me with grimace. To me he
seemed an angel of deliverance.

“Now, Peek, to business!” said Ratcliff. “You swear, do you, to make
this woman your wife in fact as well as in name; do you understand me,
Peek?”

“Yes, massa, I understan’.”

“You swear to guard her well, and never to let that white scoundrel
yonder come near or touch her?”

“Yes, massa, I swar ter all dat, an’ ebber so much more. He’ll kotch
what he can’t carry if he goes fur to come nare my wife.”

“Kiss the book on it,” said Ratcliff, handing him a Bible.

“Yes, massa, as many books as you please,” replied Peek, doing as he was
bidden.

“Then, by my authority as owner of you two slaves, and as justice of the
peace, I pronounce you, in presence of these witnesses, man and wife,”
said Ratcliff. “Why the hell, Peek, don’t you kiss the bride?”

“O, you jes’ leeb dis chile alone for dat air, Massa Ratcliff,” replied
the negro; and, concealing his mouth by both hands, he simulated a kiss.

“Now attend to Mrs. Peek while another little ceremony takes place,”
said Ratcliff.

At a given signal I was stripped of my coat, waistcoat, and shirt, then
dragged to the whipping-post, and bound to it. I could see Estelle, her
face of a mortal paleness, her body writhing as if in an agony. The
first lash that descended on my bare flesh seemed to rive her very
heart-strings, for she uttered a loud shriek, and was borne out
senseless in the negro’s arms.

“All right!” said Ratcliff. “We shall soon have half a dozen little
Peeks toddling about. Proceed. Vickery.”

A hundred lashes, each tearing or laying bare the flesh, were inflicted;
but after the first, all sensibility to pain was lost in the intensity
of my emotions. Had I been changed into a statue of bronze I could not
have been more impenetrable to pain.

“Now, sir,” said the slave lord, coming up to me, “you see what it is to
cross the path of Carberry Ratcliff. The next time you venture on it,
you won’t get off so easy.”

Then, turning to Vickery, he said: “I promised the boys they should have
a frolic with him, and see him safely launched. They have been longing
for a shy at an Abolitionist. So unshackle him, and let him slide.”

My handcuffs and shackles were taken off. My first impulse on being
freed, was to spring upon Ratcliff and strangle him. I could have done
it. Though I stood in a pool of my own blood, a preternatural energy
filled my veins, and I stepped forth as if just refreshed by sleep. But
the thought of Estelle checked the vindictive impulse. A rope was now
put about my neck, so that the two ends could be held by my conductors.
In this state I was led up-stairs out of the building, and beyond the
immediate enclosure of the grounds about the house to a sort of trivium,
where some fifty or sixty “mean whites” and a troop of boys of all
colors were assembled round a tent in which a negro was dealing out
whiskey gratis to the company. Near by stood a kettle sending forth a
strong odor of boiling tar. A large sack, the gaping mouth of which
showed it was filled with feathers, lay on the ground.

There was a yell of delight from the assembly as soon as I appeared.
Half naked as I was, I was dragged forward into their midst, and tied to
a tree near the kettle. I could see, at a distance of about a quarter of
a mile, Ratcliff promenading his piazza.

There was a dispute among the “chivalry” whether I should be stripped of
the only remaining article of dress, my pantaloons, before being “fitted
to a new suit.” The consideration that there might be ladies among the
distant spectators finally operated in my favor. A brush, similar to
that used in whitewashing, was now thrust into the bituminous liquid;
and an illustration of one of “our institutions, sir,” was entered upon
with enthusiasm. Lovell was the chief operator. The brush was first
thrust into my face till eyelids, eyebrows, and hair were glued by the
nauseous adhesion. Then it was vigorously applied to the bleeding seams
on my back, and the intolerable anguish almost made me faint. My entire
person at length being thickly smeared, the bag of feathers was lifted
over me by two men and its contents poured out over the tarred surface.

I will not pain you, my friends, by suggesting to your imagination all
that there is of horrible, agonizing, and disgusting in this operation,
which men, converted into fiends by the hardening influences of slavery,
have inflicted on so many hundreds of imprudent or suspected persons
from the Northern States. I see in it all now, so far as I was
concerned, a Providential martyrdom to awake me to a sense of what
slavery does for the education of white men.

O, ye palliators of the “institution”!—Northern men with Southern
principles,—ministers of religion who search the Scriptures to find
excuses for the Devil’s own work,—and ye who think that any system under
which money is made must be right, and of God’s appointment,—who hate
any agitation which is likely to diminish the dividends from your
cotton-mills or the snug profits from your Southern trade,—come and
learn what it is to be tarred and feathered for profaning, by thought or
act, or by suspected thought or act, that holy of holies called slavery!

After the feathers had been applied, a wag among my tormentors fixed to
my neck and arms pieces of an old sheet stretched on whalebone to
imitate a pair of wings. This spectacle afforded to the spectators the
climax of their exhilaration and delight. I was then led by a rope to
the river’s side and put on an old rickety raft where I had to use
constant vigilance to keep the loose planks from disparting. Two men in
a boat towed me out into the middle of the stream, and then, amid mock
cheers, I was left to drift down with the current or drown, just as the
chances might hold in regard to my strength.

Two thoughts sustained me; one Estelle, the other Ratcliff. But for
these, with all my youth and power of endurance, I should have sunk and
died under my sufferings. For nearly an hour I remained within sight of
the mocking, hooting crowd, who were especially amused at my efforts to
save myself from immersion by keeping the pieces of my raft together. At
length it was floated against a shallow where some brushwood and loose
sticks had formed a sort of dam. The sun was sinking through wild,
ragged clouds in the west. My tormentors had all gradually disappeared.
For the last thirty-six hours I had eaten nothing but a cracker. My eyes
were clogged with tar. My efforts in keeping the raft together had been
exhaustive. No sooner was I in a place of seeming safety than my
strength failed me all at once. I could no longer sit upright. The wind
freshened and the waves poured over me, almost drowning me at times.
Thicker vapors began to darken the sky. A storm was rising. Night came
down frowningly. The planks slipped from under me. I could not lift an
arm to stop them. I tried to seize the brushwood heaped on the sand-bar,
but it was easily detached, and offered me no security. I seemed to be
sinking in the ooze of the river’s bottom. The spray swept over me in
ever-increasing volume. I was on the verge of unconsciousness.

Suddenly I roused myself, and grasped the last plank of my raft. I had
heard a cry. I listened. The cry was repeated,—a loud halloo, as if from
some one afloat in an approaching skiff. I could see nothing, but I
lifted my head as well as I could, and cried out, “Here!” Again the
halloo, and this time it sounded nearer. I threw my whole strength into
one loud shriek of “Here!” and then sank exhausted. A rush of waves
swept over me, and my consciousness was suspended.

                               ----------

When I came to my senses, I lay on a small cot-bedstead in a hut. A
negro, whom I at once recognized as the man called Peek, was rubbing my
face and limbs with oil and soap. A smell of alcohol and other volatile
liquids pervaded the apartment. Much of my hair had been cut off in the
effort to rid it of the tar.

“Estelle,—where is she?” were my first words.

“You shall see her soon,” replied the negro. “But you must get a little
strength first.”

He spoke in the tones, and used the language, of an educated person. He
brought me a little broth and rice, which I swallowed eagerly. I tried
to rise, but the pain from the gashes left by the scourge on my back was
excruciating.

“Take me to my wife,” I murmured.

He lifted me in his arms and carried me to the open door of an adjoining
cabin. Here on a mattress lay Estelle. A colored woman of remarkable
aspect, and with straight black hair, was kneeling by her side. This
woman Peek addressed as Esha. The little plain gold cross which Estelle
used to wear on the ribbon round her neck was now made to serve as the
emblem of one of the last sacraments of her religion. At her request,
Esha held it, pinned to the ribbon, before her eyes. On a rude table
near by, two candles were burning. Estelle’s hands were clasped upon her
bosom, and she lay intently regarding the cross, while her lips moved in
prayer.

“Try to lib, darlin’,” interrupted Esha; “try to lib,—dat’s a good
darlin’! Only try, an’ yer kn do it easy.”

Estelle took the little cross in her hand and kissed it, then said to
Esha, “Give this, with a lock of my hair, to—”

Before she could pronounce my name, I rallied my strength, and, with an
irrepressible cry of grief, quitted Peek’s support, and rushed to her
side. I spoke her name. I took her dear head in my hands. She turned on
me eyes beaming with an immortal affection. A celestial smile irradiated
her face. Her lips pouted as if pleading for a kiss. I obeyed the
invitation, and she acknowledged my compliance by an affirmative motion
of the head; a motion that was playful even in that supreme moment.

“My own darling!” she murmured; “I knew you would come. O my poor,
suffering darling!”

Then, with a sudden effort, she threw her arms about my neck, and,
drawing me closer down to her bosom, said, in sweet, low tones of
tenderness: “Love me still as among the living. I do not die. The body
dies. I do not die. Love cannot die. Who believes in death, never loved.
You may not see _me_, but I shall see _you_. So be a good boy. Do good
to all. Love all; so shall you love me the better. I do not part with my
love. I take it where it will grow and grow, so as to be all the more
fit to welcome my darling. Carrying my love, I carry my heaven with me.
It would not be heaven without my love. I have been with my father and
mother. So beautiful they are! And such music I have heard! There! Lay
your cheek on my bare bosom. So! You do not hurt me. Closer! closer!
_Carissime Jesu, nunc libera me!_”[19]

Thus murmuring a line from a Latin poem which she had learnt in the
convent where her childhood was passed, her pure spirit, without a
struggle or a throe of pain, disentangled itself from its lovely mortal
mould, and rose into the purer ether of the immortal life.

                               ----------

I afterwards learnt that Ratcliff, finding Estelle inexorable in her
rejection of his foul proffers, was wrought to such a pitch of rage that
he swore, unless she relented, she should be married to a negro slave.
He told her he had a smart nigger he had recently bought in New Orleans,
a fellow named Peek, who should be her husband. Goaded to desperation by
his infamous threats, Estelle had replied, “Better even a negro than a
Ratcliff!” This reply had stung him to a degree that was quite
intolerable.

To be not only thwarted by a female slave, but insulted,—he, a South
Carolinian, a man born to command,—a man with such a figure and such a
face rejected for a strolling actor,—a vagabond, a fellow, too, who had
knocked him down,—what slave-owner would tamely submit to such
mortification! He brooded on the insult till his cruel purpose took
shape and consistency in his mind; and it was finally carried out in the
way I have described.

It may seem almost incredible to you who are from the North, that any
man not insane should be guilty of such atrocities. But Mr. Onslow need
not be told that slavery educates men—men, too, of a certain
refinement—to deeds even more cowardly and fiendish. Do not imagine that
the tyrant who would not scruple to put a black skin under the lash,
would hesitate in regard to a white; and the note-book of many an
overseer will show that of the whippings inflicted under slavery, more
than one third are of women.[20]

For three weeks I was under Peek’s care. Thanks to his tenderness and
zeal, my wounds were healed, my strength was restored. Early in December
I parted from him and returned to New Orleans. I went to my old friends,
the Leroux. They did not recognize me at first, so wasted was I by
suffering. Madame forgot her own troubles in mine, and welcomed me with
a mother’s affection. The grandchildren subdued their riotous mirth, and
trod softly lest they should disturb me. The old Captain wept and raved
over my story, and uttered more _sacr-r-r-rés_ in a given time than I
supposed even a Frenchman’s volubility could accomplish. I bade these
kind friends good by, and went northward.

In Cincinnati and other cities I resumed my old vocation as a
play-actor. In two years, having laid up twenty-five hundred dollars, I
returned to the Red River country to secure the freedom of the slave to
whom I owed my life. He had changed masters. It had got to Ratcliff’s
ears that Peek had cheated him in sparing Estelle and rescuing me. He
questioned Peek on the subject. Peek, throwing aside all his habitual
caution, had declared, in regard to Estelle, that if she had been the
Virgin Mary he could not have treated her with more reverence; that he
had saved my life, and restored me to her arms. Then, shaking his fist
at Ratcliff, he denounced him as a murderer and a coward. The result
was, that Peek, after having been put through such a scourging as few
men could endure and survive, had been sold to a Mr. Barnwell in Texas.

I followed Peek to his new abode, and proposed either to buy and free
him, or to aid him to escape. He bade me save my money for those who
could not help themselves. He meant to be free, but did not mean to pay
for that which was his by right. At that time he was investigating
certain strange occurrences produced by some invisible agency that
claimed to be spiritual. He must remain where he was a while longer. I
was under no serious obligations to him, he said. He had simply done his
duty.

We parted. I tried to find the woman Esha, who had been kind to my wife,
but she had been sold no one knew to whom. I went to New Orleans, and
assuming, by legislative permission, the name of William Vance, I
entered into cotton speculations.

My features had been so changed by suffering, that few recognized me. My
operations were bold and successful. In four years I had accumulated a
little fortune. Occasionally I would meet Ratcliff. Once I had him
completely in my power. He was in the passage-way leading to my office.
I could have dragged him in and——

No! The revenge seemed too poor and narrow. I craved something huge and
general. The mere punishing of an _individual_ was too puny an
expenditure of my hoarded vengeance. But to strike at the “institution”
which had spawned this and similar monsters, that would be some small
satisfaction.

Closing up my affairs in New Orleans, I entered upon that career which
has gained me such notoriety in the Southwest. I have run off many
thousand slaves, worth in the aggregate many millions of dollars. My
theatrical experience has made me a daring expert in disguising myself.
At one time I am a mulatto with a gash across my face; at another time,
an old man; at another, a mean whiskey-swilling hanger-on of the
chivalry. My task is only just begun. It is not till we have given
slavery its immedicable wound, or rather till it has itself committed
suicide in the house of its friends, that I shall be ready to say, _Nunc
dimittas, domi-ne!_[21]


                             CHAPTER XIII.
                                FIRE UP!

“What is the end and essence of life? It is to expand all our faculties
and affections. It is to grow, to gain by exercise new energy, new
intellect, new love. It is to hope, to strive, to bring out what is
within us, to press towards what is above us. In other words, it is to
be Free. Slavery is thus at war with the true life of human
nature.”—_Channing._


At the conclusion of Vance’s narrative, Mr. Onslow rose, shook him by
the hand, and walked away without making a remark.

Mrs. Berwick showed her appreciation by her tears.

“What a pity,” said her husband, “that so fine a fellow as Peek did not
accept your proposal to free him!”

“Peek freed himself,” replied Vance. “He escaped to Canada, married,
settled in New York, and was living happily, when a few days ago, rather
than go before a United States Commissioner, he surrendered himself to
that representative of the master race, Colonel Delancy Hyde, to whom
you have had the honor to be introduced. Peek is now on board this boat,
and handcuffed, lest he should jump overboard and swim ashore. If you
will walk forward, I will show him to you.”

Greatly surprised and interested, the Berwicks followed Vance to the
railing, and looked down on Peek as he reclined in the sunshine reading
a newspaper.

“But he must be freed. I will buy him,” said Berwick.

“Don’t trouble yourself.” returned Vance. “Peek will be free without
money and without price, and he knows it. Those iron wristbands you see
are already filed apart.”

“Are there many such as he among the negroes?”

“Not many, I fear, either among blacks or whites,” replied Vance. “But,
considering their social deprivations, there are more good men and true
among the negroes—ay, among the slaves—than you of the North imagine.
Your ideal of the negro is what you derive from the Ethiopian minstrels
and from the books and plays written to ridicule him. His type is a low,
ignorant trifler and buffoon, unfit to be other than a slave or an
outcast. Thus, by your injurious estimate, you lend yourselves to the
support and justification of slavery.”

“Would you admit the black to a social equality?”

“I would admit him,” replied Vance, “to all the civil rights of the
white. There are many men whom I am willing to acknowledge my equals,
whose society I may not covet. That does not at all affect the question
of their rights. Let us give the black man a fair field. Let us not
begin by declaring his inferiority in capacity, and then anxiously
strive to prevent his finding a chance to prove our declaration untrue.”

“But would you favor the amalgamation of the races?”

“That is a question for physiologists; or, perhaps, for individual
instincts. Probably if all the slaves were emancipated in all the Cotton
States, amalgamation would be much less than it is now. The French
Quadroons are handsome and healthy, and are believed to be more vigorous
than either of the parent races from which they are descended.”

“Many of the most strenuous opponents of emancipation base their
objections on their fears of amalgamation.”

“To which,” replied Vance, “I will reply in these words of one of your
Northern divines, ‘_What a strange reason for oppressing a race of
fellow-beings, that if we restore them to their rights we shall marry
them!_’ Many of these men who cry out the loudest against amalgamation
keep colored mistresses, and practically confute their own protests. To
marriage, but not to concubinage, they object.”

“I see no way for emancipation,” said Berwick, “except through the
consent of the Slave States.”

“God will find a way,” returned Vance. “He infatuates before he
destroys; and the infatuation which foreruns destruction has seized upon
the leading men of the South. Plagiarizing from Satan, they have said to
slavery, ‘Evil, be thou our good!’ They are bent on having a Southern
Confederacy with power to extend slavery through Mexico into Central
America. That can never be attempted without civil war, and civil war
will be the end of slavery.”

“Would you not,” asked Berwick, “compensate those masters who are
willing to emancipate their slaves?”

“I deny,” said Vance, “that property in slaves can morally exist. No
decision of the State can absolve me from the moral law. It is a sham
and a lie to say that man can hold property in man. The right to make
the black man a slave implies the right to make you or me a slave. No
legislation can make such a claim valid. No vote of a majority can make
an act of tyranny right,—can convert an innocent man into a chattel. All
the world may cry out it is right, but they cannot make it so. The
slaveholder, in emancipating his slave, merely surrenders what is not
his own. I would be as liberal to him in the way of encouragement as the
public means would justify. But the loss of the planter from
emancipation is greatly over estimated. His land would soon double in
value by the act; and the colored freedmen would be on the soil,
candidates for wages, and with incentives to labor they never had
before.”

The bell for dinner broke in upon the conversation. It was not till
evening that the parties met again on the upper deck.

“I have been talking with Peek,” said Berwick, “and to my dismay I find
he was betrayed by the husband of my step-mother. You must help me
cancel this infernal wrong.”

“I have laid my plans for taking all these negroes ashore at midnight at
our next stopping-place,” replied Vance. “I am to personate their owner.
The keepers of the boat, who have seen me so much with Hyde, will offer
no opposition. He is already so drunk that we have had to put him to
bed. He begged me to look after his niggers. Whiskey had made him
sentimental. He wept maudlin tears, and wanted to kiss me.”

“Here’s a check,” said Berwick, “for twenty-five hundred dollars. Give
it to Peek the moment he is free.”

Vance placed it in a small water-proof wallet.

What’s the matter?

A rush and a commotion on the deck! Captain Crane left the wheel-house,
and jumped over the railing down to the lower deck forward, his mouth
bubbling and foaming with oaths.

There had been a slackening of the fires, and the Champion was all at
once found to be fast gaining on the Pontiac.

“Fire up!” yelled the Captain. “Pile on the turpentine splinters. Bring
up the rosin. Blast yer all for a set of cowardly cusses! I’m bound to
land yer either in Helena or hell, ahead of the Champion.”




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                       WAITING FOR THE SUMMONER.

               “So every spirit, as it is more pure,
               And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
               So it the fairer body doth procure,
               To habit in, and it more fairly dight
               With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
               For of the soul the body form doth take,
               For soul is form, and doth the body make.”
                                      _Edmund Spenser._


In the best chamber of the house of Pierre Toussaint in Franklin Street,
looking out on blossoming grape-vines and a nectarine-tree in the area,
sat Mrs. Charlton in an arm-chair, and propped by pillows. Her wasted
features showed that disease had made rapid progress since the glance we
had of her in the mirror.

A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of Toussaint.

“Well, Toussaint, what’s the news to-day?” asked the invalid.

Toussaint replied in French: “I do not find much of new in the morning
papers, madame. Is madame ready for her breakfast?”

“Yes, any time now. I see my little Lulu is washing himself.”

Lulu was the canary-bird. Toussaint quitted the room and returned in a
few minutes, bringing in a tray, spread with the whitest of napkins, and
holding a silver urn of boiling water, a pitcher of cream, and two
little shining pots, one filled with coffee, the other with tea. The
viands were a small roll, with butter, an omelette, and a piece of
fresh-broiled salmon.

“Sit down and talk with me, Toussaint, while I eat,” said the invalid.
“Have you seen my husband lately?”

“Not, madame, since he called to recover the box.”

“Has he sent to make inquiry in regard to my health?”

“Not once, to my knowledge.”

“I cannot reconcile my husband’s indifference with his fondness for
money. He must know that my death will deprive him of twelve hundred a
year. How do you account for it, Toussaint?”

“Pardon me, madame, but I would rather not say.”

“And why not?”

“My surmise may be uncharitable, or it might give you pain.”

“Do not fear that, Toussaint. I have surrendered what they say is the
last thing a woman surrenders,—all personal vanity. So speak freely.”

“Mr. Charlton is young and good-looking, madame, and he is probably well
aware that, in the event of his being left a widower, it would not be
difficult for him to form a marriage connection that would bring him a
much larger income than that you supply.”

“Nothing more likely, Toussaint. How strange that I can talk of these
things so calmly,—eating my breakfast, thus! They say that a woman who
has once truly loved must always love. What do you think, Toussaint?”

“This, madame, that if we love a thing because we think it good, and
then find, on trial, that it is not good, but very bad, our love cannot
continue the same.”

“But do we not, in marriage, promise to love, honor, and obey?”

“Not by the Catholic form, madame. Try to force love, you kill it. It is
like trying to force an appetite. You make yourself sick at the stomach
in the attempt.”

Here there was a ring at the door-bell, and Toussaint left the room. On
his return he said: “The husband of madame is below. He wishes to speak
with madame.”

Surprised and disturbed, Mrs. Charlton said, “Take away the breakfast
things.”

“But madame has not touched the salmon nor the omelette, and only a poor
little bit of the crust of this roll,” murmured Toussaint.

“I have had enough, my good Toussaint. Take them away, and let Mr.
Charlton come in.”

Then, as if by way of contradicting what she had said a moment before,
she began smoothing her hair and arranging her shawl. The inconsistency
between her practice and her profession seemed to suggest itself to her
suddenly, for she smiled sadly, and murmured, “After all, I have not
quite outlived my folly!”

Charlton entered unaccompanied. His manner was that of a man who has a
big scheme in his head, which he is trying to disguise and undervalue.
Moved by an unwonted excitement, he strove to appear calm and
indifferent, but, like a bad actor, he overdid his part.

“I have come, Emily,” said he, “to ask your pardon for the past.”

“Indeed! Then you want something. What can I do for you?”

“You misapprehend me, my dear. Affairs have gone wrong with me of late;
but my prospects are brightening now, and my wish is that you should
have the benefit of the change.”

“My time for this world’s benefits is likely to be short,” said the
invalid.

“Not so, my dear! You are looking ten per cent better than when I saw
you last.”

“My glass tells me you do not speak truly in that. Come, deal frankly
with me. What do you want?”

“As I was saying, my love,” resumed Charlton, “my business is improving;
but I need a somewhat more extended credit, and you can help me to it.”

“I thought there was something wanted,” returned the invalid, with a
scornful smile; “but you overrate my ability. How can I help your
credit? The annuity allowed by Mr. Berwick ends with my life. I have no
property, real or personal,—except my canary-bird, and what few clothes
you can find in yonder wardrobe.”

“But, my dear,” urged Charlton, “many persons imagine that you have
property; and if I could only show them an authenticated instrument
under which you bequeath, in the event of your death, all your estate,
real and personal, to your husband, it would aid me materially in
raising money.”

“That, sir, would be raising money under false pretences. I shall lend
myself to no such attempt. Why not tell the money-lenders the truth? Why
not tell them your wife has nothing except what she receives from the
charity of her step-son?”

Enraged at seeing how completely his victim had thrown off his
influence, and at the same time indulging a vague hope that he might
recover it, Charlton’s lips began to work as if he were hesitating
whether to try his old game of browbeating or to adopt a conciliatory
course. A suspicion that the lady was disenchanted, and no longer
subject to any spell he could throw upon her, led him to fall back on
the more prudent policy; and he replied: “I have concealed nothing from
the parties with whom I am negotiating. I have told them the precise
situation of our affairs; but they have urged this contingency: your
wife, it is true, is dependent, but her rich relatives may die and leave
her a bequest. We will give you the money you want, if you will satisfy
us that you are her heir.”

“You fatigue me,” said the invalid. “You wish me to make a will in your
favor. You have the instruments all drawn up and ready for my signature
in your pocket; and on the opposite side of the street you have three
men in waiting who may serve as witnesses.”

“But who told you this?” exclaimed Charlton, confounded.

“Your own brain by its motions told it,” replied the wife. “I am rather
sensitive to impressions, you see. Strike one of the chords of a musical
instrument, and a corresponding chord in its duplicate near by will be
agitated. Your drift is apparent. The allusions under which I have
labored in regard to you have vanished, never, never to return! How I
deferred the moment of final, irrevocable estrangement! How I strove, by
meekness, love, and devotion, to win you to the better choice! How I
shut my eyes to your sordid traits! But now the infatuation is ended.
You are powerless to wound or to move me. The love you spurned has
changed, not to hate, but to indifference. Free to choose between God
and Mammon, you have chosen Mammon, and nothing I can say can make you
reconsider your election.”

“You do me injustice, my wife, my dearest—”

“Psha! Do not blaspheme. We understand each other at last. Now to
business. You want me to sign a will in your favor, leaving you all the
property I may be possessed of at the time of my death. Would you know
when that time will be?”

“Do not speak so, Emily,” said Charlton, in tones meant to be pathetic.

“It may be an agreeable surprise to you,” continued the invalid, “to
learn that my time in this world will be up the tenth of next month. I
will sign the will, on one condition.”

“Name it!” said Charlton, eagerly.

“The condition is, that you pay Toussaint a thousand dollars cash down
as an indemnity for the expense he has been at on my account, and to
cover the costs of my funeral.”

With difficulty Charlton curbed his rage so far as to be content with
the simple utterance, “Impossible!”

“Then please go,” said the invalid, taking up a silver bell to ring it.

“Stop! stop!” cried Charlton. “Give me a minute to consider. Three
hundred dollars will more than cover all the expenses,—medical
attendance, undertaker’s charges,—all. At least, I know an undertaker
who charges less than half what such fellows as Brown of Grace pile on.
Say three hundred dollars.”

With a smile of indescribable scorn, the invalid touched the bell.

“Stop! We’ll call it five hundred,” groaned the conveyancer.

A louder ring by the lady, and the old negro’s step was heard on the
stairs.

“Seven hundred,—eight hundred: O, I couldn’t possibly afford more than
eight hundred!” said Charlton, in a tone the pathos of which was no
longer feigned.

The invalid now rang the bell with energy.

“It shall be a thousand, then!” exclaimed Charlton, just as Toussaint
entered the room.

“Toussaint,” said the invalid, “Mr. Charlton has a paper he wishes me to
sign. I have promised to do it on his paying you a thousand dollars.
Accept it without demur. Do you understand?”

Toussaint bowed his assent; and Charlton, leaving the room, returned
with his three witnesses. The sum stipulated was paid to Toussaint, and
the will was duly signed and witnessed. Possessed of the document,
Charlton’s first impulse was to vent his wrath upon his wife; but he
discreetly remembered that, while life remained, it was in her power to
revoke what she had done; so he dismissed his witnesses, and began to
play the fawner once more. But he was checked abruptly.

“There! you weary me. Go, if you please,” said she. “If I have occasion,
I will send for you.”

“May I not call daily to see how you are getting on?” whined Charlton.

“I really don’t see any use in it,” replied the invalid. “If you will
look in the newspapers under the obituary head the eleventh or twelfth
of next month, you will probably get all the information in regard to me
that will be important.”

“Cruel and unjust!” said the husband. “Have you no forgiveness in your
heart?”

“Forgiveness? Trampled on, my heart has given out love and duty in the
hope of finding some spot in your own heart which avarice and
self-seeking had not yet petrified. But I despair of doing aught to
change your nature. I must leave you to God and circumstance. Neither
you nor any other offender shall lack my forgiveness, however; for in
that I only give what I supremely need. Farewell.”

“Good by, since you will not let me try to make amends for the past,”
said Charlton; and he quitted the room.

Half sorry for her own harshness, and thinking she might have misjudged
her husband’s present feelings, the invalid got Toussaint to help her
into the next room, where she could look through the blinds. No sooner
was Charlton in the street than he drew from his pocket the will, and
walked slowly on as if feasting his eyes on its contents. With a gesture
of exultation, he finally returned the paper to his pocket, and strode
briskly up the street to Broadway.

“You see!” said the invalid, bitterly. “And I loved that man once! And
there are worthy people who would say I ought to love him still. Love
him? Tell my little Lulu to love a cat or a hawk. How can I love what I
find on testing to be repugnant to my own nature? Tell me, Toussaint,
does God require we should love what we know to be impure, unjust,
cruel?”

“Ah, madame, the good God, I suppose, would have us love the wicked so
far as to help them to get rid of their wickedness.”

“But there are some who will not be helped,” said the invalid. “Take the
wickedness out of some persons, and we should deprive them of their very
individuality, and practically annihilate them.”

“God knows,” replied Toussaint; “time is short, and eternity is
long,—long enough, perhaps, to bleach the filthiest nature, with
Christ’s help.”

“Right, Toussaint. What claim have I to judge of the capacities for
redemption in a human soul? But there is a terrible mystery to me in
these false conjunctions of man and woman. Why should the loving be
united to the unloving and the brutal?”

“Simply, madame, because this is earth, and not heaven. In the next life
all masks must be dropped. What will the hypocrite and the impostor do
then? Then the loving will find the loving, and the pure will find the
pure. Then our bodies will be fair or ugly, black or white, according to
our characters.”

“I believe it!” exclaimed the invalid. “Yes, there is an infinite
compassion over all. God lives, and the soul does not die, and the
mistakes, the infelicities, the shortcomings of this life shall be as
fuel to kindle our aspirations and illumine our path in another stage of
being.”

Here a clamorous newsboy stopped on the other side of the way to sell a
gentleman an Extra.

“What is that boy crying?” asked the invalid.

“A great steamboat accident on the Mississippi,” replied Toussaint.




                              CHAPTER XV.
                           WHO SHALL BE HEIR?

          “I care not, Fortune, what you me deny,
            You cannot rob me of free Nature’s grace;
          You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
            Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.”
                                              _Thomson._


When we parted from Mr. Pompilard, he was trying to negotiate a mortgage
for thirty thousand dollars on some real estate belonging to his wife.
This mortgage was effected without recourse to the Berwicks, as was also
a second mortgage of five thousand dollars, which left the property so
encumbered that no further supply could be raised from it.

The money thus obtained Mr. Pompilard forthwith cast upon the waters of
that great financial maelstrom in Wall Street which swallows so many
fortunes. This time he lost; and our story now finds him and his family
established in the poorer half of a double house, wooden, and of very
humble pretensions, situated in Harlem, some seven or eight miles from
the heart of the great metropolis. Compared with the princely seat he
once occupied on the Hudson, what a poor little den it was!

A warm, almost sultry noon in May was brooding over the unpaved street.
The peach-trees showed their pink blossoms, and the pear-trees their
white, in the neighboring enclosures. All that Mr. Pompilard could look
out upon in his poor, narrow little area was a clothes-line and a few
tufts of grass with the bald soil interspersed. Yet there in his little
back parlor he sat reading the last new novel.

Suddenly he heard cries of murder in the other half of his domicil.
Throwing down his book, he went out through the open window, and,
stepping on a little plank walk dignified with the name of a piazza, put
his legs over a low railing and passed into his neighbor’s house. That
neighbor was an Irish tailor of the name of Pat Maloney, a little fellow
with carroty whiskers and features intensely Hibernian.

On inquiring into the cause of the outcry, Pompilard learned that
Maloney was only “larruping the ould woman with a bit of a leather
strap, yer honor.” Mrs. Maloney excused her husband, protesting that he
was the best fellow in the world, except when he had been drinking,
which was the case that day; “and not a bad excuse for it there was,
your honor, for a band of Irish patriots had landed that blessed
morning, and Pat had only helped wilcom them dacently, which was the
cause of his taking a drap too much.”

With an air of deference that he might have practised towards a
grand-duchess, Pompilard begged pardon for his intrusion, and passed
out, leaving poor Pat and his wife stunned by the imposing vision.

No sooner had Pompilard resumed his romance, than the dulcet strains of
a hand-organ under the opposite window solicited his ear. Pompilard was
a patron of hand-organs; he had a theory that they encouraged a taste
for music among the humbler classes. The present organ was rich-toned,
and was giving forth the then popular and always charming melody of
“Love Not.” Pompilard grew sentimental, and put his hand in his pocket
for a quarter of a dollar; but no quarter responded to the touch of his
fingers. He called his wife.

Enter a small middle-aged lady, dressed in white muslin over a blue
under-robe, with ribbons streaming in all directions. She was followed
by Antoinette, or Netty, as she was generally called, a little
elfish-looking maiden, six or seven years old, with her hands thrust
jauntily into the pockets of her apron, and her bright beady eyes
glancing about as if in search of mischief.

“Lend me a quarter, my dear, for the organ-man,” said Pompilard.

“Ah! there you have me at a disadvantage, husband,” said the lady. “Do
you know I don’t believe ten cents could be raised in the whole house?”

And the lady laughed, as if she regarded the circumstance as an
excellent joke. The child, taking her cue from the mother, screamed with
delight. Then, imitating the sound of a bumble-bee, she made her father
start up, afraid he was going to be stung. This put the climax to her
merriment, and she threw herself on the sofa in a paroxysm.

“What a little devil it is!” exclaimed Pompilard, proudly smiling on his
offspring. “Is it possible that no one in the house has so much as a
quarter of a dollar? Where are the girls? Girls!”

His call brought down from up-stairs his two eldest, children of his
first wife,—one, Angelica Ireton, a widow, whose perplexity was how to
prevent herself from becoming fat, for she was already fair and forty;
the other, Melissa (by Netty nicknamed Molasses), a sentimentalist of
twenty-five, affianced, since her father’s last financial downfall, to
Mr. Cecil Purling, a gentleman five years her senior, who labored under
the delusion that he was born to be an author, and who kept on ruining
publishers by writing the most ingeniously unsalable books. Angelica had
a son with the army in Mexico, and two little girls, Julia and Mary,
older than Netty, but over whom she exercised absolute authority by
keeping them constantly informed that she was their aunt.

Angelica was found to have in her purse the sum required for the
organ-man. Pompilard took it, and started for the door, when a prolonged
feline cry made him suppose he had trodden on the kitten. “Poor Puss!”
he exclaimed; “where the deuce are you?” He looked under the sofa, and
an outburst of impish laughter told him he had been tricked a second
time by his little girl.

“That child will be kidnapped yet by the circus people,” said Pompilard,
complacently. “Where did she learn all these accomplishments?”

“Of the children in the next house, I believe,” said Mrs. Pompilard; “or
else of the sailors on the river, for she is constantly at the
water-side watching the vessels, and trying to make pictures of them.”

Pompilard went to the door, paid the organ-grinder, and re-entered the
room with an “Extra” which the grateful itinerant had presented to him.

“What have we here?” said Pompilard; and he read from the paper the
announcement of a terrible steamboat accident, which had occurred on the
night of the Wednesday previous, on the Mississippi.

“This is very surprising,—very surprising indeed,” he exclaimed. “My
dear, it appears from—”

The noise of a dog yelping, as if his leg had been suddenly broken by a
stone, here interrupted him. He rushed to the window. No dog was there.

“Will that little goblin never be out of mischief? Take her away,
Molasses,” said the secretly delighted father. Then, resuming his seat,
he continued: “It appears from this account, wife, that among the
passengers killed by this great steamboat explosion were your niece
Leonora Berwick, her husband, and child. Did she have more than one
child?”

“Not that I know of,” said Mrs. Pompilard. “Is poor Leonora blown up?
That is very hard indeed. But I never set eyes on her,—though I have her
photograph,—and I shall not pretend to grieve for one I never saw. My
poor brother could never get over our elopement, you wicked Albert.”

“Your poor brother thought I was cheating you, when I said I loved you
to distraction. Now put your hand on your heart, Mrs. Pompilard, and
say, if you can, that I haven’t proved every day of my life that I fell
short of the truth in my professions.”

“I sha’n’t complain,” replied the lady, smiling; “but we were shockingly
imprudent, both of us; and I tell Netty I shall disown her if she ever
elopes.”

“Of course Netty mustn’t take our example as a precedent.”

Buoyed up on her husband’s ever-sanguine and cheerful temperament, Mrs.
Pompilard had looked upon their fluctuations from wealth to poverty as
so many piquant variations in their way of life. This moving into a
little mean house in Harlem,—what was it, after all, but playing poor?
It would be only temporary, and was a very good joke while it lasted.
Albert would soon have his palace on the Fifth Avenue once more. There
was no doubt of it.

And so Mrs. Pompilard made the best of the present moment. Her
step-daughters (she was the junior of one of them) used to treat her as
they might a spoiled child, taking her in their laps, and petting her,
and often rocking her to sleep.

The news Pompilard had been reading suggested to him a not improbable
contingency, but he exhibited the calmness of the experienced gambler in
considering it.

“My dear,” said he, “if this news is true, it is not out of the range of
possibilities that the extinction of this Berwick family may leave you
the inheritrix of a million of dollars.”

“That would be quite delightful,” exclaimed Mrs. Pompilard; “for then
that poor pining Purling could marry Melissa at once. Not that I wish my
niece and her husband any harm. O no!”

“Yes, it wouldn’t be an ill wind for Purling and Melissa, that’s a
fact,” said Pompilard. “The chances stand thus: If the mother died the
last of the three, the property comes to you as her nearest heir. If the
child died last, at least half, and perhaps all the property, must come
to you. If the child died first (which is most probable), and then the
father and the mother, or the mother and the father, still the property
comes to you. If the father died first, then the child, and then the
mother, the property comes to you. But if the mother died first, then
the child, and then the father, the money all goes to Mrs. Charlton, by
virtue of her kinship as aunt and nearest relative to Mr. Berwick. So
you see the chances are largely in your favor. If the report is true
that the family are all lost, I would bet fifteen thousand to five that
you inherit the property. I shall go to the city to-morrow, and perhaps
by that time we shall have further particulars.”

Pompilard then plunged anew into his novel, and the wife returned to her
task of trimming a bonnet, intended as a wedding present to a girl who
had once been in her service, and who was now to occupy one of the
houses opposite.

The next day, Pompilard, fresh, juvenile, and debonair, descended from
the Harlem cars at Chambers Street, and strolled down Broadway, swinging
his cane, and humming the Druidical chorus from Norma. Encountering
Charlton walking in the same direction, he joined him with a “Good
morning.” Charlton turned, and, seeing Pompilard jubilant, drew from the
spectacle an augury unfavorable to his own prospects. “Has the old
fellow had private advices?” thought he.

Pompilard spoke of the opera, of Maretzek, the Dusseldorf gallery, and
the Rochester rappings. At length Charlton interposed with an allusion
to the great steamboat disaster. Pompilard seemed to dodge the subject;
and this drove Charlton to the direct interrogatory, “Have you had any
information in addition to what the newspapers give?”

“O nothing,—that is, nothing of consequence,” said Pompilard. “Did you
hear Grisi last night?”

“It appears,” resumed Charlton, “that your wife’s niece, Mrs. Berwick,
was killed outright, that the child was subsequently drowned, and that
Mr. Berwick survived till the next day at noon.”

“Nothing more likely!” replied Pompilard, who had not yet seen the
morning papers.

“Do you know any of the survivors?” asked Charlton,

“I haven’t examined the list yet,” said Pompilard.

And they parted at the head of Fulton Street.

Charlton built his hopes largely on the fact that Colonel Delancy Hyde
was among the survivors. If, fortunately, the Colonel’s memory should
serve him the right way, he might turn out a very useful witness. At any
rate, he (Charlton) would communicate with him by letter forthwith.

In one of the reports in the Memphis Avalanche, telegraphed to the
morning papers, was the following extract:—

  “Judge Onslow, late of Mississippi, and his son saved themselves by
  swimming. Among the bodies they identified was that of Mrs. Berwick of
  New York, wounded in the head. From the nature of the wound, her death
  must have been instantaneous. Her husband was badly scalded, and, on
  recognizing the body of his wife, and learning that his child was
  among the drowned, he became deeply agitated. He lingered till the
  next day at noon. The child had been in the keeping of a mulatto
  nurse. Mr. Burgess of St. Louis, who was saved, saw them both go
  overboard. It appears, however, that the nurse, with her charge in her
  arms, was seen holding on to a life-preserving stool; but they were
  both drowned, though every effort was made by Colonel Hyde, aided by
  Mr. Quattles of South Carolina, to save them.

  “We regret to learn that Colonel Hyde is a large loser in slaves. One
  of these, a valuable negro, named Peek, is probably drowned, as he was
  handcuffed to prevent his escape. The other slaves may have perished,
  or may have made tracks for the underground railroad to Canada. The
  report that Mr. Vance of New Orleans was lost proves to be untrue. The
  night was dark, though not cloudy. The river is very deep, and the
  current rapid at the place of the explosion (a few miles above
  Helena), and it is feared that many persons have been drowned whose
  bodies it will be impossible to recover.”

Pompilard read this account, and felt a million of dollars slipping away
from his grasp. But not a muscle of his face betrayed emotion.
Impenetrable fatalist, he still had faith in the culmination of his
star.

“We must wait for further particulars,” thought Pompilard; “there is
hope still”; and, stopping at a stall to buy the new novel of “Monte
Cristo” by Dumas, he made his way to the cars, and returned to Harlem.

Weeks glided by. Mrs. Charlton passed away on the day she had predicted,
and Toussaint, after seeing her remains deposited at Greenwood, gave
away in charity the thousand dollars which she had extorted for him from
her husband.

Melissa Pompilard began to fear that the marriage-day would never come
round. Cecil Purling, her betrothed, had made a descent on a young
publisher, just starting in business, and had induced him to put forth a
volume of “playful” essays, entitled “Skimmings and Skippings.” The
result was financial ruin to the publisher, and his rapid retreat back
to the clerkship from which he had emerged.

But Purling was indomitable. He began forthwith to plan another
publication, and to look round for another victim; comforting Melissa
with the assurance that, though the critics were now in a league to keep
him in obscurity, he should make his mark some day, when all his past
works would turn out the most profitable investments he could possibly
have found.

To whom should the Aylesford-Berwick property descend? That was now a
question of moment, both in legal and financial circles. Pompilard read
novels, made love to his wife, and romped with his daughters and
grandchildren. Charlton groaned and grew thin under the horrible state
of suspense in which the lawyers kept him.




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                              THE VENDUE.

“A queen on a scaffold is not so pitiful a sight as a woman on the
auction-block.”—_Charles Sumner._

“Slavery gratifies at once the love of power, the love of money, and the
love of ease; it finds a victim for anger who cannot smite back his
oppressor, and it offers to all, without measure, the seductive
privileges which the Mormon gospel reserves for the true believers on
earth, and the Bible of Mahomet only dares promise to the saints in
heaven.”—_O. W. Holmes._


About a month after the explosion of the Pontiac, a select company were
assembled, one beautiful morning in June, under a stately palmetto-tree
in front of the auction store of Messrs. Ripper & Co. in New Orleans,
and on the shady side of the street. There was to be a sale of prime
slaves that day. A chair with a table before it, flanked on either side
by a bale of cotton, afforded accommodations for the ceremony. Mr.
Ripper, the auctioneer, was a young man, rather handsome, and well
dressed, but with that flushed complexion and telltale expression of the
eyes which a habit of dissipation generally imparts to its victims.

The company numbered some fifty. They were lounging about in groups, and
were nearly all of them smoking cigars. Some were attired in thin
grass-cloth coats and pantaloons, some in the perpetual black broadcloth
to which Americans adhere so pertinaciously, even when the thermometer
is at ninety. There was but one woman present; and she was a
strong-minded widow, a Mrs. Barkdale, who by the death of her husband
had come into the possession of a plantation, and now, instead of
sending her overseer, had come herself, to bid off a likely field-hand.

The negroes to be sold, about a dozen in number, were in the warehouse.
Mr. Ripper paced the sidewalk, looking now and then impatiently at his
watch. The sale was to begin at ten. Suddenly a tall, angular,
ill-formed man, dressed in a light homespun suit, came up to Ripper and
drew him aside to where a young man, dressed in black and wearing a
white neckcloth, stood bracing his back up against a tree. His swarthy
complexion, dark eyes, and long nose made it doubtful whether the
Caucasian, the Jewish, or the African blood predominated in his veins. A
general languor and unsteadiness of body showed that he had been
indulging in the “ardent.”

To this individual the tall man led up the auctioneer, and said: “The
Reverend Quattles, Mr. Ripper; Mr. Ripper, the Reverend Quattles.
Gemmlemen, yer both know _me_. I’m Delancy Hyde,—Virginia-born, be Gawd.
(’Scuze me, Reverend sir.) None of your Puritan scum! My ahnces’tor,
Delancy Hyde, kum over with Pocahontas and John Smith; my gra’ffther
owned more niggers nor ’ary other man in the county; my father was
cheated and broke up by a damned Yankee judge, sir; that’s why the
family acres ain’t mine.”

“I’ve but five minutes more,” interposed Mr. Ripper, impatiently.

“Wall, sir,” continued the Colonel, “this gemmleman, as I war tellin’
yer, is the Reverend Quattles of Alabamy.”

The Reverend Quattles bowed, and, with fishy eyes and a maudlin smile,
put his hand on his heart.

“The little nig I’ve brung yer ter sell, Mr. Ripper, b’longs ter the
Reverend Quattles’s brother, a high-tone gemmleman, who lives in Mobile,
but has been unfortnit in business, and has had ter sell off his
niggers. An’ as I was goin’ ter Noo Orleenz, he puts this little colored
gal in my hands ter sell. The Reverend Quattles wanted ter buy her, but
was too poor. He then said he’d go with me ter see she mowt fall inter
the right hahnds. In puttin’ her up, yer must say ’t was a great
’fliction, and all that, ter part with her; that the Reverend Quattles,
ruther nor see her fall inter the wrong hands, would sell his library,
and so on; that she’s the child of a quadroon as has been in the family
all her life, and as is a sort of half-sister of the Reverend Quattles.”

“O yes! I understand all that game,” said Ripper, knocking with his
little finger the ashes from his cigar.

The Colonel, in an _aside_ to the auctioneer, now remarked: “The
Reverend Quattles, in tryin’ to stiddy his narves for the scene, has tuk
too stiff a horn, yer see.”

“Yes; take him where he can sleep it off. It’s time for the sale to
begin. Remember your lot is Number 12, and will be struck off last.”

The auctioneer then made his way across the street, jumped on one of the
cotton-bales, and thence into the chair placed near the table.

“Come, Quattles,” said Hyde, “we’ve time for another horn afore we’re
wanted.”

“No yer don’t, Kunnle!” exclaimed Quattles, throwing off that worthy’s
arm from his shoulder. “I tell yer this is too cussed mean a business
for any white man; I tell yer I won’t give inter it.”

“Hush! Don’t bawl so,” pleaded the Colonel.

“I _will_ bawl. Yer think yer’ve got me so drunk I hain’t no conscience
left. But I tell yer, I woan’t give in. I tell yer, I’ll ’xpose the hull
trick!”

“Hush! hush!” said the Colonel, patting him as he might a restive beast.
“Arter the sale’s over, we’ll have a fust-rate dinner all by ou’selves
at the St. Charles. Terrapin soup and pompinoe! Champagne and juleps!
Ice-cream and jelly! A reg’lar blow-out! Think of that, Quattles! Think
of that!”

“Cuss the vittles! O, I’m a poor, mis’able, used-up, good-for-northin’
creetur, wuss nor a nigger!—yes, wuss nor a nigger!” said Quattles,
bursting into maudlin sobs and weeping. The Colonel walked him away into
a contiguous drinking-saloon.

“Brandy-smashes for two,” said the Colonel.

The decoctions were brewed, and the tumblers slid along the marble
counter, with the despatch of a man who takes pride in his vocation.
They were as quickly emptied. Quattles gulped down his liquor eagerly.
The Colonel then hired a room containing a sofa, and, seeing his
companion safely bestowed there, made his own way back to the auction.

On one of the cotton-bales stood a prime article called a negro-wench.
This was Lot Number 3. She was clad in an old faded and filthy calico
dress that had apparently been made for a girl half her size. A small
bundle containing the rest of her wardrobe lay at her feet. Her bare
arms, neck, and breasts were conspicuously displayed, and her knees were
hardly covered by the stinted skirt. Without shame she stood there, as
if used to the scene, and rather flattered by the glib commendations of
the auctioneer.

“Look at her, gentlemen!” said he. “All her pints good. Fust-rate stock
to breed from. Only twenty-three years old, and has had five children
already. And thar’s no reason why she shouldn’t have a dozen more. I’m
only bid eight hunderd dollars for this most valubble brood-wench. Only
eight hunderd dollars for this superior article. Thank you, sir; you’ve
an eye for good pints. I’m offered eight hunderd and twenty-five. Only
eight hunderd and twenty-five for this most useful hand. Jest look at
her, sir. Limbs straight; teeth all sound; wool thick, though she has
had five children. All livin’, too; ain’t they, Portia?”

“Yes, massa, all sole ter Massa Wade down thar in Texas. He’m gwoin’ ter
raise de hull lot.”

“You hear, gentlemen. Thar’s nothin’ vicious about her. Makes no fuss
because her young ones are carried off. Knows they’ll be taken good care
of. A good, reasonable, pleasant-tempered wench as ever lived. And now
I’m offered only eight hunderd and—Did I hear fifty? Thank you, sir.
Eight hunderd and fifty dollars is bid. Is thar nary a man har that
knows the valoo of a prime article like this? Eight hunderd and fifty
dollars. Goin’ for eight hunderd and fifty! Goin’! Gone! For eight
hunderd and fifty dollars. Gentlemen, you must be calculating on the
opening of the slave-trade, if you’ll stand by and see niggers
sacrificed in this way. Pass up the next lot.”

The next “lot” was a man, a sulky, discontented-looking creature, but
large, erect, and with shoulders that would have made his fortune as a
hotel-porter. Laying down his bundle, he mounted the cotton-bale with a
weary, desponding air, as if he had begun to think there was no good in
reserve for him, either on the earth or in the heavens.

“Lot Number 4 is Ike,” said the auctioneer. “A fust-rate field-hand.
Will hoe more cotton in three hours than a common nigger will in ten.
Ike is pious, and has been a famous exhorter among the niggers; belongs
to the Baptist church. You all know, gentlemen, the advantage of piety
in a nigger. Ike’s piety ought to add thirty per cent to his wuth. I’m
offered nine hunderd dollars for Ike. Nine hunderd dollars!”

Here a squinting, hatchet-faced fellow in a broad-brimmed straw hat, who
had been making quite a puddle of tobacco-juice on the ground, leaped
upon the bale, and lifted the slave’s faded baize shirt so as to get a
look at his back. Then, putting his finger on the side of his nose, the
examiner winked at Ripper, and jumped down.

“Scored?” asked an anxious inquirer.

“Scored? Wall, stranger, he’s been scored, then put under a harrer, then
paddled an’ burnt. A hard ticket that.”

The nine hundred dollar bid was as yet in the imagination of the
auctioneer. But, with the quick penetration of his craft, he saw the
strong-minded widow standing on tiptoe, her face eager with the
excitement of bidding, and her words only checked by the desire to judge
from the amount of competition whether the article were a desirable one.

“A thousand and ten! Thank you, sir, thank you!” said Ripper, bowing to
a gentleman he had seen only in his mind’s eye. Nobody could dispute the
bid, all eyes being directed toward the auctioneer.

“A thousand and twenty-five,” continued Ripper, turning in an opposite
direction, and bowing to an equally imaginary bidder. Then, apparently
catching the eye of the competing customer, “A thousand and forty!” he
exclaimed; and so, see-sawing from one chimerical gentleman to the
other, he carried the sham bidding up to a thousand and seventy-five.

At this point Mrs. Barkdale, pale, and following with swayings of her
own body the motions of the auctioneer, her heart in her mouth almost
depriving her of speech, waved her hand to attract his attention, and,
rising on tiptoe, gasped forth, “A thousand and eighty!”

“Thank you, madam,” said Ripper, politely touching his hat. Then,
apparently catching the eye of his imaginary bidder on the right,
“Monsieur Dupré,” he said, “you won’t allow such a bargain to slip
through your hands, will you? _Voyez! Où trouverez-vous un mieux?_ Thank
you, sir; thank you! A thousand and ninety,—I’m offered a thousand and
ninety for this superior field-hand. Goin’,—goin’. Thank you, madam.
Eleven hunderd dollars; only eleven hunderd dollars for this most
valubble piece of property. I assure you, gentlemen, ‘t is not often
you’ve such a chance. Goin’ for eleven hunderd dollars! Are you all
done? Eleven hunderd dollars. Goin’! Gone! You were too late, sir. To
Mrs. Barkdale for eleven hunderd dollars.”

The widow, almost ready to faint, made her way to her carriage, and was
driven off. Some of the company shrugged their shoulders, while others
uttered a low, significant whistle. Ike, who maintained his dogged,
sulky look, picked up his bundle, and was remanded to the warehouse,
there to be kept till claimed.

“Now, gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, “I have to call your attention to
the primest fancy article that it has ever been my good fortin to put
under the hammer. Lot Number 5 is the quadroon gal, Nelly. Bring her
on.”

Here a negro assistant led out, with his hand on her shoulder, a girl
apparently not more than eighteen years of age, and helped her on the
cotton-bale. She was modestly clad in an old but neatly-fitting black
silk gown, and, notwithstanding the heat, wore round her shoulders a
checked woollen shawl. Her hair was straight. Evidently she derived her
blood chiefly from white ancestors. She was very pretty; and had a neat,
compact figure, in which the tendency to plumpness, common among the
quadroons, was not yet too marked for grace.

It was apparently the first time she had ever been put up for sale; for
she had a scared, deprecatory look, strangely accompanied with a smile
put on for the purpose of propitiating some well-disposed master, if
such there might be among the crowd.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Ripper, “here is Lot Number 5. It speaks for
itself, and needs no puffin’ from me. But thar is a little story
connected with Nelly. She was the property of Miss Pettigrew, down in
Plaquemine, and always thought she’d be free as soon as her missis died.
But her missis fell under conviction jest afore her death, and ordered
in her will that Nelly should be sold, and the proceeds paid over to the
fund for the support of indigent young men studyin’ for the ministry.
So, gentlemen, in biddin’ lib’rally for this superior lot, you’ll have
the satisfaction of forruding a most-er praiseworthy and pious objek.”

“Make her drop her shawl,” said a gray-haired man, with a blotched,
unwholesome skin, and with dirty deposits of stale tobacco-juice at the
corners of his mouth.

“Certainly, Mr. Tibbs,” said Ripper, pulling off the girl’s shawl as if
he had been uncovering a sample of Sea-Island cotton.

“She has been a lady’s maid, and nothin’ else, I can assure you,
gentlemen. Small hands and feet, yer see. Look at that neck and them
shoulders! Her missis has kept her very strict; and the executor, by
whose order she is sold, warrants you, gentlemen, she has never been
_enceinte_. A very nice, good-natured, correct, and capable gal. Will
never give her owner any trouble, and will ollerz do her best to please.
Shall I start her at a thousand dollars?”

Here Mr. Tibbs and two other men jumped on the bale, and began to give a
closer examination to the article. One pinched the flesh of its smooth
and well-rounded shoulders. Another stretched its lips apart so as to
get a sight of its teeth. Mr. Tibbs pulled at the bosom of its dress in
order to draw certain physiological conclusions as to the truth of the
auctioneer’s warranty.

“Please don’t,” expostulated the girl, putting away his hand, and with
her scared look trying hard to smile, but showing in the act a set of
teeth that at once added twenty per cent to her value in the estimation
of the beholder.

“You see her, gentlemen,” said Ripper. “She’s just what she appears to
be. No sham about her. No paddin’. All wholesome flesh and blood. What
shall I have for Nelly?”

“A thousand dollars,” said Tibbs.

“You hear the bid, gentlemen. I’m offered a thousand dollars for this
_very_ superior article. Only a thousand dollars.”

“Eleven hundred,” said Jarvey, the well-known keeper of a
gambling-saloon.

Tibbs glanced angrily at the audacious competitor, then nodded to the
auctioneer.

“Eleven hundred and fifty is what I’m offered for Lot Number 5.
Gentlemen, bar in mind, that you air servin’ a pious cause in helpin’ me
to git the full valoo of this most-er excellent article. Remember the
proceeds go to edicate indigent young men for the ministry. Mr. Jarvey,
can’t you do su’thin’ for the church?”

“Twelve hundred,” said Jarvey.

“Twelve fifty,” exclaimed Tibbs, abruptly, in a tone sharp with
exasperation and malevolence.

Nelly, seeing that the bidding was confined to these two, looked from
the one to the other with an expression of deepest solicitude, as if
scanning their countenances for some way of hope. Alas! there was not
much to choose. To Jarvey, as the less ill-favored, she evidently
inclined; but Tibbs had plainly made up his mind to “go his pile” on the
purchase, and the article was finally knocked down to him for fifteen
hundred dollars.

“You owt to be proud to bring sich a price as that, my gal,” said
Ripper, in a tone of congratulation. Nelly made a piteous, frightened
attempt at a smile, then burst into tears, and got down from the bale,
stumbling in her confusion so as to fall on her hands to the ground,
much to the amusement of the spectators.

The lots from six to eleven inclusive did not excite much competition.
They were mostly field-hands, coarse and stolid in feature, and showing
a cerebral development of the most rudimental kind. They brought prices
ranging from seven hundred to nine hundred dollars.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Ripper, “I have one little fancy article to offer
you, and then the sale will be closed. Bring on Number 12.”

The colored assistant here issued from the warehouse and crossed the
street, bearing a little quadroon girl and her bundle in his arms.
Simultaneously a new and elegant barouche, drawn by two sleek horses,
and having two blacks in livery on the driver’s box, stopped in the rear
of the crowd. The occupant got out, and strolled toward the stand. He
was a middle-aged man, with well-formed features, a smooth, florid
complexion, and a figure inclining to portliness. Apparently a
gentleman, were it not for that imperious, aggressive air, which the
habit of domineering from infancy over slaves generally imparts. He
carried a riding-whip, with which he carelessly switched his legs.

As he drew near the stand, the auctioneer’s assistant placed on the
cotton-bale the little quadroon girl. She was almost an infant,
evidently not three years old, with very black hair and eyebrows, though
her eyes did not harmonize with the hue. She was naked even to her feet,
with the exception of a little chemise that did not reach to her thighs.
Her figure promised grace and health for the future. In the shape of her
features there was no sign of the African intermixture indicated in the
hue of her skin. With a wondering, anxious look she regarded the scene
before her, and was making an obvious effort to keep from crying.

“Now here is Number 12, gentlemen,” said Ripper. “Jest look at the
little lady! Thar she is. Fust-rate stock. Look at her hands and feet.
Belonged to the Quattles family of Mobile, and I’m charged by the Rev.
Mr. Quattles to knock her down to himself (though he can’t afford to buy
her), rather than have her go into the wrong hands. She’s the child of
his half-sister, yer see, gentlemen. What am I offered for this little
lady?”

“A hundred dollars,” said a voice from the crowd.

“I’m offered two hunderd dollars for this little tidbit,” said Ripper,
pretending to have misunderstood the bid.

Colonel Delancy Hyde stepped forward, and, taking a position at the side
of the auctioneer, addressed the crowd: “I know the Quattles family,
gentlemen. It’s an unfort’nit family, and they’d never have put this
yere child under the hammer if so be they hadn’t been forced right up
ter it by starn necessity.”

“Who the hell are you?” asked a tall, lank, defiant-looking gentleman,
who seemed to be disgusted at the Colonel’s interference.

“Who am I? I’ll tell yer who am I,” cried the latter. “I’m Colonel
Delancy Hyde. Anything to say agin that? Virginia-born, be Gawd! My
father was Virginia-born afore me, and his father afore him, and they
owned more niggers nor you ever looked at. Anything to say agin that,
yer despisable corn-cracker, yer!”

“Hold yer tongue, Colonel; you’re drivin’ off a bidder,” whispered
Ripper. The Colonel collapsed at once, quelling his indignation.

“I’m offered two hunderd dollars for Number 12,” exclaimed the
auctioneer, putting his hand on the little girl’s head. “If there’s any
good judge here of figger an’ face, he won’t see this article sacrificed
for such a trifle.”

“Two twenty-five,” said Tibbs.

The gentleman who had descended from the barouche here drew nearer, and
examined the form and features of the little girl with a closer
scrutiny.

“Two fifty,” said he, as the result of his inspection.

Tibbs, irritated by the competition, made his bid three hundred.

“Four hundred!” said the man with the riding-whip.

“Five hundred!” retorted Tibbs, ejecting the words with a vicious snort.

“Six hundred,” returned his competitor, with perfect nonchalance.

“Seven hundred and fifty,” shrieked Tibbs.

“A thousand,” said the other, playing with his whip.

Tibbs did not venture further. Mortified and angry, he turned away, and
consoled himself with an enormous cut of tobacco.

“Cash takes it,” said the successful bidder, putting his finger to his
lips by way of caution to the auctioneer, and then beckoning him to come
down. Ripper exchanged a few words with him in a whisper, and told his
assistant to put the little girl with her bundle into the barouche, and
throw a carriage-shawl over her.

As the barouche drove off, Hyde asked, “Who is he?”

“Cash,” replied Ripper. “Didn’t you hear? I reckon you see more of
overseers than of planters. You’ve done amazin’ well, Colonel, gittin’
such a price fur that little concern.”

“Yes,” said Hyde; “Mr. Cash is a high-tone one, that’s a fak. I should
know him agin ’mong a thousand.”

The company dispersed, the auctioneer settled with his customers, and
Hyde went to find Quattles, and give him the jackal’s share of the
spoils.

Let us follow the barouche. Leaving the business streets, it rolled on
till, in about a quarter of an hour, it stopped before a respectable
brick house, on the door of which was the sign, “Mrs. Gentry’s Seminary
for Young Ladies.” Here the gentleman got out and rang the bell.

“Is Mrs. Gentry at home?”

“Yes, sir. Walk in. I will take your card.”

He was ushered into a parlor. In five minutes the lady appeared,—a tall,
erect person with prominent features, a sallow complexion, and dry puffs
of iron-gray hair parted over her forehead. A Southern judge’s daughter
and a widow, Mrs. Gentry kept one of the best private schools in the
city. On seeing the name of Carberry Ratcliff on the card, which
Tarquin, the colored servant, had handed to her, she went with alacrity
to her mirror, and, after a little pranking, descended to greet her
distinguished visitor.

“Perhaps you have heard of me before,” began Mr. Ratcliff.

“Often, sir. Be seated,” said the lady, charmed at the idea of having a
visit from the lord of a thousand slaves.

“I have in my barouche, madam, a little girl I wish to leave with you.
She is my property, and I want her well taken care of. Can you receive
her?”

Mrs. Gentry looked significantly at the gentleman, and he, as if
anticipating her interrogatory, replied: “The child came into my
possession only within this hour. I bought her quite accidentally at
auction. She has none of my blood in her veins, I assure you.”

“Can I see her?”

“Yes”; and, walking to the window, Ratcliff motioned to one of his
negroes to bring the child in. This was done; and the infant was placed
on the floor with her little bundle by her side, and nude as she was
when exposed on the auction-block.

“A quadroon, I should think,” said Mrs. Gentry.

“I really don’t know what she is,” replied Ratcliff. “I want you,
however, to take her into your family, and raise her as carefully as if
you knew her to be my daughter. You shall be liberally paid for your
trouble.”

“Is she to know that she is a slave?”

“As to that I can instruct you hereafter. Meanwhile keep the fact a
secret, and mention my name to no one in connection with her. You can
occasionally send me a daguerrotype, that I may see if her looks fulfil
her promise. I wish you to be particular about her music and French,
also her dancing. Let her understand all about dress too. You can draw
upon me as often as you choose for the amount we fix upon; and the
probability is, I shall not wish to see her till she reaches her
fifteenth or sixteenth year. I rely upon you to keep her strictly, and,
as she grows older, to guard her against making acquaintances with any
of the other sex. Will seven hundred dollars a year pay you for your
trouble?”

“Amply, sir,” said the gratified lady. “I will do my best to carry out
your wishes.”

“You need not write me oftener than once a year,” said Ratcliff.

“Not if she were dangerously ill?”

“No; not even then. You could take better care of her than I; and all my
interest in her is _in futuro_.”

“I think I understand, sir,” said Mrs. Gentry; “and I will at once make
a note of what you say.”

“Here is payment for the first half-year in advance,” said Ratcliff.

“Thank you, sir,” returned the lady, quite overwhelmed at the great
planter’s munificence. “Shall I write you a receipt?”

“It is superfluous, madam.”

All this while the child, with a seriousness strangely at variance with
her infantile appearance, sat on the floor, looking intently first at
the woman, then at the man, and evidently striving to understand what
they were saying. Ratcliff now took his leave; but Mrs. Gentry called
him back before he had reached the door.

“Excuse me, sir, there is something I wished to ask you? What was it?
Oh! By what name shall we call the child?”

“Upon my word,” said Ratcliff, “I have forgotten the name the auctioneer
gave her. No matter! Call her anything you please.”

“Well, then, Estelle is a pretty name. Shall I call her Estelle?”

Ratcliff started, came close up to Mrs. Gentry, looked her steadily in
the face, and asked, “What put that name into your head?”

“I don’t know. Probably I have seen it in some novel.”

“Well, don’t call her Estelle. Call her Ellen Murray.”

“I will remember.”

And the interview closed.

After the gentleman had gone, the child, with an anxious and grieved
expression of face, tried to articulate an inquiry which Mrs. Gentry
found it difficult to understand. At last she concluded it was an
attempt to say, “Where’s Hatty?”

Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and it was answered by a colored woman of
large, stately figure, whose peculiar hue and straight black hair showed
that she was descended from some tribe distinct from ordinary Africans.

“Where’s the chambermaid?” asked Mrs. Gentry.

“O missis, dat Deely’s neber on de spot when she’s wanted. De Lord lub
us, what hab we here?”

“A new inmate of the family, Esha. I’ve taken her to bring up.”

“Some rich man’s lub-child, I reckon, missis. But ain’t she a little
darlin’?” And Esha took her up from the floor, and kissed her. The
child, feeling she had at last found a friend, threw its arms about the
woman’s neck, and broke into a low, plaintive sobbing, as if her little
heart were overfull of long-suppressed grief.

“Thar! thar!” said Esha, soothing her; “she mustn’t greeb nebber no
more. Ole Esha will lub her dearly!”

Mrs. Gentry opened the bundle, and was surprised to see several articles
of clothing of a rich and fine texture, all neatly marked, though
somewhat soiled.

“There, Esha,” she said, “take the poor little thing and her bundle
up-stairs, and dress her. To-morrow I’ll get her some new clothes.”

Esha obeyed, and the child thenceforth clung to her as to a mother. To
the servant’s surprise, when she came to wash away the little one’s
tears, the skin parted with its tawny hue, and showed white and fair. On
examining the child’s hair, too, it was found to be dyed. What could be
the object of this? It never occurred to Esha that the little waif might
be a slave, and that a white slave was not so salable as a colored.

Mrs. Gentry communicated the phenomenon at once to Mr. Ratcliff, but he
never alluded to it in any subsequent letter or conversation.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                       SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING?

             “Ah! spare your idol; think him human still;
             Charms he may have, but he has frailties too!
             Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.”
                                                 _Young._


The question as to the inheritance of the Aylesford-Berwick property was
not decided without a lawsuit. The case was put into the courts, and
kept there many months. The heavy legal expenses to which Charlton was
subjected, and his reluctance to meet them, protracted the contest by
alienating his lawyers. Pompilard went straight to the point by
promising his counsel a fee of a hundred thousand dollars in the event
of success; and thus he enlisted and kept active the best professional
aid. Still the prospect was doubtful.

But even the _law’s_ delay must finally have an end. The hour of the
final settlement of the great case by the ultimate court of appeal had
come at last. The judges had entered and taken their seats. Charlton,
pale and haggard, sat by the side of his lawyer, Detritch. Pompilard,
still masking his age, entered airy as a maiden just stepping forth into
Broadway in her new spring bonnet. He wore a paletot of light gray, a
choker girt by a sky-blue silk ribbon, a white vest, checked pantaloons,
and silk stockings under low-cut patent-leather shoes. Taking a seat at
a little semicircular table near his lawyers, he exchanged repartees
with them, and then tranquilly abided his fate. Charlton looked with
anguish on the composure of his antagonist.

Just as the case was expected to come on, one of the judges was found to
have left a certain document at home. They all retired, and a messenger
was sent for the important paper. Hence a delay of an hour. Charlton
could not conceal his agitation. Pompilard took up the morning journal,
and read with sorrow of the death of an old friend.

“Poor old Toussaint! I see he has left us,” said Pompilard.

“Yes,” replied Girard, “All-Saint has gone. He was well named. He has
never held up his head since he lost his wife.”

“Toussaint was a gentleman, every inch of him,” said Pompilard. “He
believed in the elevation of the black man, not by that process of
absorption or amalgamation which some of our noodles recommend, but by
his showing in his life and character that a negro can be as worthy and
capable of freedom as a white man. He was for keeping the blacks
socially separate from the whites, though one before the law, and
teaching them to be content with the color God had given them. A brave
fellow was Toussaint. I remember—that was before your day—when the
yellow fever prevailed here. Maiden Lane and the lower parts of the city
were almost deserted. But Toussaint used to cross the barricades every
day to tend on the sick and dying, and carry them food and medicine.”

“Did you know him well?” asked Girard.

“Intimately, these thirty years. In his demeanor exquisitely courteous
and respectful, there was never the slightest tinge of servility. You
could not have known him as I did without forgetting his color and
feeling honored in the companionship of a man so thoroughly generous,
pious, and sincere. He would sometimes make playful allusions to his
color. He seemed much amused once by my little Netty, who, when she was
about three years old, said to him, after looking him steadily in the
face for some time, ‘Toussaint, do you live in a black house?’ The other
day, knowing he was quite ill, my wife called on him, and while by his
bedside asked him if she should close a window, the light of which shone
full in his face. ‘O non, madam,’ he replied, ‘car alors je serai trop
noir.’”[22]

Here Pompilard ceased, and looked up. There was a stir in the
court-room. Their Honors had re-entered and taken seats. The messenger
with the missing paper had returned. The presiding judge, after a long
and tantalizing preamble, in the course of which Charlton was
alternately elevated and depressed, at length summed up, in a few
intelligible words, the final decision of the court. Charlton fainted.

Pompilard’s lawyers bent down their heads, as if certain papers suddenly
demanded their close scrutiny; but Pompilard himself was radiant.
Everybody stared at him, and handsomely did he baffle everybody by his
imperturbable good humor. It is not every day that one has an
opportunity of seeing how a fellow-being is affected by the winning or
the losing of a million of dollars. No one could have guessed from
Pompilard’s appearance whether he had won or lost. Unfortunately he had
lost; and Charlton had reached the acme of his hopes, mortal or
immortal,—he was a millionnaire.

Pompilard took the news home to his wife in the little old double house
at Harlem; and her only comment was: “Poor dear Melissa! I had hoped to
make her a present of a furnished cottage on the North River.”

The conversation was immediately turned to the subject of Toussaint, and
one would have thought, hearing these strange foolish people talk, that
the old negro’s exit saddened them far more than the loss of their
fortune. Angelica, Pompilard’s widowed daughter, entered. After her came
Netty, the elf, now almost a young lady. She carried under her arm a
portfolio, filled with such drawings of ships, beaches, and rocks as she
could find in occasional excursions to Long Island, under the patronage
of Mrs. Maloney, the tailor’s wife.

Julia and Mary Ireton, daughters of Angelica, came in.

“Which of my little nieces will take my portfolio up-stairs?” asked
Netty.

“I will, aunt,” said the dutiful Mary; and off she ran with it.

“Poor Melissa! We shall now have to put off the wedding,” sighed
Angelica, on learning the result of the lawsuit.

“No such thing! It sha’n’t be put off!” said Pompilard.

Netty threw her arms round the old man’s neck, kissed him, and
exclaimed: “Bravo, father of mine! Stick to that! It isn’t half lively
enough in this house. We want a few more here to make it jolly. Why
can’t we have such high times as they have in at the Maloneys’? There we
made such a noise the other night that the police knocked at the door.”

Maloney, by the way, be it recorded, had, under the pupilage of
Pompilard, given up strong drink and wife-beating, and risen to be a
tailor of some fashionable note. Pompilard had found out for him an
excellent cutter,—had kept him posted in regard to the fashions,—and
then had gone round the city to all the clubs, hotels, and opera-houses,
blowing for Maloney with all his lungs. He didn’t “hesitate to declare”
that Maloney was the only man in the country who could fit you decently
to pantaloons. Pantaloons were his _specialité_. His cutter was a born
genius,—“an Englishman, sir, whose grandfather used to cut for the
famous Brummel,—you’ve heard of Brummel?” The results of all this
persistent blowing were astonishing. Soon the superstition prevailed in
Wall Street and along the Fifth Avenue, that if one wanted pantaloons he
must go to Maloney. Haynes was excellent for dress-coats and sacks; but
don’t let him hope to compete with Maloney in pantaloons. You would hear
young fops discussing the point with intensest earnestness and
enthusiasm.

How many fortunes have a basis quite as airy and unsubstantial! Soon
Maloney’s little shop was crowded with customers. He was obliged to take
a large and showy establishment in Broadway. Here prosperity insisted on
following him. Wealth began to flow steadily in. He found himself on the
plain, high road to fortune; and by whom but Pompilard had he been led
there? The consequence was perpetual gratitude on the tailor’s part,
evinced in daily sending home, with his own marketing, enough for the
other half of the house; evinced also in the determination to stick to
Harlem till his benefactor would consent to leave.

While the Pompilards were discussing the matter of the wedding, Melissa
and Purling entered from a walk. Melissa carried her years very well;
though hope deferred had written anxiety on her amiable features.
Purling was a slim, gentlemanly person, always affecting good spirits,
though certain little silvery streaks in the side-locks over his ears
showed that time and care were beginning their inevitable work. In
aspiring to authorship he had not thought it essential that he should
consume gin like Byron, or whiskey like Charles Lamb, or opium like De
Quincey. But if there be an avenging deity presiding over the wrongs of
undone publishers, Purling must be doomed to some unquiet nights. There
was something sublime in the pertinacity with which he kept on writing
after the public had snubbed him so repeatedly by utter neglect;
something still more sublime in the faith which led publishers to fall
into the nets he so industriously wove for them.

The result of the lawsuit being made known to the newcomers, Melissa,
hiding her face, at once left the room, and was followed by her sisters
and step-mother.

Purling keenly felt the embarrassment of his position. Pompilard came to
his relief. “We have concluded, my dear fellow,” said he, “not to put
off the wedding. Don’t concern yourself about money-matters. You can
come and occupy Melissa’s room with her till I get on my legs once more.
I shall go to work in earnest now this lawsuit is off my hands.”

“My dear sir,” said Purling, “you are very generous,—very indulgent. The
moment my books begin to pay, what is mine shall be yours; and if you
can conveniently accommodate me for a few months, till the work I’m now
writing is—”

“Accommodate you? Of course we can! The more the merrier,” interrupted
Pompilard. “So it’s settled. The wedding comes off next Wednesday.”

And the wedding came off according to the programme. It took place in
church. Pompilard was in his glory. Cards had been issued to all his
friends of former days. Many had conveniently forgotten that such a
person existed; but there were some noble exceptions, as there generally
are in such cases. Presents of silver, of dresses, books, furniture, and
pictures were sent in from friends both of the bride and bridegroom; so
that the _trousseau_ presented a very respectable appearance; but the
prettiest gift of the occasion was a little porte-monnaie, containing a
check for two thousand dollars signed by Pat Maloney.

As for Charlton, young in years, if not in heart, good-looking, a
widower unencumbered with a child, what was there he might not aspire to
with his twelve hundred thousand dollars?

He was taken in charge by the J——s, and the M——s, and the P——s, and
introduced into “society.” Yes, that is the proper name for “our set.” A
competition, outwardly calm, but internally bitter and intense, was
entered upon by fashionable mothers having daughters to provide for.
Charlton became the sensation man of the season. “Will he marry?” That
was now the agitating question that convulsed all the maternal councils
within a mile’s radius of the new Fifth Avenue Hotel.




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                        THE UNITIES DISREGARDED.

           “Blessed, are they who see, and yet believe not!
           Yea, blest are they who look on graves, and still
           Believe none dead; who see proud tyrants ruling,
           And yet believe not in the strength of Evil.”
                                           _Leopold Schefer._


The admirers of Aristotle must bear with us while we take a little
liberty: that, namely, of violating all the unities.

Fourteen years had slipped by since the great steamboat accident;
fourteen years, pregnant with forces, and prolific of events, to the
far-reaching influence of which no limit can be set.

In those years a mechanic named Marshall, while building a saw-mill for
Captain Sutter in California, had noticed a glistening substance at the
bottom of the sluice. Thence the beginning of the great exodus from the
old States, which soon peopled the auriferous region, and in five years
made San Francisco one of the world’s great cities.

In those years the phenomena, by some called spiritual, of which our
friend Peek had got an inkling, excited the attention of many thousand
thinkers both in America and Europe. In France these manifestations
attracted the investigation of the Emperor himself, and won many
influential believers, among them Delamarre, editor of La Patrie. In
England they found advocates among a small but educated class; while the
Queen’s consort, the good and great Prince Albert, was too far advanced
on the same road to find even novelty in what Swedenborg and Wesley had
long before prepared him to regard as among the irregular developments
of spirit power.

“Humbug and idiocy!” cried the doctors.

“A cracking of the toe-joints!” said Conjurer Anderson.

“A scientific trick!” insisted Professor Faraday.

“Spirits are the last thing I’ll give into,” said Sir David Brewster.

“O ye miserable mystics!” cried the eloquent Ferrier, “have ye bethought
yourselves of the backward and downward course which ye are running into
the pit of the bestial and the abhorred?”

“How very undignified for a spirit to rap on tables and talk
commonplace!” objected the transcendentalists, who looked for Orphic
sayings and Delphian profundities.

To all which the investigators replied: We merely take facts as we find
them. The conjurers and the professors fail to account for what we see
and hear. Sir David may give or refuse what name he pleases: the
phenomena remain. Professor Ferrier may wax indignant; but his
indignation does not explain why tables, guitars, and tumblers of water
are lifted and carried about by invisible and impenetrable intelligent
forces. We are sorry the manifestations do not please our transcendental
friends. Could we have our own way, these spirits, forces,
intelligences—call them what you will—should talk like Carlyle and
deport themselves like Grandison. Could we have our own way, there
should be no rattlesnakes, no copperheads, no mad dogs. ’T is a great
puzzle to us why Infinite Power allows such things. We do not see the
use of them, the _cui bono_? Still we accept the fact of their
existence. And so we do of what, in the lack of a name less vague, we
call _spirits_. There are many drunkards, imbeciles, thieves,
hypocrites, and traitors, who quit this life. According to the
transcendental theory, these ought to be converted at once, by some
magical _presto-change!_ into saints and sages, their identity wholly
merged or obliterated. If the All-Wise One does not see it in that
light, we cannot help it. If He can afford to wait, we shall not
impatiently rave. It would seem that the Eternal chariot-wheels must
continue to roll and flash on, however professors, conjurers, and
quarterly reviewers may burn their poor little hands by trying to catch
at the spokes.

“I did not bargain for this,” grumbles the habitual novel-reader,
resentfully throwing down our book.

Bear with us yet a moment longer, injured friend.

During these same fourteen years of which we have spoken, the Slave
Power of the South having, through the annexation of Texas, plunged the
country into a war with Mexico for the extension of the area of slavery,
met its first great rebuff in the establishment of California as a Free
State of the Union.

The Fugitive-Slave Bill was given in 1850 to appease the slaveholding
caste. Soon afterwards followed the repeal of that Missouri Compromise
which had prohibited slavery north of a certain line. It was hoped that
these two concessions would prove such a tub thrown to the whale as
would divert him from mischief.

Then came the deadly struggle for supremacy in Kansas; pro-slavery
ruffianism, on the one side, striving to dedicate the virgin soil to the
uses of slavery; and the spirit of freedom, on the other side, resisting
the profanation. The contest was long, doubtful, and bloody; but
freedom, thank God! prevailed in the end. Slavery thus came to grief a
second time; for the lords of the lash well knew that to circumscribe
their system was to doom it, and that without ever new fields for
extension it could not live and prosper.

One John Brown, of Ossawatomie in Kansas, during these years having
learnt what it was to come under the ban of the Slave Power,—having been
hunted, hounded, shot at, and had a son brutally murdered by the
devilish hate, born of slavery, and engendering such dastardly butchers
as Quantrell,—resolved to do what little service he could to God and
man, by trying to wipe out an injustice that had long enough outraged
heaven and earth. With less than fifty picked men he rashly seized on
Harper’s Ferry, held it for some days, and threw old Virginia into fits.
He was seized and hung; and many good men approved the hanging; but in
little more than a year afterwards, John Brown’s soul was “marching on”
in the song of the Northern soldiery going South to battle against
rebellion, until the very Charlestown where his gallows was set up was
made to ring with the terrible refrain in his honor, the echoes of which
are now audible in every State, from Maine to Louisiana.

Slavery first showed its ungloved hand at the Democratic Convention at
Charleston in 1860 for the nomination of President. Here it was that
Stephen A. Douglas, the very man who had given to the South as a boon
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, was rejected by the Southern
conspirators against the Union, and John C. Breckenridge, the potential
and soon actual traitor, was put in nomination as the extreme
pro-slavery candidate against Douglas. And thus the election of Abraham
Lincoln, the candidate pledged against slavery extension, was secured.

This election “is not the cause of secession, but the opportunity,” said
Mr. Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina. “Slavery shall be the
corner-stone of our new Confederacy,” said Mr. A. H. Stephens,
Confederate Vice-President, who a few weeks before, namely, in January,
1861, had said in the Georgia Convention: “For you to attempt to
overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more
than three quarters of a century, with unbounded prosperity and rights
unassailed, is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I
can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.”

After raising armies for seizing Washington and for securing the Border
States to slavery, Mr. Jefferson Davis, President of the improvised
Confederacy, proclaimed to an amused and admiring world, “All we want is
to be let alone.”

Peaceful reader of the year 1875 (pardon the presumption that bids us
hope such a reader will exist), bear with us for these digressions. In
your better day let us hope all these terrible asperities will have
passed away. But, while we write, our country’s fate hangs poised. It is
her great historic hour. Daily do our tears fall for the wounded or the
slain. Daily do we regret that we, too, cannot give something better
than words, thicker than tear-drops, to our country. But thus, through
blood and anguish and purifying sufferings, is God leading us to that
better future which you shall enjoy.




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                            THE WHITE SLAVE.

          “Because immortal, therefore is indulged
          This strange regard of deities to dust!
          Hence, Heaven looks down on Earth with all her eyes;
          Hence, the soul’s mighty moment in her sight;
          Hence, every soul has partisans above,
          And every thought a critic in the skies.”
                                                  _Young._

“The creature is great, to whom it is allowed to imagine questions to
which only a God can reply.”—_Aimé Martin._


No one who has travelled largely through the Southern States will
require to be told that the slave system sanctions the holding in
slavery of persons who are undistinguishable in complexion from the
whitest Anglo-Saxons. Several carefully authenticated cases, analogous
to that developed in our story, though surpassing it in unspeakable
baseness, have been recently brought to light. We need only hint at them
at this stage of our narrative.

The reader has already divined that the little girl sold at the
slave-auction, and placed under Mrs. Gentry’s care, was no other than
the unfortunate child whose parents were lost in the disaster of the
Pontiac.

There is a class of minds which, either from inertness or lack of
leisure, never revise the opinions they have received from others. If we
might borrow a fresh illustration from Mrs. Gentry’s copy-books, we
might say that in her mental growth the tree was inclined precisely as
the twig had been bent. She honestly believed that there was no appeal
from what her sire, the judge, had once laid down as law or gospel.
Having been bred in the belief that slavery was a wholesome and sacred
institution, she would probably have seen her own sister dragged under
it to the auction-block, and not have ventured to question the
righteousness of the act.

There were only two passions which, should they ever come in direct
collision with her veneration for slavery, might possibly override it;
but even on this there seemed to rest much uncertainty. Her
acquisitiveness, as the phrenologists would have called it, was large;
and then, although she was fast declining into the sere and yellow leaf,
she had not surrendered all hope of one day finding a successor to the
late Mr. Gentry in her affections.

Regarding poor little Clara Berwick (or Ellen Murray) as a slave, she
could never be so far moved by the child’s winning presence and ways as
to look on her as entitled to the same atmosphere and sun as herself. No
infantile grace, no solicitation of affection, could ever melt the icy
barrier with which the pride and self-seeking, fostered by slavery, had
encircled the heart, not naturally bad, of the schoolmistress. And yet
she did her duty by the child to the best of her ability. Though not a
highly educated person, Mrs. Gentry was shrewd enough to employ for her
pupils the most accomplished teachers; and in respect to Clara she
faithfully carried out Mr. Ratcliff’s directions. True, she always
exacted an obedience that was unquestioning and blind. She did not care
to see that the child could have been led by a silken thread, only
satisfy her reason or appeal to her affections. And so it was to Esha
that Clara would always have to go for sympathy, both in her sorrows and
her joys; and it was Esha whose influence was felt in the very depths of
that fresh and sensitive nature.

From her third to her fourteenth year Clara gave little promise of
beauty. Ratcliff, on receiving her photographs, used to throw them aside
with a “Psha! After all, she’ll be fit only for a household drudge.”

But as she emerged into her sixteenth year, and features and form began
to develop the full meaning of their outlines, she all at once appeared
in the new and startling phase of a rare model of incipient womanhood.
Her hair, thick and flowing, was of a softened brown tint, which yet was
distinct from that cognate hue, _abrun_ (a-brown) or auburn, a shade
suggestive of red. Her complexion was clear and pure, though not of that
brilliant pink and white often associated with delicacy of constitution.
A profile, delicately cut as if to be the despair of sculptors; a
forehead not high, but high enough to show Mind enthroned there; eyes—it
was not till you drew quite near that you marked the peculiarity already
described in the infant of the Pontiac. The mouth and lips were small
and passionate, the chin bold, yet not protrusive, the nostrils having
that indescribable curve which often makes this feature surpass all the
others in giving a character of decision to a face. A man of the turf
would have summed up his whole description of the girl in the one word
“blood.”

Such a union of the sensuous nature with pure will and intellect might
well have made a watchful parent tremble for her future.

Ratcliff had been for more than a year in South Carolina, helping to
fire the Southern heart, and forward the secession movement. Early in
January, 1861, he made a flying visit to New Orleans, and called on Mrs.
Gentry.

After some conversation on public affairs, the lady asked, “Would you
like to see my pupil?”

“Not if she resembles the photographs you’ve sent me,” replied Ratcliff.
Then, looking at his watch, he added: “I leave for Charleston this
afternoon, and haven’t time to see her now. Early in March I shall be
back, and will call then.”

“You must see her a minute,” said Mrs. Gentry. “I think you’ll admit she
does no discredit to my bringing up.” And she rang the bell.

“Tell Miss Murray, I desire her presence in the parlor.”

Clara entered. She was attired in a plain robe of slate-colored muslin,
exquisitely fitted, and had a book in her hand, as if just interrupted
in study. She stood inquiringly before the schoolmistress, and seemed
unconscious of another’s presence.

“I wish you, Miss Murray, to play for this gentleman. Play the piece you
last learnt.”

Without the slightest shyness, Clara obeyed, seating herself at the
piano, and performing Schubert’s delectable “Lob der Throenen,” (Eulogy
of Tears,) with Liszt’s arrangement. This she did with an executive
facility and precision of touch that would have charmed a competent
judge, which Ratcliff was not.

And yet astonishment made him speechless. He had expected an
undeveloped, awkward, homely girl. Lo a beautiful young woman whose
perfect composure and grace were such as few queens of society could
exhibit! And all that youth and loveliness were his!

He looked at his watch. Not another moment could he remain. He drew near
to Clara and took her hand, which she quickly withdrew. “Only maiden
coyness,” thought he, and said: “We must be better acquainted. But I
must now hasten from your dangerous society, or I shall miss the
steamer. Good by, my dear. Good by, Mrs. Gentry. You shall hear from me
very soon.”

And Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and black Tarquin opened the door for
Ratcliff. As it closed upon him, “Who is that old man?” asked Clara.

“Old? Why, he does doesn’t look a year over forty,” replied Mrs. Gentry.
“That’s the rich Mr. Ratcliff.”

“Well, I detest him,” said Clara, emphatically.

“Detest!” exclaimed Mrs. Gentry, horror-stricken; for it was not often
that Clara condescended to speak her mind so freely to that lady.
“Detest? Is this the end of all my moral and religious teachings? O, but
you’ll be _come up with_, if you go on in this way. Retire to your room,
Miss.”

Swiftly and gladly Clara obeyed.

_Apropos_ of the aforesaid teachings, Ratcliff was very willing that his
predestined victim should be piously inclined. It would rather add to
the piquancy of her degradation. He wavered somewhat as to whether she
should be a Protestant or a Catholic, but finally left the whole matter
to Mrs. Gentry. That profound theologian had done her best to lead Clara
into her own select fold, and, as she thought, had succeeded; but Clara
was pretty sure to take up opinions the reverse of those held by her
teacher. So, after sitting in weariness of spirit under the ministry of
the Rev. Dr. Palmer in the morning, the perverse young lady would
ventilate her religious conceptions by reading Fenelon, Madame Guyon, or
Zschokke in the evening.

Mrs. Gentry believed in secession, and raved like a Pythoness against
the cowardly Yankees. Clara, seeing a United States flag trampled on and
torn in the street, secured a rag of it, secretly washed it, and placed
it as a holy symbol on her bosom. Mrs. Gentry expatiated to her pupils
on the righteousness and venerableness of slavery. Clara cut out from a
pictorial paper a poor little dingy picture of Fremont, and concealed it
between two leaves of her Bible, underlining on one of them these words:
“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof.”

Esha, the colored cook, a slave, was Clara’s fast friend in all her
youthful troubles. Esha had passed through all degrees of slavery,—from
toiling in a cotton-field to serving as a lady’s maid. Having had a
child, a little girl, taken from her and sold, she ever afterwards
refused to be again a mother. The straight hair, coppery hue, and
somewhat Caucasian cast of features of this slave showed that she
belonged to a race different from that of the ordinary negro. She had
been named Ayesha, after one of Mahomet’s wives. She generally wore a
Madras handkerchief about her head, and showed a partiality for
brilliant colors. Many were the stealthy interviews that she and Clara
enjoyed together.

Said Esha, on one of these occasions: “Don’t b’leeb ’em, darlin’, whan
dey say de slabe am berry happy, an’ all dat. No slabe dat hab any sense
am happy. He know, he do, dat suffn’s tuk away from him dat God gabe
him, and meant he sh’d hole on ter; and so he feel ollerz kind o’ mean
afore God an’ man too; an’ I ’fy anybody, white or black, to be happy
who feel dat ar way.”

“But it isn’t the slave’s fault, Esha, that he’s a slave.”

“It’s de slabe’s fault dat he stay a slabe, darlin’,” said the old
woman, with a strange kindling of the eyes. “But den de massa hab de
raisin’ ob him, an’ so take good car’ ter break down all dar am of de
man in de poor slabe; an’ de poor slabe hab no larnin’, and dunno whar’
to git a libbin’ or how to sabe hisself from starvin’. An’ if he run
away, de people Norf send him back.”

On studying Esha further, Clara discovered that she was half Mahometan,
and could speak Arabic. Her mixed notions she had got partly from her
father, Amri, who belonged to one of those African tribes who cultivate
a pure deism, tempered only by faith in the mission of Mahomet as an
inspired prophet. Amri had been captured by a hostile tribe and sold
into slavery. He lived long enough to teach his little Esha some things
which she remembered. She could repeat several Arabic poems, and Clara
first became familiar with the Arabian Nights through this old household
drudge. One of these poems had a mystical charm for Clara. Through the
illiterate garb which the slave’s English gave it, Clara detected a
significance that led her to write out a paraphrase in the following
words:—

  “The sick man lay on his bed of pain. ‘Allah!’ he moaned; and his
  heart grew tender, and his eyes moist, with prayer.

  “The next morning the tempter said to him: ‘No answer comes from
  Allah. Call louder, still no Allah will hear thee or ease thy pain.’

  “The sick man shuddered. His heart grew cold with doubt and
  inquietude; when suddenly before him stood Elias.

  “‘Child!’ said Elias, ‘why art thou sad? Dost think thy prayers are
  unheard and unanswered; that thy devotion is all in vain?’

  “And the sick man replied: ‘Ah! so often, and with such tears I have
  called on Allah! I call _Allah!_ but never do I hear his “Here am I!”’

  “And Elias left the sick man; but God said to Elias: ‘Go to the
  tempted one; lift him up from his despair and unbelief.

  “‘Tell him that his very longing is its own fulfilment; that his very
  prayer, “Come, Allah!” is Allah’s answer, “Here am I!”’

  “Yes, every good aspiration is an angel straight from God. Say from
  the heart, ‘O my Father!’ and that very utterance is the Father’s
  reply, ‘Here, my child!’” [23]

Like many native Africans, Esha was fully assured of the existence of
spirits, and of their power, in exceptional cases, to manifest
themselves to mortals. And she related so many facts within her own
experience, that Clara became a believer on human testimony,—the more
readily because Esha’s faith in demonism was unmixed with superstition.

“Tell me, Esha,” said Clara, at one of their secret midnight
conferences, “were you ever whipped?”

“Never badly, darlin’. It ain’t de whippins and de suf’rins dat make de
wrong ob slavery. De mos kindest thing dey could do de slabe would be
ter treat him so he wouldn’t stay a slabe no how. But dey know jes how
fur to go, widout stirrin’ up de man inside ob him. An’ dat’s the cuss
ob slabery.”

“But, Esha, don’t they generally treat the women well on the
plantations?”

“De breedin’ women dey treat well,—speshilly jes afore dar time,[24]—but
I’ze known a pregnant woman whipped so she died de same night. O de poor
bressed lily ob de world! O de angel from hebbn! O de sweet lubly chile!
Nebber, no, nebber, nebber shall I disremember how I held de little gole
cross afore dat chile’s eyes, an’ how she die wid de smile on her sweet
face, and her own husband’s head on her bosom.”

And the old woman burst into a passion of tears, rocking herself to and
fro, and living over again the sorrow of that death-bed scene to which
she and Peek and one other, years before, had been witnesses.

Clara pacified her, and Esha said, “You jes stop one minute, darlin’,
and I’ll show yer suff’n.” She went to her garret-closet, and returned
with a small silk bag, from which she took a package done up in fine
linen. This she unpinned, and displayed a long strand of human hair,
thick, silky, soft, and of a peculiarly beautiful color, hardly olive,
yet reminding one of that hue. Holding it up, she said: “Dar! Dat’s de
hair I cut from de head of dat same bress-ed chile I jes tell yer
’bout.”

“But that is the hair of a white woman,” said Clara.

“Bress yer, darlin’, she war jes as white as you am dis minute.”

After some seconds of silence, Clara said, “Tell me of her.”

And Esha related many, though not all, of the particulars already
familiar to the reader in the story of Estelle.

“Esha, you must give me some of that hair,” said Clara.

“Yes, darlin’, I ’ll change half of it fur some ob yourn.”

The exchange was made, Clara wrapping her portion in the little strip of
bunting torn from the American flag.

On the subject of her birth Clara had put to Mrs. Gentry some searching
questions, but had learnt simply that her parentage was unknown. For her
concealed benefactor she had conceived a romantic attachment; and
gratitude incited her to make the best of her opportunities, and to
patiently bear her chagrins.

A month after the late interview with Ratcliff, Mrs. Gentry received a
letter which caused Clara to be summoned to her presence.

“Sit down. I’ve something important to communicate,” said the
schoolmistress. “You’ve often asked me to whom you are indebted for your
support. Learn now that you belong to Mr. Carberry Ratcliff, whom you
met here some weeks ago. He is the rich planter whose house and grounds
in Lafayette you’ve often admired.”

“_Belong_ to him?” cried Clara. “What do you mean? Am I his daughter? Am
I in any way related?”

“No, you’re his slave. He bought you at auction.”

Impulsive as her own mocking-bird by nature, Clara had learned that
cruel lesson, which gifted children are often compelled to acquire when
subjected to the rule of inferior minds,—the art, namely, of checking
and disguising the emotions.

Excepting a quivering of her lips, a flushing of her brow, a slight
heaving of her bosom, and a momentary expression as of deadly sickness
in her face, she did not betray, by outward signs, the intensity of that
feeling of disgust, hate, and indignation which Mrs. Gentry’s
communication had aroused.

“Did Mr. Ratcliff request you to inform me that he considered me his
slave?” she asked, in a tone which, by a strenuous effort, she divested
of all significance.

“Yes; he concluded you are now of an age to understand the
responsibilities of your real situation. He not only paid a price for
you when you were yet an infant, but he has maintained you ever since.
But for him you might have been toiling in the sun on a plantation. But
for him you might never have got an education. But for him you might
never have heard of salvation through Christ. But for him you might
never have had the privilege of attending the Rev. Dr. Palmer’s Sunday
school. Is there any sacrifice too great for you to make for such a
master? Would it be too much for you to lay down your life for him?
Speak!”

Mrs. Gentry, it will be seen, pursued the Socratic method of impressing
truth upon her pupils. As Clara made no reply to her interrogatories,
she continued: “As your instructress, it has been my object to make you
feel sensibly the importance of doing your duty in whatever sphere you
may be cast.”

“And what, madame, may be the duty of a slave?” interposed Clara,
stifling down and masking the rage of her heart.

“The duty of a slave,” said Mrs. Gentry, “is to obey her master. Prompt
and unhesitating obedience, that is her duty.”

“Obedience to any and every command,—is that what you mean, madame?”

“Unquestionably, it is.”

“And must I not exercise my reason as to what is right or wrong?”

“Your reason, under slavery, is subordinated to another’s. You must not
set up your own reason against your master’s.”

“Supposing my master should order me to stab or poison you,—ought I to
do it?”

The judge’s daughter, like all who venture to vindicate the leprous
wrong on moral grounds, found herself nonplussed.

“You suppose a ridiculous and improbable case,” she replied.

“Well, madame, let me state a fact. One of your pupils had a letter
yesterday from a sister in Alabama, who wrote that a slave woman had
killed herself under these circumstances: her master had compelled her
to unite herself in so-called marriage with a black man, though she
fully believed a former husband still lived. To escape the abhorred
consequence, she put an end to her life. Was that woman right or wrong
in opposing her master’s will?”

“How can you ask?” returned Mrs. Gentry, reproachfully. “’T is the
slave’s duty to marry as the master orders.”

“Even though her husband be living, do I understand you?”

“Undoubtedly. Ministers of the Gospel will tell you, if there’s wrong in
it, the master, not the slave, is to blame.”[25]

“I thank you for making the slave’s duty so clear. You’re quite sure Dr.
Palmer would approve your view?”

“Entirely. All his preaching on the subject convinces me of it.”

“And the woman, you think, who killed herself rather than be false to
her husband, went straight to hell?”

“I can hope nothing better for her. She must have been a poor heathen
creature, wholly ignorant of Scripture. Paul commands slaves to obey;
and the woman who wilfully violates his injunction does it at the peril
of her soul.”

Clara was silent; and Mrs. Gentry, felicitating herself on the powerful
moral lesson adapted to her pupil’s “new sphere of duty,” resumed, “By
the way, your master—”

“Master!” shrieked Clara, running with upraised hands to Mrs. Gentry, as
if to dash them down on her. Then suddenly checking herself, she said
pleasantly: “You see I’m a little unused to the name. What were you
going to say?”

“Really, child, one would think you were out of your wits. It isn’t as
if you were going to be consigned to a master who’d abuse you. There’s
many a poor girl in our first society who’d be glad to be taken care of
as you’ll be. Only think of it! Here’s a beautiful diamond ring for you.
And here’s a check for five hundred dollars for you to spend in dresses,
and you’re to have the selecting of them all yourself,—think of
that!—under my superintendence of course; but Madame Groux tells me your
taste is excellent, and I shall not interfere. ’T is now nine o’clock.
We’ll drive out this very forenoon to see what there is in the shops;
for Mr. Ratcliff may be here any hour now. Run and get ready, that’s a
good girl. The carriage shall be here at half past ten.”

Without touching, or even looking at, the ring, Clara ran up-stairs to
her room, and, locking the door, knelt, with flushed, burning brow and
brain, at a little _prie-dieu_ in the corner. She did not try to put her
prayer in words, for the emotions which swelled within her bosom were
all unspeakable. Clara was intellectually a mystic, but the current of
her individualism was too strong to be diverted from its course by
ordinary influences, whether from spirits _in_ or _out_ of the flesh.
She was too positive to be constrained by other impulses than those
which her own will, enlightened by her own reason, had generated. So,
while she felt assured that angelic witnesses were round about her, and
that her every thought “had a critic in the skies,”—and while she
believed that, in one sense, nothing of mind or body was truly her
own,—that she was but a vessel or recipient,—she keenly experienced the
consciousness that she was a free, responsible agent. O mystery beyond
all fathoming! O reconcilement of contrarieties which only Omnipotence
could effect, and only Omnipotence can explain!

She paced the floor of her little room,—looked her situation
unflinchingly in the face,—and resolved, with God’s help, to gird
herself for the strife. Her unknown benefactor, whom her imagination had
so exalted, ah! how poor a thing, hollow and corrupt, he had proved!
Could she ever forgive the man who had dared claim her as his slave?

And yet might she not misjudge him? Might he not be plotting some
generous surprise? She recalled a single expression of his face, and
felt satisfied she did him no injustice. How hateful now seemed all
those accomplishments she had acquired! They were but the gilding of an
abhorred chain.

In the midst of her whirling thoughts, her mocking-bird, which had been
pecking at some crumbs in his cage, burst into such a wild _jubilate_ of
song, that Clara’s attention was withdrawn for a moment even from her
own great grief. Opening the door of the cage, she said: “Come, Dainty,
you too shall be free. The window is open. Go find a pleasant home among
the trees and on the plantations.”

The bird flew about her head, and alighted on her forefinger, as it had
been accustomed. Clara pressed the down of its neck to her cheek, and
then, taking the little songster to the window, threw it off her finger.
Dainty flew back into the room, and, alighting on Clara’s head, pecked
at her hair.

“Naughty Dainty! Good by, my pet! We must part. Freedom is best for both
you and me.” And, putting her head out of the window, Clara brushed
Dainty off into the airy void, and closed the glass against the bird’s
return.

She now summoned Esha, and said: “Esha, we’ve often wondered as to my
true place in the world. The mystery is solved to-day. Mrs. Gentry
informs me I’m a slave.”

“What! Wha-a-a-t! You? You, too, a slabe? My little darlin’ a slabe? O,
de good Lord in hebbn won’t ’low dat!”

“We’ve but a moment for talk, Esha. Help me to act. My owner (owner!)
may be here any minute.”

“Who am dat owner?”

“Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”

“No,—no,—no! Not dat man! Not him! De Lord help de dare chile if dat
born debble wunst git hole ob her!”

“What do you know of him?”

“He war de cruel massa ob dat slabe gal whom you hab de hair ob in yer
bosom.”

“I’m glad of it!” cried Clara, throwing her clenched hand in the air,
and looking up as if to have the heavens hear her.

“O, darlin’ chile, what am dar ole Esha kn do for her?”

Clara stopped short, and, pressing both hands on her forehead, stood as
if calling her best thoughts to a council of war, and then said, “Can
you get me a small valise, Esha?”

“Hab a carpet-bag I kn gib her. You jes wait one minute.” And Esha
returned with the desired article.

“Now help me pack it with the things I shall most need. Mrs. Gentry
expects me soon to go a-shopping with her. When she calls for me, I
shall be missing. I’ve not yet made up my mind where to go. I shall
think on that as I walk along. What’s the matter, Esha? What do you
stare at?”

“Look dar! What yer see dar, darlin’?”

“A pair of little sleeve-buttons. How pretty! Gold with a setting of
coral. And on the inside, in tiny letters, C. A. B.”

“Wall, dat’s de ’stonishin’est ting I’ze seen dis many a day. Ten—no,
’lebben—no, fourteen yars ago, as I war emptyin’ suds out ob de
wash-tub, I see dese little buttons shinin’ on de groun’. ’T was de
Monday arter you was browt here. Your little underclose had been in de
wash. So what does I do but put de buttons in my pocket, tinkin’ I’d gib
’em ter missis ter keep fur yer. But whan I look for ’em, dey was clean
gone,—couldn’t fine ’em nowhar. So I say noting t’ all ’bout it. Jes
now, as I tuk up fro’ my trunk a little muslin collar dat de dare saint
I tell yer ’bout used ter wear, what sh’d drop from de foles but dis
same little pair ob buttons dat I hab’nt seen fur all dese yars. Take
’em, darlin’, fur dey ’long ter you an’ ter nobody else.”

“Thank you, Esha. I’ll keep them with my other treasures”; and Clara
fastened them with a pin to the piece of bunting in her bosom. “And now,
good by. Pray for me, Esha.”

“Night and day, darlin’. But Esha mus gib suffn more ’n prayers. Take
dese twenty dollars in gold, darlin’. Yer’ll want ’em, sure. Don’t ’fuze
’em.”

“How long have you been saving up this money, Esha?”

“Bress de chile, only tree muntz. Dat’s nuffn. You jes take ’em. Dar!
Dat’s right. Tie ’em up safe in de corner ob yer hankerchy.”

“But, Esha, you may not be paid back till you get to heaven.” And Clara
put on her bonnet, and spoke rapidly to choke down a sob.

“So much de better. Dar! Put ’em safe in yer pocket. Dat’s a good
chile.”

Fearing a refusal would only grieve the old woman, Clara received and
put away the gold-pieces. Then, closing the spring of the carpet-bag,
she kissed Esha, and said, “If they inquire for me, balk them as well as
you can.”

“Leeb me alone fur dat, darlin’. An’ now yer mus’ go. De Lord an’ his
proppet bless yer! Allah keep yer! De mudder ob God watch ober yer!”

In these ejaculations Esha would hardly have been held as orthodox
either by a mufti or a D.D. But what if, in the balance of the
All-Seeing, the sincere heart should outweigh the speculative head? Poor
old Esha was Mahometan through reverence for her father; Catholic
through influences from the family with whom she lived when a child; and
Protestant through knowledge of many good men and women of that faith.
She cared not how many saints there were in her calendar. The more the
merrier. All goodness in man or woman, of whatever race or sect, was
deified in her simple and semi-barbarous conceptions. Poor, ignorant,
sinful, unregenerate creature!

“God bless you, Esha!” said Clara. “Look! There is poor Dainty perched
on the window-sill. Plainly he is no Abolitionist. He prefers slavery.
Take care of him.”

“Dat I will, if only for your sake, darlin’.”

And the old woman let the bird in and closed the window; and then—her
bronzed face wet with tears—she conducted Clara to a back door of the
house, from which the fugitive could issue, without being observed, into
an obscure carriage-way.




                              CHAPTER XX.
                     ENCOUNTERS AT THE ST. CHARLES.

“Hail, year of God’s farming! Hail, summer of an emancipated continent,
which shall lay up in storehouse and barn the great truths that were
worth the costly dressing of a people’s blood!”—_Rev. John Weiss._


In one of the rooms of the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans a man sat
meditating. The windows looked out on a street where soldiers were going
through their drill amid occasional shouts from by-standers. As the
noise grew louder, the man rose and went to a window. He was hardly
above the middle stature, slim and compact, but as lithe as if jointed
like an eel. His hair was slightly streaked with gray. His features,
though not full, spoke health, vigor, and pure habits of life; while his
white, well-preserved teeth, neatly trimmed beard, and well-cut,
well-adjusted clothes showed that, as he left his youth behind him, his
attention to his personal appearance did not decrease. Fourteen years
had made but little change in Vance. It had not tamed the fire of his
eyes nor slackened the alertness of his tread.

As he caught sight of the “stars and bars” waving in the spring
sunlight, an expression of scorn was emitted in his frown, and he
exclaimed: “Detested rag! I shall yet live to trample you in the dirt on
that very spot where you now flaunt so bravely. Shout on, poor fools!
Continue, ye unreasoning cattle, to crop the flowery food, and lick the
hand just raised to shed your blood. And you, too, leaders of the rank
and file, led, in your turn, by South Carolina fire-eaters, go on and
overtake that fate denounced by the prophet on evil-doers. Hug the
strong delusion and believe the lie! Declare, with the smatterers of the
Richmond press, that Christian civilization is a mistake, and that the
new Confederacy is _a God-sent missionary to the nations_ to teach them
that pollution is purity, and incest a boon from heaven. The time is not
far distant when you shall learn how far the Eternal Powers are the
allies of human laziness, arrogance, and lust!”

Suddenly the soliloquist seemed struck by the appearance of some one in
the crowd; for, taking from his pocket an opera-glass, and regulating
the focus, he looked through it, then muttered: “Yes, it is he! Poor
maggot! What haughtiness in his look!”

Just then a man on horseback, in the dress of a civilian, and followed
by a slave, also mounted, rode forward nearer to where Vance sat at his
window. A multitude gathered round the foremost equestrian, and called
for a speech. “The Kunnle is jest frum South Kerlinay,” exclaimed a
swarthy inebriate, who seemed to be spokesman for the mob. “A speech
frum Kunnle Ratcliff! Hoorray!”

Ratcliff, with a gesture of annoyance, rose in his stirrups, and said:
“Friends, I’ve nothing to tell you that you can’t find better told in
the newspapers. This is no time for talk. We want action now. All’s
right at Charleston. Sumter has fallen. That’s the first great step. The
Yankees may bluster, but they’ll never fight. The meanest white man at
the South is more than a match for any five Yankees. We’ll have them
begging to be let into our Southern Confederacy before Christmas. But we
won’t receive ’em. No! As Jeff Davis well says, sooner hyenas than
Yankees! But we must whip them into decency. And so, before the next
Fourth of July, we mean to have our flag flying over Faneuil Hall. We
are the master race, my friends! We must show these nigger stealing,
beggarly Yankees that they must stand cap in hand when they venture to
come into our presence. Don’t believe the croakers who tell you slavery
will be weakened by secession. It’s going to be strengthened. So
convinced am I of it, that I’ve doubled my number of slaves; and if any
of you wish to sell, bring on your niggers! Do you see that flag? Well,
that flag has got to wave over all Mexico, Cuba, and Central America. In
five years from now every man of you shall own his score of niggers and
his hundred acres of land. So go ahead, and aim low when you sight a
Yankee.”

The speech was received with cheers, and Ratcliff started his horse; but
the leading loafer of the crowd seized the reins, and said: “Can’t let
yer off so, Kunnle,—can’t no how you kun fix it. We want a reg’lar game
speech, sich as you kun make when you dam please. So fire up, and do
your prettiest. Be n’t we the master race?”

“Pshaw! Let go those reins,” said Ratcliff, cutting the vagabond over
his face with the but-end of a riding-whip.

The crowd laughed, and the loafer, astonished and sobered, dropped the
reins, and put his hand to his eye, which had been badly hit. Ratcliff
rode on, but a muttered curse went after him.

Seeing the loafer stand feeling of his eye as if had been hurt, Vance
said to him from the window: “Go to the apothecary’s, and tell him to
give you something to bathe it in.”

“Go ter the ’pothecary’s! With nary a red in my pocket! Strannger, don’t
try to fool this child.”

“Here’s money, if you want it.”

“Money? I should like ter see the color of it, strannger.”

“Hold your hat, then.”

And Vance dropped into the hat something wrapped in a newspaper which
the loafer incredulously unfolded. Finding in it a five-dollar
gold-piece, he stared first at the money, then at Vance, and said:
“Strannger, I’d say, God bless yer, if I didn’t think, what a poor cuss
like I could say would rayther harm than help. Haven’t no influence with
God A’mighty, strannger. But you’re a man,—you air,—not a sneakin’
’ristocrat as despises a poor white feller more ’n he does a nigger.
I’ve seen yer somewhar afore, but can’t say whar.”

“Go and attend to your eye, my friend,” said Vance.

“I will. An’ if ever I kun do yer a good turn, jes call on——”

Vance could not hear the name; but he bowed, and the loafer moved on.
Looking in another direction, Vance saw Ratcliff dismount, throw the
reins to his attendant, and disappear in a vestibule of the hotel. Vance
rose and wildly paced the room. His whole frame quivered to the very
tips of his fingers, which he stretched forth as if to clutch some
invisible antagonist. He muttered incoherent words, and, smiting his
brow as if to keep back thoughts that struggled too tumultuously for
expression, cried: “O that I had him here,—here, face to
face,—weaponless, both of us! Would I not—The merciless villain! The
cowardly miscreant! To lash a woman! That moment of horror! Often as
I’ve lived it over, it is ever new. Can eternity make it fade? Again I
see her,-pale, very pale and bleeding,—and tied,—tied to the stake. O
Ratcliff! When shall this bridled vengeance overtake thee? Pshaw! What
is _he_,—an individual,—what is the sum of pain that _he_ can suffer?
Would that be a requital? Will not his own devices work better for me
than aught _I_ can do?”

Seating himself in an arm-chair, Vance calmed his vindictive thoughts.
In memory he went back to that day when he first heard Estelle sing;
then to their first evening in Mrs. Mallet’s little house; then to the
old magnolia-tree before it. That house he had bought and given in
keeping to Mrs. Bernard, a married granddaughter of old Leroux, the
Frenchman. Every tree and shrub in the area had been reverently cared
for. Had not Estelle plucked blossoms from them all?

He thought of his marriage,—of his pleasant walks with Estelle in
Jackson Square,—of their musical enjoyments,—of all her little devices
to minister to his comfort and delight,—and then of the sudden clouding
of this brief but most exquisite sunshine.

Vance took from the pocket of his vest a little circular box of
rosewood. Unscrewing the cover, he revealed a photograph of Estelle,
taken after her marriage. There was such a smile on the countenance as
only the supreme happiness of a loving heart could have created. On the
opposite circle was a curl of her hair of that strangely beautiful
neutral tint which Vance had often admired. This he pressed to his lips.
“Dear saint,” he murmured, “I have not forgotten thy parting words. For
thy sake will I wrestle with this spirit that would seek a _paltry_
revenge. Thy smile, O my beloved! shall dispel the remembrance of thy
agony, and thy love shall conquer all earth-born hate. For thy dear sake
will I still calmly meet thy murderer. O, lend me of thy divine patience
to endure his presence! Sweet child, affectionate and pure, I can dream
of nothing in heaven more precious than thyself. If from thee, O my
beloved! come this spiritual refreshing and reinforcement,—if from thee
these tender influences, so bright and yet so gentle,—then must thy
sphere be one within which the angels delight to come.”

There was a knock at the door. Vance shut the box, replaced it in his
pocket, and cried, “Come in!”

“Colored man down stars, sar, wants to see yer.”

“Did he give his name?”

“Yes, sar, he say his name is Jacobs.”

“Show him up.”

A negro now entered wearing green spectacles, and a wig of gray wool.
Across his cheek there was a scar. No sooner was the door closed upon
the waiter, than Vance exclaimed: “Is it possible? Can this be you,
Peek?”

Peek threw off his disguises, and Vance seized him by the hand as he
might have seized a returning brother.

“What of your wife and child? Have you found ’em?”

“No, Mr. Vance, I’m still a wanderer over the earth in search of them. I
shall find them in God’s good time.”

“Sit down, Peek.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Vance, I’d rather stand.”

“Very well. Then I’ll stand too.”

“Since you make it a point of politeness, sir, I’ll sit.”

“That’s right. And now, my dear fellow, tell me what you’ve been about
these many years. Surely you’ve discovered some traces of the lost
ones?”

“None that have been of much use, Mr. Vance. I’m satisfied that Flora
was lured on to Baltimore by some party who deceived her with the
expectation of meeting me there. From Baltimore she and her child were
taken to Richmond by the agent of her old master, and sold at auction to
a dealer, who soon afterwards died. There the clew breaks.”

“My poor Peek, your not finding her has probably saved you from a deeper
disappointment.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Vance?”

“The chance is, she has been forced to marry some other man.”

“I know, sir, that would be the probability in the case of ninety-nine
slave-women out of a hundred. But Flora once swore to me on the
crucifix, she would be true to me or die. And I feel very certain she
will keep her oath.”

“Ah! slavery is so crafty and remorseless in working on human passions,”
sighed Vance. “But you are right, my dear Peek, in hoping on. Tell me of
your adventures.”

“When you and I parted at Memphis, Mr. Vance, I went to Montreal. Flora
had left there some weeks before. At New York I sought out Mr. Charlton;
also the policemen. But I could get nothing out of them. At length a
Canadian told me he had met Flora on board the Baltimore boat. I
followed up the clew till it broke, as I’ve told you. Since then I’ve
been seeking my wife and boy through all the Cotton States. The money
you gave me from Mr. Berwick lasted me seven years; and then I had to
work to get the means of continuing my search. There are not many
counties in the Slave States which I have not visited.”

“During your travels, Peek, you must have had opportunities of helping
on the good cause.”

“Yes, Mr. Vance. I needed some strong motive to send me far and wide
among my poor brethren. Without it I might have led a selfish life,
content with my own comforts. But God has ordered it all right. I bought
a pass as an old slave preacher, and thus was able to visit the
plantations, and establish secret societies in the cause of freedom.
Give the slaves arms, treat them like men, and they will fight. But they
will not rise unarmed in useless insurrection. As soon as the North will
give them the means of defending their freedom, they will break their
fetters. It is the North, and not the South, that now holds the slave in
check.”

“Yes, Peek; public sentiment is almost as much poisoned at the North as
at the South, by this slavery virus.”

“And what have _you_, sir, been about all these years?”

“Much of my time has been spent in Kansas. I’ve been a border ruffian.”

“A sham one, I suppose?”

“Well, Peek, so seriously did I play my part, that perhaps I shall go
down in history as one of the pro-slavery leaders. John Brown of
Ossawatomie would at one time have shot me on sight. He afterwards
understood me better,—understood that, if I fraternized with the
pro-slavery crew, it was to thwart their schemes. The rascals were
continually astounded at finding their bloodiest secrets revealed to the
Abolitionists, and little suspected that one of their most trusted
advisers was the informer. Yes! I helped on the madness which God sends
to those he means to destroy. Baffled in California, the devil of
slavery set his heart on establishing his altars in Kansas. How
effectually we have headed him off! And now the frenzied idiot wants
secession and a slave empire. Heaven forbid I should arrest him in his
fatuity! Let me rather help it on.”

“Are you, then, a secessionist, Mr. Vance?”

“In one sense: I’m for secession from slavery by annihilating it,
holding on to the Union. I was at the great Nashville convention. I’ve
been the last few months watching things here in conservative Louisiana.
She will have to follow South Carolina. That little vixen among States
cracks the overseer’s whip over our heads, and threatens us with her
sovereign displeasure for our timidity. She has nearly frightened poor
Governor Moore out of his boots.”

“I’ve been thinking much lately,” said Peek, “of our adventure on board
the Pontiac. What ever became of Colonel Delancy Hyde?”

“The Colonel,” replied Vance, “for a time wooed fortune in Kansas, but
didn’t win her. Since then I’ve lost him.”

“The last I heard of him,” said Peek, “he had quarrelled with a fellow
at a cock-fight in Montgomery, and been wounded; and his sister, a
decent woman, was tending on him.”

“I confess I’ve a weakness for the Colonel,” said Vance, “though
unquestionably he’s a great scoundrel.”

“Did you ever learn, Mr. Vance, what became of that yellow girl he
coveted?”

“She and the child were drowned,” was the reply.

“What proof of that did you ever have?”

“My first endeavor, after the accident,” said Vance, “was to serve the
man to whom I had owed my own life; and it was not till I saw you secure
from Hyde, and your scalds taken care of, I learnt from Judge Onslow
that the Berwicks, husband and wife, had died from their wounds.”

“Were their bodies ever recovered?”

“Those of the husband and wife I saw and recognized. But not half the
bodies of the drowned were recovered, so strong was the current. It was
not surprising, therefore, that the child and nurse should be of this
number. Two of the passengers testified to seeing them in the
river,—tried ineffectually to save them, and saw them go under.”

“Did you ever learn who those passengers were?”

“No. But I satisfied myself, so far as I could from human testimony,
that the child was not among the saved. Business called me suddenly to
New Orleans. Why do you ask?”

“Excuse me. Were you never summoned as a witness on the trial which gave
Mr. Charlton the Berwick property?”

“Never. Perhaps one of the inconveniences of my _aliases_ is, that my
friends do not often know where to find me, or how to address me. I was
not aware there had been a trial.”

“Nor was I,” said Peek, “until a few weeks ago. At the Exchange Hotel in
Montgomery, I waited on Captain Ireton of the army, who, learning that I
had had dealings with Charlton, informed me that his (Ireton’s)
grandfather had been a party to a lawsuit growing out of the loss of the
Pontiac, but that the case had been decided in Charlton’s favor. When
Captain Ireton learned that I, too, had been on the Pontiac, he put me
many questions, in the course of which I learned that the evidence as to
the death of the child and her nurse rested solely on the testimony of
Colonel Delancy Hyde and his friend, Leonidas Quattles.”

Vance started up and paced the floor, striking both palms against his
forehead. “Dupe and fool that I’ve been!” he exclaimed. “Deep as I
thought myself, this thick-skulled Hyde has been deeper still. I’ve been
outwitted by a low rascal and blockhead. In all my talk with Hyde about
the explosion, he never intimated to me that he had ever testified as a
witness in a suit growing out of the accident. Never would he have kept
silent on such a point if he hadn’t been guilty. He and Quattles and
Charlton! What possible rascality might not have been hatched among the
three! Of course there was knavery! What was the amount of property in
suit?”

“More than a million of dollars,—so Ireton told me.”

“A million? The father and mother dead,—then prove that the child—But
stop. I’m going too fast. _Hyde_ couldn’t have been interested in having
it supposed that the child was dead. How could he have known about the
Berwick property?”

“But might he not have tried to kidnap the yellow girl?”

“There you hit it, Peek! Dolt that I’ve been not to think of that! I
remember now that Hyde once said to me, the yellow girl would bring
sixteen hundred dollars in New Orleans. Well, supposing he took the
yellow girl, what could he do with the white child?”

“Can you, of all men, Mr. Vance, not guess? He could sell the child as a
slave. Or, if he wanted to make her bring a little better price, he
could tinge her skin just enough to give it a slight golden hue.”

Vance wet a towel in iced water, and pressed it on his forehead.

“But you pierce my heart, Peek, by the bare suggestion of such things,”
he said. “That poor child! Clara was her name,—a bright, affectionate
little lady! Should Hyde have given false testimony in regard to her
death, I shudder to think what may have become of her. She, born to
affluence, may be at this moment a wretched menial, or worse, a trained
Cyprian, polluted, body and soul. Why was I not more thorough in my
investigations? But perhaps ’t is not too late to prove the villany, if
villany there has been.”

“Hyde may be able to put you on the right track,” suggested Peek.

Vance sat down, and for five minutes seemed lost in meditation. Then,
starting up, he said: “Where would you next go in pursuit of your wife
and child?”

“To Texas,” replied Peek.

“To Texas you shall go. Would you venture to face Colonel Hyde?”

“With these green goggles I would face any of my old masters; and the
scalds upon my face would alone prevent my being known.”

“I can get you a pass from the Mayor himself, so that you’d not be
molested. Find Hyde, and bring him to me at any cost. Money will do it.
When can you start?”

“By the next boat,—in half an hour.”

“All right. Make your home at Bernard’s when you return. The house is
mine. Here’s the direction. Here’s a pass from the Mayor which I’ve
filled up for you. And here’s money, which you needn’t stop to count.
Good by!”

And, with a grasp of the hand, they parted, and Peek quitted the hotel
to take the boat for Galveston.

He had no sooner gone than Vance went down-stairs to the dining-hall.
Most of the guests had finished their dinners; but at a small table near
that at which he took his seat were a company of four, lingering over
the dessert.

Senator Wigman, a puffy, red-faced man, had been holding forth on the
prospective glories of the Confederacy.

“Yes, sir,” said he, refilling his glass with Burgundy, “with the rest
of the world we’ll trade, but never, never with the Yankees. Not one
pound of cotton shall ever go from the South to their accursed cities;
not one ounce of their steel or their manufactures shall ever cross our
borders.” And Wigman emptied his glass at a single gulp.

“Good for Wigman!” exclaimed Mr. Robson, a round, full-faced young man,
rather fat, and wearing gold-rimmed spectacles. “But what about Yankee
ice, Wigman? Will you deprive us of that also? And tell me, my Wigman,
why is it that, since you despise these Yankees so intensely, you allow
your children to remain at school in Massachusetts? Isn’t that a little
inconsistent, my Wigman?”

Wigman was obliged to refill his glass before he could summon his
thoughts for a reply.

“Mr. Robson,” he then said, “you’re a scholar, and must be aware that
the ancient Spartans, in order to disgust their children with
intemperance, used to make their slaves drunk. If I send my children
among the Yankees, it is that they may be struck by the superiority of
the Southern character when they return home.”

“So you’ve no faith in the old maxim touching evil communications,” said
Robson, taking a bottle of Champagne, and easing the cork so as to send
it to the ceiling with a loud pop. “Now, gentlemen, bumpers all round!
Onslow, let me fill your glass; Kenrick, yours. Drink to my sentiment.
Here’s confusion to the old concern!”

Vance was just lifting a spoonful to his lips; but he returned it to his
plate as he heard the name of Onslow, and looked round. Yes, it was
surely he!—the boy of the Pontiac, now a handsome youth of twenty-four.
On his right sat the young man addressed as Kenrick. At the latter Vance
hardly looked, so intent was he on Onslow’s response.

Wigman spoke first. Holding up his glass, and amorously eyeing the
salmon hue of the wine, he exclaimed: “Agreed! Here’s confusion to the
old con-hiccup-concern!”

The Senator’s unfortunate hiccup elicited inextinguishable laughter from
the rest, until Robson rapped with the handle of his knife on the table,
and cried: “Order! order! Gentlemen, I consider that man a sneaking
traitor who’ll not get drunk in behalf of sentiments like those our
friend the Senator has been uttering.”

“Look here, young man, do you mean to insinuate that I’m getting drunk,”
said Wigman, angrily.

“Far from it, Wigman. Any one can see you’re _not getting_ drunk.”

“I accept the apology,” said Wigman, with maudlin dignity.

“Well, then, gentlemen,” cried Robson, “now for the previous question!
Confusion to the old concern!”

Wigman and Onslow drank to the sentiment, but Kenrick, calling a negro
waiter, handed the glass to him, and said: “Throw that to the pigs, and
bring me a fresh glass.”

“Halloo! What the deuce do you mean by that?” cried Robson. “Have we a
Bourbon among us? Have we a Yankee sympathizer among us? Is it possible?
Does Mr. Charles Kenrick of Kenrick, son of Robert Kenrick, Esq.,
Confederate M. C., and heir to a thousand niggers, refuse to drink to
the downfall of Abolitionism, and those other isms against which we’ve
drawn the sword and flung away the scabbard?”

“Yes, by Jove!” interposed Wigman. “And we’ll welcome our invaders
with—with—”

“With bloody hands to hospitable graves,” said Robson. “Speak quick, my
Wigman. That’s the Southern formula, I believe, invented, like the new
song of _Dixie_, by an impertinent Yankee. It’s devilish hard we have to
import from these blasted Yankees the very slang and music we turn
against them.”

“Answer me, Mr. Charles Kenrick,” said Wigman, assuming a front of
judicial severity, “did you mean any offence to the Confederacy by
dishonoring the sentiment of hostility to its enemy?”

“Damn the Confederacy!” said Kenrick.

“Hear him,” said Robson. “Was there ever such blasphemy? Please write it
down, Onslow, that he damns the Confederacy. And write Wigman down an—No
matter for that part of it! We shall hear Kenrick blaspheming slavery by
and by.”

“Damn slavery!” said Kenrick.

“Kenrick is joking,” said Onslow.

“Kenrick was never more serious in his life, Mr. Onslow!”

“Look here, my dear fellow,” said Robson, “there _are_ sanctities which
must not be invaded, even under the privilege of Champagne. Insult the
Virgin Mary, traduce the Holy Trinity, profane the Holy of holies, say
that Jeff Davis isn’t a remarkable man, as much as you please, but
beware how you speak ill of the peculiar institution. We’ll twist the
noose for you with a pleased alacrity unless you retract those wicked
words, and do penance in two tumblers of Heidsieck drunk in expiation of
your horrible levity.”

“Damn slavery!” reiterated Kenrick.

“He’s a subject for the Committee of Safety,” suggested Wigman.

“Kenrick is playing with us all this while,” said Onslow. “Come! Confess
it, old schoolfellow! You honor the new flag as much as I do.”

“I’ll show you how much I honor it,” said Kenrick; and, going to a table
where a small Confederate flag was stuck in a leg of bacon, he tore off
the silken emblem, ripped it in four parts, and, casting it on the
floor, put his foot on the fragments and spat on them.

Wigman drew a small bowie-knife from a pocket inside of his vest, and,
starting to his feet, kicked back his chair, and rushed with somewhat
tortuous motion towards Kenrick; but, having miscalculated his powers of
equilibrium, the Senator fell helplessly on the floor, and dropped his
knife. Robson kicked it to a distant part of the room, and, helping
Wigman to his feet, placed him in his chair, and counselled him not to
try it again.

“It is to me that Mr. Kenrick must answer for this insult to the flag,”
said Onslow.

Kenrick bowed. Then, resuming his seat, he took a fresh glass, and,
filling it till it overflowed with Champagne, rose and exclaimed: “The
Union! not as it _was_, but as it _shall_ be, with universal
freedom,—from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande,—from Cape Cod to the
Golden Gate!” Kenrick touched his lips reverently to the wine, then put
it down, and, taking from his bosom a beautiful American flag made of
silk, shook it out, and said, “Here, gentlemen, is _my_ religion.”

Onslow made a snatch at it, but Kenrick warded off his grip, and,
folding and returning the flag to the inner pocket of his vest, calmly
took his seat as if nothing had happened.

All this while Vance had been gazing on Kenrick intently, as if
wrestling in thought with some inexplicable mystery. “Strange!” he
murmured. “The very counterpart of my own person as I was at
twenty-three! My very features! My very figure! The very color of my
hair! And then,—what my mother often told me was a Carteret
peculiarity,—when he smiles, that fan-like radiation of fine wrinkles
under the temples from the outer corner of the eye! What does it all
mean? I know of no relation of the name of Kenrick.”

“I shall not sit at table with a traitor,” cried Onslow.

“Then keep standing all the time,” said Kenrick.

“Nonsense! I thought we were all philosophers in this company,”
interposed Robson, who, having had large commercial dealings with the
elder Kenrick, was in no mood to see the son harmed. “Sit down, Onslow!
Wigman, keep your seat. Now, waiter, green glasses all round, and a
bottle of that sparkling Moselle. They’ll know at the bar what I mean.”

Onslow resumed his seat. Wigman stiffened himself up and drew nearer to
the table, fired at the prospect of a fresh bottle.

At this juncture Mr. George Sanderson, a Northern man with Southern
principles, in person short, vulgar, and flashily dressed, the very
_beau ideal_ of a bar-room rowdy, having heard the clink of glasses, and
sighted from the corridor an array of bottles, was seized with one of
his half-hourly attacks of thirstiness, and entered to join the party,
although Wigman was the only one he knew. The latter introduced him to
the rest. Robson uncorked the Moselle, and asked, “Now that Sumter has
fallen, what’s next on the programme?”

“Washington must be taken,” said Sanderson.

“We must winter in Philadelphia,” said Wigman.

“In what capacity? As conquerors or as captives?” said Kenrick.

“Is the gentleman at all shaky?” asked Sanderson.

“He has been shamming Abolitionism,” replied Onslow.

“He damns slavery,” cried the indignant Wigman.

“He’s sure to go to hell for that,” said Robson; “intercession can’t
save him. He has committed the unpardonable sin. The Rev. Dr. Palmer has
recently made researches in theology which satisfy himself and me and
the rest of the saints, that the sin against the Holy Ghost is in truth
nothing less than to be an Abolitionist.”

“What is your private opinion of the Yankees, Mr. Sanderson?” asked
Kenrick. “Do you think they’ll fight?”

“No, sir-r-r. Fifty thousand Confederates could walk through the
Northern States, and plant their colors on every State capital north of
Mason and Dixon’s line. They could whip any army the Yankees could bring
against them.”

“Then you think the Yankees are cowards, eh?”

“Compared with the Southerners,—yes!” said Sanderson, holding up his
glass for the waiter to refill.

“His opinion is that of an expert. He’s himself a Yankee!” cried Robson.

“I see Mr. Sanderson soars far above the spirit of the old proverb
touching the bird that fouls its nest,” said Kenrick.

“Order!” cried Robson. “Mr. Sanderson is a philosopher. He disdains
vulgar prejudices. To him the old nest is straw and mud, and the old
flag is a bit of bunting. Isn’t it so, Sanderson?”

“Exactly so,” said Sanderson, a little puzzled by Robson’s persiflage,
and seeking relief from it in another glass of wine. But, finding the
Moselle bottle empty, he applied himself to a decanter labelled Old
Monongahela.

A sudden snore from Wigman, who had fallen asleep in his chair, startled
the party once more into laughter.

“Happy Wigman!” said Robson. “He smiles. He is dreaming of slavery
extension into benighted, slaveless Mexico,—of Cuba annexed, and her
stupidly mild slave-code reformed,—of tawny-hued houries, metifs, and
quarteroons fanning him while he reposes,—of unnumbered Yankees howling
over their lost trade, and kneeling vainly for help to him,—to Wigman!
Profound Wigman! Behold the great man asleep! Happy Texas in having such
a representative! Happy Jeff Davis in having such a counsellor!
Gentlemen, my feelings grow too effusive. I must leave you. The dinner
has been good. The wine has been good. I must make one criticism,
however. The young gentlemen are degenerate. They do not drink. Look at
them. They are perfectly sober. What is the world coming to? At our
hotels, where twenty years ago we used to see fifty—yes, a
hundred—champagne bottles on the dinner-table, we now don’t see ten. And
yet men talk of the progress of the age! ’T is all a delusion. The day
of juleps has gone by. We are receding in civilization. Wigman is a type
of the good old times,—a landmark, a pattern for the rising generation.
To his immortal honor be it recorded, that after that most heroic
achievement of this or any other age, the subjugation of Anderson’s
little starving garrison in Sumter by Beauregard, Wigman started in a
small boat for the fort. Wigman landed. Wigman was the first to land. He
entered one of the bomb-proofs. The first thought of a vulgar mind would
have been to fly the victorious flag. Not so Wigman. On a shelf he saw a
bottle. With a sublime self-abandonment he saw nothing else. He seized
it; he uncorked it; he drank from it. And it was not till he had
exhausted the last drop, that he learnt from the surgeon it was poison.
O posterity! don’t be ungrateful and forget this picture when you think
of Sumter. Our Wigman was saved to us by an emetic. Hand him down, ye
future Hildreths and Motleys of America. Unconscious Wigman! He responds
with another rhoncus. Mr. Sanderson, I leave him to your generous care.
Gentlemen, good by!” And without waiting for a reply, Robson received
his hat from the attentive waiter, waved a bow to the party, and waddled
out of the hall.

Mr. Sanderson, seeing that a bottle of Chateau Margaux was but half
emptied, sighed that he had not detected it sooner. Filling a goblet
with the purple fluid, he drained it in long and appreciative draughts,
rolling the smooth juice over his tongue, and carefully savoring the
bouquet. Having emptied this bottle, he sighted another nearly two
thirds full of champagne. Sanderson felt a pang at the thought that
there was a limit to man’s ability to quaff good liquor. He, however,
went up to the attack bravely, and succeeded in disposing of two full
tumblers. Then a spirit of meek content at his bibulous achievements
seemed to come over him. He put his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest,
leaned back, and benignantly said, “This warm weather has made me a
trifle thirsty.”

Wigman suddenly started from his sleep, wakened by the cessation of
noise. Sanderson rose, and assisted the Senator to his feet. “Come, my
dear fellow,” said he, “it’s time to adjourn. Good by, young gentlemen!”
And arm in arm the two worthies staggered out of the hall, each under
the impression that the other was the worse for liquor, and each
affectionately counselling the other not to expose himself.

Vance still sat at his table, and from behind a newspaper glanced
occasionally at the two young men who had so excited his interest.

“Now, Kenrick,” said Onslow, “now that Robson the impenetrable, and
Wigman the windy, and Sanderson the beastly, are out of the way, tell me
what you mean by your incomprehensible conduct. When we met at table
to-day, the first time for five years, I did not dream that you were
other than you used to be, the enthusiastic champion of the South and
its institutions.”

“You wonder,” replied Kenrick, “that I should express my detestation of
the Rebellion and its cause,—of the Confederacy and its
corner-stone,—that I should differ from my father, who believes in
slavery. How much more reasonably might I wonder at _your_ apostasy from
truths which such a man as your father holds!”

“My father is an honorable man,—an excellent man,” said Onslow; “but—”

“But,” interrupted Kenrick, “if you were sincere just now in the epithet
you flung at me, you consider him also a traitor. Now a traitor is one
who betrays a trust. What trust has your father betrayed?”

“He does not stand by his native State in her secession from the old
Union,” answered Onslow.

“But what if he holds that his duty to the central government is
paramount to his duty to his State?” asked Kenrick.

“That I regard as an error,” replied Onslow.

“Then by your own showing,” said Kenrick, “all that you can fairly say
is, that your father has erred in judgment,—not that he has been guilty
of a base act of treason.”

“No, I didn’t mean that, Charles,—your pardon,” said Onslow, holding out
his hand.

Kenrick cordially accepted the proffered apology, and then asked: “May I
speak frankly to you, Robert,—speak as I used to in the old times at
William and Mary’s?”

“Certainly. Proceed.”

“Your father literally obeyed the Saviour’s injunction. He gave up all
he had, to follow where truth led. Convinced that slavery was a wrong,
he ruined his fortunes in the attempt to substitute free labor for that
of slaves. Through the hostility of the slave interest the experiment
failed.”

“I think,” said Onslow, “my father acted unwisely in sacrificing his
fortunes to an abstraction.”

“An abstraction! The man who tries to undo a wrong is an abstractionist,
is he? What a world this would be if all men would be guilty of similar
abstractions. To such a one I would say, ‘Master, lead on, and I will
follow thee, to the last gasp, with truth and loyalty!’ Strange!
unaccountably strange, that his own son should have deserted him for the
filthy flesh-pots of slavery!”

“May not good men differ as to slavery?” asked Onslow.

“Put that question,” replied Kenrick, “to nine tenths of the
slaveholders,—men in favor of lynching, torturing, murdering, those
opposed to the institution. Put it to Mr. Carson, who, the other day, in
his own house, shot down an unarmed and unsuspecting visitor, because he
had freely expressed views opposed to slavery. Abolitionists don’t hang
men for not believing with them,—do they? But the whole code and temper
of the South reply to you, that men may _not_ differ, and _shall_ not
differ, on the subject of slavery. Onslow, give me but one thing,—and
that a thing guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, though
never tolerated in the Slave States,—give me _liberty of the press_ in
those States, and I, as a friend of the Union, would say to the
government at Washington, ‘Put by the sword. Wait! I will put down this
rebellion. I have the pen and the press! Therefore is slavery doomed,
and its days are numbered.’”

“Why is it,” asked Onslow, “if slavery is wrong, that you find all the
intelligence, all the culture, at the South, and even in the Border
States, on its side?”

“Ah! there,” replied Kenrick, “there’s the sunken rock on which you and
many other young men have made wreck of your very souls. Your æsthetic
has superseded your moral natures. To work is in such shocking bad
taste, when one can make others work for one!”

“Nine tenths of the men at the South of any social position,” said
Onslow, “are in favor of secession.”

“I know it,” returned Kenrick, “and the sadder for human nature that it
should be so! In Missouri, in Kentucky, in Virginia, in Baltimore, all
the young men who would be considered fashionable, all who thoughtlessly
or heartlessly prize more their social _status_ than they do justice and
right, follow the lead of the pro-slavery aristocracy. I know from
experience how hard it is to break loose from those social and family
ties. But I thank God I’ve succeeded. ’T was like emerging from mephitic
vapors into the sweet oxygen of a clear, sun-bright atmosphere, that
hour I resolved to take my lot with freedom and the right against
slavery and the wrong!”

“How was your conversion effected?” asked Onslow. “Did you fall in love
with some Yankee schoolmistress? I wasn’t aware you’d been living at the
North.”

“I’ve never set foot in a Free State,” replied Kenrick. “My life has
been passed here in Louisiana on my father’s plantation. I was bred a
slaveholder, and lived one after the most straitest sect of our religion
until about six months ago. See at the trunkmaker’s my learned papers in
De Bow’s Review. They’re entitled ‘Slave Labor _versus_ Free.’
Unfortunately for my admirers and disciples, there was in my father’s
library a little stray volume of Channing’s writings on slavery. I read
it at first contemptuously, then attentively, then respectfully, and at
last lovingly and prayerfully. The truth, almost insufferably radiant,
poured in upon me. Convictions were heaved up in my mind like volcanic
islands out of the sea. I was spiritually magnetized and possessed.”

“What said your father?”

“My father and I had always lived more as companions than as sire and
son. There is only a difference of twenty-two years in our ages. My own
mother, a very beautiful woman who died when I was five years old, was
six years older than my father. From her I derived my intellectual
peculiarities. Of course my father has cast me off,—disowned,
disinherited me. He is sincere in his pro-slavery fanaticism. I wish I
could say as much of all who fall in with the popular current.”

“But what do you mean to do, Charles? ’T is unsafe for you to stay here
in New Orleans, holding such sentiments.”

“My plans are not yet matured,” replied Kenrick. “I shall stand by the
old flag, you may be sure of that. And I shall liberate all the slaves I
can, beginning with my father’s.”

“You would not fight against your own State?”

“Incontinently I would if my own State should persist in rebellion
against the Union; and so I would fight against my own county should
that rebel against the State.”

“Well, schoolfellow,” said Onslow, with a fascinating frankness, “let us
reserve our quarrels for the time when we shall cross swords in earnest.
That time may come sooner than we dream of. The less can we afford to
say bitter things to each other now. Come, and let me introduce you to a
charming young lady. How long do you stay here?”

“Perhaps a week; perhaps a month.”

“I shall watch over you while you remain, for I do not fancy seeing my
old crony hung.”

“Better so than be false to the light within me. Though worms destroy
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”

Onslow made no reply, but affectionately, almost compassionately, took
Kenrick by the arm and led him away.

Vance put down his newspaper, and then, immersed in meditation, slowly
passed out of the dining-hall and up-stairs into his own room.




                              CHAPTER XXI.
                       A MONSTER OF INGRATITUDE.

“Faint hearts are usually false hearts, choosing sin rather than
suffering.”—_Argyle, before his execution._


Mrs. Gentry had attired herself in her new spring costume, a
feuillemorte silk, with a bonnet trimmed to match, of the frightful
coal-hod shape, with sable roses and a bristling ruche. It was just such
a bonnet as Proserpine, Queen of the Shades, might have chosen for a
stroll with Pluto along the shore of Lake Avernus.

After many satisfactory glances in the mirror, Mrs. Gentry sat down and
trotted her right foot impatiently. Tarquin, entering, announced the
carriage.

“Well, go to Miss Ellen, and ask when she’ll be ready.”

Five minutes Mrs. Gentry waited, while the horses, pestered by stinging
insects, dashed their hoofs against the pavements. At last Tarquin
returned with the report that Miss Ellen’s room was empty.

“Has Pauline looked for her?”

“Yes, missis.”

“Ask Esha if she has seen her.”

Pauline, standing at the head of the stairs, put the question, and Esha
replied testily from the kitchen: “Don’t know nuffin ’bout her. Hab
suffin better ter do dan look af’r all de school-gals in dis house.”

Pauline turned from the old heathen in despair, and suggested that
perhaps Miss Ellen had stepped out to buy a ribbon or some hair-pins.

Mrs. Gentry waxed angry. “O, but she’ll be come up with!” This was the
teacher’s favorite form of consolation. The _Abolitionists_ would be
come up with. Abe Lincoln would be come up with. General Scott would be
come up with. Everybody who offended Mrs. Gentry would be come up
with,—if not in this world, why then in some other.

An hour passed. She began to get seriously alarmed. She sent away the
carriage. Hardly had it gone, when a second vehicle drew up before the
door, and out of it stepped Mr. Ratcliff. She met him in the parlor,
and, fearing to tell the truth, merely remarked, that Ellen was out
making a few purchases.

“When will she be back?”

“Perhaps not till dinner-time.”

“Then I’ll call to-morrow at this hour.”

Mrs. Gentry passed the day in a state of wretched anxiety. She sent out
messengers. She interested a policeman in the search. But no trace of
the fugitive! Mrs. Gentry was in despair. If Ellen had not been a slave,
her disappearance would have been comparatively a small matter. If it
had been somebody’s free-born daughter who had absconded, it wouldn’t
have been half so bad. But here was a slave! One whose flight would lay
open to suspicion the teacher’s allegiance to _the_ institution!
Intolerable! Of course it was no concern of hers to what fate that slave
was about to be consigned.

Ah! sister of the South,—(and I have known many, the charms of whose
persons and manners I thought incomparable,)—a woman whose own virtue is
not rooted in sand, cannot, if she thinks and reasons, fail to shudder
at a system which sends other women, perhaps as innocent and pure as she
herself, to be sold to brutal men at auctions. And yet, if any one had
told Mrs. Gentry she was no better than a procuress, both she and the
Rev. Dr. Palmer would have thought it an impious aspersion.

At the appointed hour Ratcliff appeared. Mrs. Gentry’s toilet that day
was appropriate to the calamitous occasion. She was dressed in a black
silk robe intensely flounced, and decorated around the bust with a
profluvium of black lace that might have melted the heart of a
Border-ruffian. She entered the parlor, tragically shaking out a pocket
handkerchief with an edging of black.

“O Mr. Ratcliff! Mr. Ratcliff!” she exclaimed, rushing forward, then
checking herself melodramatically, and seizing the back of a chair, as
if for support.

“Well, madam, what’s the matter?”

“That heartless,—that ungrateful girl!”

“What of her?”

Mrs. Gentry answered by applying her handkerchief to her eyes very much
as Mrs. Siddons used to do in Belvidera.

“Come, madam,” interrupted Ratcliff, “my time is precious. No damned
nonsense, if you please. To the point. What has happened?”

Rudely shocked into directness by these words, Mrs. Gentry replied: “She
has disappeared,—r-r-run away!”

“Damnation!” was Ratcliff’s concise and emphatic comment. He started up
and paced the room. “This is a damned pretty return for my confidence,
madam.”

“O, she’ll be come up with,—she’ll be come up with!” sobbed Mrs. Gentry.

“Come up with,—where?”

“In the next world, if not in this.”

“Pooh! When did she disappear?”

“Yesterday, while I was waiting for her to go out to buy her new
dresses. O the ingratitude!”

“Have you made no search for her?”

“Yes, I’ve made every possible inquiry. I’ve paid ten dollars to a
police-officer to look her up. O the ingratitude of the world! But
she’ll be come up with!”

“Did you let her know that I was her master?”

“Yes, ’t was only yesterday I imparted the information.”

“How did she receive it?”

“She was a little startled at first, but soon seemed reconciled, even
pleased with the idea of her new wardrobe.”

“Have you closely questioned your domestics?”

“Yes. They know nothing. She must have slipped unobserved out of the
house.”

“Is there any one among them with whom she was more familiar than with
another?”

“She used to read the Bible to old Esha, by my direction.”

“Call up old Esha. I would like to question her.”

Esha soon appeared, her bronzed face glistening with perspiration from
the kitchen fire,—the never-failing bright-colored Madras handkerchief
on her head.

“Esha,” said Mr. Ratcliff, “have you ever seen me before?”

“Yes, Massa Ratcliff, of’n. Lib’d on de nex’ plantation to yourn. I
’longed to Massa Peters wunst. But he’m dead and gone.”

“Do you know what an oath is, Esha?”

“Yes, massa, it’s when one swar he know dis or dunno dat.”

“Very well. Do you know what becomes of her who swears falsely?”

“O yes, massa; she go to de lake of brimstone and fire, whar’ she hab
bad time for eber and eber, Amen.”

“Are you a Christian, Esha?”

“I’ze notin’ else, Massa Ratcliff.”

“Well, Esha, here’s the Holy Bible. Take it in your left hand, kiss the
book, and then hold up your right hand.”

Esha went through the required form.

“You do solemnly swear, as you hope to be saved from the torments of
hell through all eternity, that you will truly answer, to the best of
your knowledge and belief, the questions I may put to you. And if you
lie, may the Lord strike you dead. Now kiss the book again, to show you
take the oath.”

Esha kissed the book, and returned it to the table.

“Now, then, do you know anything of the disappearance of this girl,
Ellen Murray?”

“Nuffin, massa, nuffin at all.”

“Did she ever tell you she meant to leave this house?”

“Nebber, massa! She nebber tell me any sich ting.”

“Did she have any talk with you yesterday?”

“Not a bressed word did dat chile say to me ’cep ter scole me ’cause I
didn’t do up her Organdy muslin nice as she ’spected. De little hateful
she-debble! How can dis ole nig do eb’ry ting all at wunst, and do’t
well, should like ter know? It’s cook an’ wash an’ iron, an’ iron an’
wash an’—”

“There! That will do, Esha. You can go.”

“Yes, Massa Ratcliff.”

Stealing into the next room, Esha listened at the folding-doors.

“She knows nothing,—that’s very clear,” said Ratcliff. He went to the
window, and looked out in silence a full minute; then, coming back,
added: “Stop snivelling, madam. I’m not a fool. I’ve seen women before
now. This girl must be found,—found if it costs me ten thousand dollars.
And you must aid in the search. If I find her,—well and good. If I don’t
find her, you shall suffer for it. This is what I mean to do: I shall
have copies of her photograph put in the hands of the best detectives in
the city. I shall pay them well in advance, and promise five hundred
dollars to the one that finds her. They’ll come to you. You must give
them all the information you can, and lend them your servants to
identify the girl. This old Esha plainly has a grudge against her, and
may be made useful in hunting her up. Let her go out daily for that
purpose. Tell all your pupils to be on the watch. I’ll break up your
school if she isn’t found. Do you understand?”

“I’ll do all I can, sir, to have her caught.”

“That will be your most prudent course, madam.”

And Ratcliff, with more exasperation in his face than his words had
expressed, quitted the house.

“The brute!” muttered Mrs. Gentry, as through the blinds she saw him
enter his barouche, and drive off. “He treated me as if I’d been a drab.
But he’ll be come up with,—he will!”

Esha crept down into the kitchen, with thoughts intent on what she had
heard.




                             CHAPTER XXII.
                   THE YOUNG LADY WITH A CARPET-BAG.

“Pain has its own noble joy when it kindles a consciousness of life,
before stagnant and torpid.”—_John Sterling._


Children are quick to detect flaws in the genealogy of their associates.
School-girls are quite as exclusive in their notions as our grown-up
leaders of society. Woe to the candidate for companionship on whose
domestic record there hangs a doubt!

Mrs. Gentry having felt it her duty to inform her pupils that Clara was
not a lady, the latter was thenceforth “left out in the cold” by the
little Brahmins of the seminary. She would sit, like a criminal, apart
from the rest, or in play-hours seek the company, either of Esha or the
mocking-bird.

One circumstance puzzled the other young ladies. They could not
understand why, in the more showy accomplishments of music, singing, and
dancing, more expense should be bestowed on Clara’s education than on
theirs. The elegance and variety of her toilet excited at once their
envy and their curiosity.

Clara, finding that she was held back from serious studies, gave her
thoughts to them all the more resolutely, and excelled in them so far as
to shock the conservative notions of Mrs. Gentry, who thought such
acquisitions presumptuous in a slave. The pupils all tossed their little
heads, and turned their backs, when Clara drew near. All but one. Laura
Tremaine prized Clara’s counsels on questions of dress, and defied the
jeers and frowns that would deter her from cultivating the acquaintance
of one suspected of ignoble birth. Something almost like a friendship
grew up between the two. Laura was the only daughter of a wealthy
cotton-broker who resided the greater part of the year in New Orleans,
at the St. Charles Hotel.

The two girls used to stroll through the garden with arms about each
other’s waist. One day Clara, in a gush of candor, not only avowed
herself an Abolitionist, but tried to convert Laura to the heresy.
_Quelle horreur!_ There was at once a cessation of the intimacy,—-Laura
exacting a recantation which the little infidel proudly refused.

The disagreement had occurred only a few days before that flight of
Clara’s in which we must now follow her. After parting from Esha, she
walked for some distance, ignorant why she selected one direction rather
than another, and having no clearly defined purpose as to her
destination. She had promenaded thus about an hour, when she saw a
barouche approaching. The occupant, a man, sat leaning lazily back with
his feet up on the opposite cushions. A black driver and footman, both
in livery, filled the lofty front seat. As the vehicle rolled on, Clara
recognized Ratcliff. She shuddered and dropped her veil.

Fortunately he was half asleep, and did not see her.

Whither now? Of two streets she chose the more obscure. On she walked,
and the carpet-bag began to be an encumbrance. The heat was oppressive.
Occasionally a passer-by among the young men would say to an
acquaintance, “Did you notice that figure?” One man offered to carry the
bag. She declined his aid. On and on she walked. Whither and why? She
could not explain. All at once it occurred to her she was wasting her
strength in an objectless promenade.

Her utterly forlorn condition revealed itself in all its desolateness
and danger. She stopped under the shade of a magnolia-tree, and, leaning
against the trunk, put back her veil, and wiped the moisture from her
face. She had been walking more than two hours, and was overheated and
fatigued. What should she do? The tears began to flow at the thought
that the question was one for which she had no reply.

Suddenly she looked round with the vague sense that some one was
watching her. She encountered the gaze of a gentleman who, with an air
of mingled curiosity and compassion, stood observing her grief. He wore
a loose frock of buff nankin, with white vest and pantaloons; and on his
head was a hat of very fine Panama straw. Whether he was young or old
Clara did not remark. She only knew that a face beautiful from its
compassion beamed on her, and that it was the face of a gentleman.

“Can I assist you?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” replied Clara. “I’m fatigued,—that’s all,—and am
resting here a few minutes.”

“Here’s a little house that belongs to me,” said the gentleman, pointing
to a neat though small wooden tenement before which they were standing.
“I do not live here, but the family who do will be pleased to receive
you for my sake. You shall have a room all to yourself, and rest there
till you are refreshed. Do you distrust me, my child?”

There are faces out of which Truth looks so unequivocally, that to
distrust them seems like a profanation. Clara did not distrust, and yet
she hesitated, and replied through her tears, “No, I do not distrust
you, but I’ve no claim on your kindness.”

“Ah! but you _have_ a claim,” said Vance (for it was he); “you are
unhappy, and the unhappy are my brothers and my sisters. I’ve been
unhappy myself. I knew one years ago, young like you, and like you
unhappy, and through her also you have a claim. There! Let me relieve
you of that bag. Now take my arm. Good! This way.” Clara’s tears gushed
forth anew at these words, and yet less at the words than at the tone in
which they were uttered. So musical and yet so melancholy was that tone.

He knocked at the door. It was opened by Madame Bernard, a spruce little
Frenchwoman, who had married a journeyman printer, and who felt
unbounded gratitude to Vance for his gift of the rent of the little
house.

“Is it you, Mr. Vance? We’ve been wondering why you didn’t come.”

“Madame Bernard, this young lady is fatigued. I wish her to rest in my
room.”

“The room of Monsieur is always in order. Follow me, my dear.”

And, taking the carpet-bag, Madame conducted her to the little chamber,
then asked: “Now what will you have, my dear? A little claret and water?
Some fruit or cake?”

“Nothing, thank you. I’ll rest on the sofa awhile. You’re very kind. The
gentleman’s name is Vance, is it?”

“Yes; is he not an acquaintance?”

“I never saw him till three minutes ago. He noticed me resting, and, I
fear, weeping in the street, and he asked me in here to rest.”

“’T was just like him. He’s so good, so generous! He gives me the rent
of this house with the pretty garden attached. You can see it from the
window. Look at the grapes. He reserves for himself this room, which I
daily dust and keep in order. Poor man! ’T was here he passed the few
months of his marriage, years ago. His wife died, and he bought the
house, and has kept it in repair ever since. This used to be their
sleeping-room. ’T was also their parlor, for they were poor. There’s
their little case of books. Here’s the piano on which they used to play
duets. ’T was a hired piano, and was returned to the owner; but Mr.
Vance found it in an old warehouse, not long ago, had it put in order,
and brought here. ’T is one of Chickering’s best; a superb instrument.
You should hear Mr. Vance play on it.”

“Does he play well?” asked Clara, who had almost forgotten her own
troubles in listening to the little woman’s gossip.

“Ah! you never heard such playing! I know something of music. My family
is musical. I flatter myself I’m a judge. I’ve heard Thalberg,
Vieuxtemps, Jael, Gottschalk; and Mr. Vance plays better than any of
them.”

“Is he a professor?”

“No, merely an amateur. But he puts a soul into the notes. Do you play
at all, my dear?”

“Yes, I began to learn so early that I cannot recollect the time when.”

“I thought you must be musical. Just try this instrument, my dear, that
is, if you ’re not too tired.”

“Certainly, if ’t will oblige you.”

Seating herself at the piano, Clara played, from Donizetti’s _Lucia_,
Edgardo’s melodious wail of abandonment and despair, “_L’ universo
intero e un deserto per me sensa Lucia_.”

Mrs. Bernard had opened the door that Vance might hear. At the
conclusion he knocked and entered. “Is this the way you rest yourself,
young pilgrim?” he asked. “You’re a proficient, I see. You’ve been made
to practise four hours a day.”

“Yes, ever since I can remember.”

“So I should think. Now let me hear something in a different vein.”

Clara, while the blood mounted to her forehead, and her whole frame
dilated, struck into the “Star-spangled Banner,” playing it with her
whole soul, and at the close singing the refrain,

         “And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
         O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

“But that’s treason!” cried Mrs. Bernard.

“Yes, Mrs. Bernard,” said Vance, “run at once to the police-station.
Tell them to send a file of soldiers. We must have her arrested.”

“O no, no!” exclaimed Clara, deceived by Vance’s grave acting. Then,
seeing her mistake, she laughed, and said: “That’s too bad. I thought
for a moment you were in earnest.”

“We will spare you this time,” said Vance, with a smile that made his
whole face luminous; “but should outsiders in the street hear you, they
may not be so forbearing. They will tear our little house down if you’re
not careful.”

“I’ll not be so imprudent again,” returned Clara. “Will you play for me,
sir?” And she resumed her seat on the sofa.

Vance played some extemporized variations on the Carnival of Venice; and
Clara, who had regarded Mrs. Bernard’s praises as extravagant, now
concluded they were the literal truth. “Oh!” she exclaimed, naively, “I
never heard playing like that. Do not ask me to play before you again,
sir.”

Mrs. Bernard left to attend to the affairs of the _cuisine_.

“Now, mademoiselle,” said Vance, “what can I do before I go?”

“All I want,” replied Clara, “is time to arrange some plan. I left home
so suddenly I’m quite at a loss.”

“Do I understand you’ve left your parents?”

“I have no parents, sir.”

“Then a near relation, or a guardian?”

“Neither, sir. I am independent of all ties.”

“Have you no friend to whom you can go for advice?”

“I had a friend, but she gave me up because I’m an Abolitionist.”

“My poor little lady! An Abolitionist? You? In times like these? When
Sumter has fallen, too? No wonder your friend has cast you off. Who is
she?”

“Miss Laura Tremaine. She lives at the St. Charles. Do you know her,
sir?”

“Slightly. I met her in the drawing-room not long since. She does not
appear unamiable. But why are you an Abolitionist?”

“Because I believe in God.”

Vance felt that this was the summing-up of the whole matter. He looked
with new interest on the “little lady.” In height she was somewhat
shorter than Estelle,—not much over five feet two and a half. Not from
her features, but from the maturity of their expression, he judged she
might have reached her eighteenth year. Somewhat more of a brunette than
Estelle, and with fine abundant hair of a light brown. Eyes—he could not
quite see their color; but they were vivid, penetrating, earnest.
Features regular, and a profile even more striking in its beauty than
her front face. A figure straight and slim, but exquisitely rounded, and
every movement revealing some new grace. Where had he seen a face like
it?

After a few moments of contemplation, he said: “Do not think me
impertinently curious. You have been well educated. You have not had to
labor for a living. Are the persons to whom you’ve been indebted for
support no longer your friends?”

“They are my worst enemies, and all that has been bestowed on me has
been from hateful motives and calculations.”—“Now I’m going to ask a
very delicate question. Are you provided with money?”—“O yes, sir,
amply.”—“How much have you?”—“Twenty dollars.”—“Indeed! Are you so rich
as that? What’s your name?”—“The name I’ve been brought up under is
Ellen Murray; but I hate it.”—“Why so?”—“Because of a dream.”—“A dream!
And what was it?”—“Shall I relate it?”—“By all means.”

“I dreamed that a beautiful lady led me by the hand into a spacious
garden. On one side were fruits, and on the other side flowers, and in
the middle a circle of brilliant verbenas from the centre of which rose
a tall fountain, fed from a high hill in the neighborhood. And the lady
said, ‘This is your garden, and your name is not Ellen Murray.’ Then she
gave me a letter sealed with blue—no, gray—wax, and said, ‘Put this
letter on your eyes, and you shall find it there when you wake. Some one
will open it, and your name will be seen written there, though you may
not understand it at first.’ ‘But am I not awake?’ I asked. ‘O no,’ said
the lady. ‘This is all a dream. But we can sometimes impress those we
love in this way.’ ‘And who are you?’ I asked. ‘That you will know when
you interpret the letter,’ she said.”

“And what resulted from the dream?”—“The moment I waked I put my hand on
my eyes. Of course I found no letter. The next night the lady came
again, and said, ‘The seal cannot be broken by yourself. Your name is
not Ellen Murray,—remember that.’ A third night this dream beset me, and
so forcibly that I resolved to get rid of the name as far as I could.
And so I made my friends call me Darling.”

“Well, Darling, as you—”—“O, but, sir! _you_ must not call me Darling.
That would never do!”—“What _can_ I call you, then?”—“Call me Miss, or
Mademoiselle.”—“Well, Miss.”—“No, I do not like the sibilation.”—“Will
_Ma’am_ do any better?”—“Not till I’m more venerable. Call me
Perdita.”—“Perdita what?”—“Perdita Brown,—yes, I love the name of
Brown.”

“Well, Perdita, as you’ve not quite made up your mind to seek the
protection of Miss Tremaine, my advice is that you remain here till
to-morrow. Here is a little case filled with books; and on the shelf of
the closet is plenty of old music,—works of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven,
Mendelssohn, Schubert, and some of the Italian masters. Do you play
Schubert’s Sacred Song?”—“I never heard it.”—“Learn it, then, by all
means. ’T is in that book. Shall I tell Mrs. Bernard you’ll pass the
night here?”—“Do, sir. I’m very grateful for your kindness.”—“Good by,
Perdita! Should anything detain me to-morrow, wait till I come. Keep up
your four hours’ practice. Madame Bernard is amiable, but a little
talkative. I shall tell her to allow you five hours for your studies.
Adieu, Perdita!”

He held out his hand, and Clara gave hers, and cast down her eyes.
“You’ve told me a true story?” said he. “Yes! I will trust you.”

“Indeed, sir, I’ve told you nothing but the truth.”

Yes. She had told the truth, but unhappily not the _whole_ truth. And
yet how she longed to kneel at his feet and confess all! Various motives
withheld her. She was not quite sure how he had received her antislavery
confessions. He might be a friend of Mr. Ratcliff. There was dismay in
the very possibility. And finally a certain pride or prudence restrained
her from throwing herself on the protection of a stranger not of her own
sex.

And so the golden opportunity was allowed to escape!

Vance lingered for a moment holding her hand, as if to invite her to a
further confidence; but she said nothing, and he left the room. Clara
opened the music-book at Schubert’s piece, and commenced playing. Vance
stopped on the stairs and listened, keeping time approvingly. “Good!” he
said. Then telling the little landlady not to interrupt Miss Brown’s
studies, he quitted the house, walking in the direction of the hotel.

Clara practised till she could play from memory the charming composition
commended by Vance. Then she threw herself on the bed and fell asleep.
She had not remained thus an hour when there was a knock. Dinner! Mr.
Bernard had come in; a dapper little man, so remarkably well satisfied
with himself, his wife, and his bill of fare, that he repeatedly had to
lay down knife and fork and rub his hands in glee.

“Are you related to Mr. Vance?” he asked Clara.

“Not at all. He saw me in the street, weary and distressed. The truth
is, I had left my home for a good reason. I have no parents, you must
consider. He asked me in here. From his looks I judged he was a man to
trust. I gladly accepted his invitation.”

“Truly he’s a friend in need, Mademoiselle. I saw him do another kind
thing to-day.”

“What was it?”

“It happened only an hour ago in Carondelet Street. A ragged fellow was
haranguing a crowd. He spoke on the wrong side,—in short, in favor of
the old flag. Some laughed, some hissed, some applauded. Suddenly a
party of men, armed with swords and muskets, pushed through the crowd,
and seized the speaker. They formed a court, Judge Lynch presiding,
under a palmetto. They decided that the vagabond should be hung. He had
already been badly pricked in the flank with a bayonet. And now a table
was brought out, he was placed on it, and a rope put round his neck and
tied to a bough. Decidedly they were going to string him up.”

“Good heavens!” cried Clara, who, as the story proceeded, had turned
pale and thrust away the plate of food from before her. “Did you make no
effort to save him?”

“What could I do? They would merely have got another rope, and made me
keep him company. Well, the mob were expecting an entertainment. They
were about to knock away the table, when Monsieur Vance pushed through
the crowd, hauled off the hangman, and, jumping on the table, cut the
rope, and lifted the prisoner faint and bleeding to the ground. What a
yell from Judge Lynch and the court! Monsieur Vance, his coat and vest
all bloody from contact with—”

“What a shame!” interposed Mrs. Bernard. “A coat and vest he must have
put on clean this morning! So nicely ironed and starched!”

“But my story agitates you, Mademoiselle,” said the typesetter. “You
look pale.” And the little man, not regarding the inappropriateness of
the act, rubbed his hands.

“Go on,” replied Clara; and she sipped from a tumbler of cold water.

“There’s little more to say, Mademoiselle. Messieurs, the bullies, drew
their swords on Monsieur Vance. He showed a revolver, and they fell
back. Then he talked to them till they cooled down, gave him three
cheers, and went off. I and old Mr. Winslow helped him to find a
carriage. We put the wounded man into it. He was driven to the hospital,
and his wound attended to. ’T is serious, I believe.”

And Bernard again rubbed his hands.

“And was that the last you saw of Mr. Vance?” asked Clara.

“The last. Shall I help you to some pine-apple, Mademoiselle?”

“No, thank you. I’ve finished my dinner. You will excuse me.”

And she returned to the little room assigned to her use.




                             CHAPTER XXIII.
                     WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?

                  “Sing again the song you sung
                  When we were together young;
                  When there were but you and I
                  Underneath the summer sky.
                  Sing the song, and o’er and o’er,
                  Though I know that nevermore
                  Will it seem the song you sung
                  When we were together young.”
                              _George William Curtis._


Vance passed on through the streets, wondering what could be the mystery
which had driven his new acquaintance forth into the wide world without
a protector. Should he speak of her to Miss Tremaine? Perhaps. But not
unless he could do it without betrayal of confidence.

There was something in Perdita that reminded him of Estelle. Had a
pressure of similar circumstances wrought the peculiarity which awakened
the association? Yet he missed in Perdita that diaphanous simplicity,
that uncalculating candor, which seemed to lead Estelle to unveil her
whole nature before him. But Perdita had not wholly failed in frankness.
Had she not glorified the old flag in her music? And had she not been
outspoken on the one forbidden theme?

As these thoughts flitted through his mind, excluding for the moment
those graver interests, involving a people’s doom, he heard the shouts
of a crowd, and saw a man, pale and bloody, standing on a table under a
tree, from a branch of which a rope was dangling. Vance comprehended the
meaning of it all in an instant. He darted toward the spot, gliding
swift, agile, and flexuous through the compacted crowd. Yes! The victim
was the same man to whom he had given the gold-piece, some days before.
Vance put a summary stop to Judge Lynch’s proceedings, breaking up the
court precisely as Bernard had related. The wounded man was conveyed to
the hospital. Here Vance saw his wound dressed, hired an extra attendant
to nurse him, and then, in tones of warmest sympathy, asked the sufferer
what more he could do for him.

The man opened his eyes. A swarthy, filthy, uncombed, unshaven wretch.
He had been so blinded by blood that he had not recognized Vance. But
now, seeing him, he started, and strove to raise himself on his elbow.

Vance and the surgeon prevented the movement. The patient stared, and
said: “You’ve done it agin, have yer? What’s yer name?”

“This is Mr. Vance,” replied the surgeon.

“Vance! Vance!” said the patient, as if trying to force his memory to
some particular point. Then he added: “Can’t do it! And yit I’ve seen
him afore somewhar.”

“Well, my poor fellow, I must leave you. Good by.”

“Why, this hand is small and white as a woman’s!” said the patient,
touching Vance’s fingers carefully as he might have touched some fragile
flower. “Yer’ll come agin to see me,—woan’t yer?”

“Yes, I’ll not forget it.”—“Call to-morrow, will yer?”—“Yes, if I’m
alive I’ll call.”—“Thahnk yer, strannger. Good by.”

Giving a few dollars to the surgeon for the patient’s benefit, Vance
quitted the hospital. An hour afterwards, in his room at the St.
Charles, he penned and sent this note:—

  “TO PERDITA: I shall not be able to see you again to-day. Content
  yourself as well as you can in the company of Mozart and Beethoven,
  Bellini and Donizetti, Irving and Dickens, Tennyson and Longfellow.
  The company is not large, but you will find it select. Unless some
  very serious engagement should prevent, I will see you to-morrow.

                                                             VANCE.”

This little note was read and re-read by Clara, till the darkness of
night came on. She studied the forms of the letters, the curves and
flourishes, all the peculiarities of the chirography, as if she could
derive from them some new hints for her incipient hero-worship. Then,
lighting the gas, she acted on the advice of the letter, by devoting
herself to the performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Vance meanwhile, after a frugal dinner, eliminated from luxurious
viands, rang the bell, and sent his card to Miss Tremaine. Laura’s
mother was an invalid, and Laura herself, relieved from maternal
restraint, had been lately in the habit of receiving and entertaining
company, much to her own satisfaction, as she now had an enlarged field
for indulging a propensity not uncommon among young women who have been
much admired and much indulged.

Laura was a predestined flirt. Had she been brought up between the walls
of a nunnery, where the profane presence of a man had never been known,
she would instinctively have launched into coquetry the first time the
bishop or the gardener made his appearance.

Having heard Madame Brugière, the fashionable widow, speak of Mr. Vance
as the handsomest man in New Orleans, Laura was possessed with the
desire of bringing him into her circle of admirers. So, one day after
dinner, she begged her father to stroll with her through a certain
corridor of the hotel. She calculated that Vance would pass there on his
way to his room. She was right. “Is that Mr. Vance, papa?”—“Yes, my
dear.”—“O, do introduce him. They say he’s such a superb musician. We
must have him to try our new piano.”—“I’m but slightly acquainted with
him.”—“No matter. He goes into the best society, you know.” (The father
didn’t know it,—neither did the daughter,—but he took it for granted she
spoke by authority.) “He’s very rich, too,” added Laura. This was enough
to satisfy the paternal conscience. “Good evening, Mr. Vance! Lively
times these! Let me make you acquainted with my daughter, Miss Laura. We
shall be happy to see you in our parlor, Mr. Vance.” Vance bowed, and
complimented the lady on a tea-rose she held in her hand. “Did you ever
see anything more beautiful?” she asked.—“Never till now,” he
replied.—“Ah! The rose is yours. You’ve fairly won it, Mr. Vance; but
there’s a condition attached: you must promise to call and try my new
piano.”—“Agreed. I’ll call at an early day.” He bowed, and passed on. “A
very charming person,” said Laura.—“Yes, a gentleman evidently,” said
the father.—“And he isn’t redolent of cigar-smoke and whiskey, as nine
tenths of you ill-smelling men are,” added Laura.—“Tut! Don’t abuse your
future husband, my dear.”—“How old should you take Mr. Vance to
be?”—“About thirty-five.”—“O no! Not a year over thirty.”—“He’s too old
to be caught by any chaff of yours, my dear!”—“Now, papa! I’ll not walk
with you another minute!”

A few evenings afterwards, as Laura sat lonely in her private parlor, a
waiter put into her hand a card on which was simply written in pencil,
“MR. VANCE.” She did not try to check the start of exultation with which
she said, “Show him in.”

Laura was now verging on her eighteenth year. A little above the
Medicean height, her well-rounded shoulders and bust prefigured for her
womanhood a voluptuous fulness. Nine men out of ten would have
pronounced her beautiful. Had she been put up at a slave-vendue, the
auctioneer, if a connoisseur, would have expatiated thus: “Let me call
your attention, gentlemen, to this _very_ superior article. Faultless,
you see, every way. In limb and action perfect. Too showy, perhaps, for
a field-hand, but excellent for the parlor. Look at that profile. The
Grecian type in its perfection! Nose a little _retroussé_, but what
piquancy in the expression! Hair dark, glossy, abundant. Cheeks,—do you
notice that little dimple when she smiles? Teeth sound and white: open
the mouth of the article and look, gentlemen. Just feel of those arms,
gentlemen. Complexion smooth, brilliant, perfect. Did you ever see a
head and neck more neatly set on the shoulders?—and such shoulders! What
are you prepared to bid, gentlemen, for this very, very superior
article?”

Laura was attired in a light checked foulard silk, trimmed with
cherry-colored ribbons. Running to the mirror, she adjusted here and
there a curl, and lowered the gauze over her shoulders. Then, resuming
her seat, she took Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” from the table, and became
intensely absorbed in the perusal.

As Vance entered, Laura said to herself, “I know I’m right as to his
age!” Nor was her estimate surprising. During the last two lustrums of
his nomadic life, he had rather reinvigorated than impaired his physical
frame. He never counteracted the hygienic benefits of his Arab habits by
vices of eating and drinking. Abjuring all liquids but water, sleeping
often on the bare ground under the open sky, he so hardened and purified
his constitution that those constantly recurring local inflammations
which, under the name of “colds” of some sort, beset men in their
ordinary lives in cities, were to him almost unknown. And so he was what
the Creoles called _bien conservé_.

Laura, with a pretty affectation of surprise, threw down her book, and,
with extended hand, rose to greet her visitor. To him the art he had
first studied on the stage had become a second nature. Every movement
was proportioned, graceful, harmonious. He fell into no inelegant
posture. He did not sit down in a chair without naturally falling into
the attitude that an artist would have thought right. That consummate
ease and grace which play-goers used to admire in James Wallack were
remarkable in Vance, whether in motion or in repose.

Taking Laura’s proffered hand, he led her to the sofa, where they sat
down. After some commonplaces in regard to the news of the day, he
remarked: “By the way, do you know of any good school in the city for a
young girl, say of fourteen?”

“Yes. Mrs. Gentry’s school, which I’ve just left, is one of the most
select in the city. Here’s her card.”—“But are her pupils all from the
best families?”—“I believe so. Indeed, I know the families of all except
one.”—“And who is _she_?”—“Her name is Ellen Murray, but I call her
Darling. I think she must be preparing either for the opera or the
ballet; for in music, singing, and dancing she’s far beyond the rest of
us.”—“And behind you in the other branches, I suppose.”—“I’m afraid not.
She won’t be kept back. She must have given twice the time to study that
any of the rest of us gave.”—“Does she seem to be of gentle
blood?”—“Yes; though Mrs. Gentry tells us she is low-born. For all that,
she’s quite pretty, and knows more than Madame Groux herself about
dress. And so Darling and I, in spite of Mrs. Gentry, were getting to be
quite intimate, when we quarrelled on the slavery question, and
separated.”—“What! the little miss is a politician, is she?”—“Oh! she’s
a downright Abolitionist!—talks like a little fury against the wrongs of
slavery. I couldn’t endure it, and so cast her off.”—“Bring her to me.
I’ll convert her in five minutes.”—“O you vain man! But I wish you could
hear her sing. Such a voice!”—“Couldn’t you give me an opportunity? You
shouldn’t have quarrelled with her, Miss Tremaine! It rather amuses me
that she should talk treason. Why not arrange a little musical party?
I’ll come and play for you a whole evening, if you’ll have Darling to
sing.”—“O, that would be so charming! But then Darling and I have
separated. We don’t speak.”—“Nonsense! Miss Laura Tremaine can afford to
offer the olive-branch to a poor little outcast.”—“To be sure I can, Mr.
Vance! And I’ll have her here, if I have to bring her by
stratagem.”—“Admirable! Just send for me as soon as you secure the bird.
And keep her strictly caged till I can hear her sing.”—“I’ll do it, Mr.
Vance. Even the dragon Gentry shall not prevent it.”—“Shall I try the
new piano?”—“O, I’ve been so longing to hear you!”

And Vance, seating himself at the instrument, exerted himself as he had
rarely done to fascinate an audience. Laura, who had taste, if not
diligence, in music, was charmed and bewildered. “How delightful! How
very delightful!” she exclaimed. Vance was growing dangerous.

At that moment the servant entered with two cards.

“Did you tell them I’m in?”—“Yes, Mahmzel.”

“Well, then,” said Laura, with an air of disappointment, “show them up.”
And handing the cards to Vance, she asked, “Shall I introduce them?”

“Mr. Robert Onslow,—Charles Kenrick. Certainly.”

The young men entered, and were introduced.

Kenrick drew near, and said: “Mr. Vance, allow me the honor of taking
you by the hand. I’ve heard of the poor fellow you rescued from the
halter of Judge Lynch. In the name of humanity, I thank you. That poor
ragged declaimer merely spoke my own sentiments.”

“Indeed! What did he say?”

“He said, according to the Delta’s report, that this was the rich man’s
war; that the laboring man who should lift his arm in defence of slavery
was a fool. All which I hold to be true.”

“Pshaw, Charles! A truce to politics!” said Onslow. “Why will you thrust
it into faces that frown on your wild notions?”

“Miss Tremaine reigns absolute in this room,” rejoined Vance; “and from
the slavery she imposes we have no desire, I presume, to be free.”

“And her order is,” cried Laura, “that you sink the shop. Thank you, Mr.
Vance, for vindicating my authority.”

There was no further jarring. Both the young men were personally fine
specimens of the Southern chivalric race. Onslow was the larger and
handsomer. He seemed to unite with a feminine gentleness the traits that
make a man popular and beloved among men; a charming companion,
sunny-tempered, amiable, social, ever finding a soul of goodness in
things evil, and making even trivialities surrender enjoyments, where to
other men all was barren. Life was to him a sort of grand picnic, and a
man’s true business was to make himself as agreeable as possible, first
to himself, and then to others.

Far different seemed Kenrick. To him the important world was that of
ideas. All else was unsubstantial. The thought that was uppermost must
be uttered. Not to conciliate, not to please, even in the drawing-room,
would he be an assentator, a flatterer. To him truth was the one thing
needful, and therefore, in season and out of season, must error be
combated whenever met. The times were of a character to intensify in him
all his idiosyncrasies. He could not smile, and sing, and utter
small-talk while his country was being weighed in the balance of the
All-just,—and her institutions purged as by fire.

And so to Laura he dwindled into insignificance.

Vance rose to go.

“One song. Indeed, I must have one,” said Laura.

Vance complied with her request, singing a favorite song of Estelle’s,
Reichardt’s

                “Du liebes Aug’, du lieber Stern,
                Du bist mir nah’, und doch so fern!”[26]

Then, pressing Laura’s proffered hand, and bowing, he left.

“What a voice! what a touch!” said Onslow.

“It was enchanting!” cried Laura.

“I thought he was a different sort of man,” sighed Kenrick.

-----

Footnote 1:

  Having slept under Toussaint’s roof, and seen him often, the writer
  can testify to the accuracy of this sketch of one of the most thorough
  gentlemen in bearing and in heart that he ever knew.

Footnote 2:

  A fact. The incident, which occurred literally as related (on Bob
  Myers’s plantation in Alabama), was communicated to the writer by an
  eye-witness, a respectable citizen of Boston, once resident at the
  South. The murder, of course, passed not only unpunished, but
  unnoticed.

Footnote 3:

  See James Sterling’s “Letters from the Slave States.”

Footnote 4:

  This last paragraph embodies the actual words of Mr. Sterling,
  published in 1856.

Footnote 5:

  Similar occurrences are related by Cotton Mather to have taken place
  in Boston in 1693. Six witnesses, whose affidavits he gives, namely,
  Samuel Aves, Robert Earle, John Wilkins, Dan Williams, Thomas
  Thornton, and William Hudson, testify to having repeatedly seen
  Margaret Rule lifted from her bed up near to the ceiling by an
  invisible force. It is a cheap way of getting rid of such testimony to
  say that the witnesses were false or incompetent. The present writer
  could name at least six witnesses of his own acquaintance now living,
  gentlemen of character, intelligence, sound senses and sound judgment,
  who will testify to having seen similar occurrences. The other
  phenomena, related as witnessed by Peek, are such as hundreds of
  intelligent men and women in the United States will confirm by their
  testimony. Indeed, the number of believers in these phenomena may be
  now fairly reckoned at more than three million.

Footnote 6:

  There are thousands of intelligent persons in the United States who
  will testify to the fact of spirit touch. The writer has on several
  occasions _felt_, though he has not _seen_, a live hand, guided by
  intelligence, that he was fully convinced belonged to no mortal person
  present. The conditions were such as to debar trick or deception.
  There are several trustworthy witnesses, whom the writer could name,
  who have both _seen_ and _felt_ the phenomenon, and tested it as
  thoroughly as Peek is represented to have done.

Footnote 7:

  The phenomenon of _stigmata_ appearing on the flesh of impressible
  mediums is one of the most common of the manifestations of modern
  Spiritualism. Sometimes written words and sometimes outline
  representations of objects appear, under circumstances that make
  deception impossible. The writer has often witnessed them. St.
  Francis, and many other saints of the Catholic Church, were the
  subjects of similar phenomena. The late Earl of Shrewsbury, a Catholic
  nobleman, has published a long account of their occurrence during the
  present century. The Catholic Church has been always true to the
  doctrine of the miraculous.

Footnote 8:

  Author of “The Uprising of a Great People,” “America before Europe,”
  &c.; also of two large volumes on Modern Spiritualism.

Footnote 9:

  See Alexander Humboldt’s Letters to Varnhagen.

Footnote 10:

  See Edouard Laboulaye, “De la Personnalité Divine.”

Footnote 11:

  Tertullian, a devout Christian, when he wrote the following, would
  seem to have believed there could be no spirit independent of
  substance and form: “Nihil enim, si non corpus. Omne quod est, corpus
  est sui generis; nihil est incorporale, nisi quod non est. Quis enim
  negabit Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus
  sui generis, sua effigie;”—“For there is nothing, if not body. All
  that is, is body after its kind; nothing is incorporeal except what is
  _not_. For who will deny God to be body, albeit God is spirit? For
  spirit is body of its proper kind, in its proper effigy.” These views
  are not inconsistent with those entertained by many modern
  Spiritualists.

Footnote 12:

  In a work published in London by De Foe, in 1722, one of his
  characters speaks of the Virginia immigration as being composed either
  of “first, such as were brought over by masters of ships, to be sold
  as servants; or, second, such as are transported, after having been
  found guilty of crimes punishable with death.”

Footnote 13:

  These passages are from a speech of President Davis at Jackson, Miss.,
  December, 1862. When he gets in a passion, Mr. Davis repudiates the
  truth even as he would State debts. Notorious facts of history are set
  aside in his blind wrath. The colonists of New England, he well knows,
  were the friends and compatriots of Cromwell and his Parliament; and
  the few prisoners of war Cromwell sent over from Ireland and England
  as slaves did not constitute an appreciable part of the then resident
  population of the North. It is a well-known fact, which no genealogist
  will dispute, that not Virginia, nor any other American State, can
  show such a purely English ancestry as Massachusetts. The writer of a
  paper in the New York Continental Monthly for July, 1863, under the
  title of “The Cavalier Theory Refuted,” proves this statistically.
  “Let it be avowed,” he says, “that Puritanic New England could always
  display a greater array of _gentlemen by birth_ than Virginia, or even
  the entire South. This is said deliberately, because we know whereof
  we speak.” He gives figures and names. And yet even so judicious a
  writer as John Stuart Mill has fallen into the error of supposing that
  the South had the advantage of the North in this respect. The anxious
  and persistent clamor of the Secessionists on this point, in the hope
  to enlist the sympathy of the British aristocracy, has not been wholly
  without effect. We would only remark, in conclusion, that Davis and
  his brethren, in their over-anxiety to prove that _their_ ancestors
  were gentlemen, and _ours_ clodhoppers, show the genuine spirit of the
  upstart and the _parvenu_. The true gentleman is content to have his
  gentility appear in his acts.

  Mr. Clay of the Confederate Congress has introduced a resolution
  proposing that the coat of arms of the Slave Confederacy shall be _the
  figure of a cavalier_! Would not a beggar on horseback, riding in a
  certain familiar direction, be more appropriate?

Footnote 14:

   It afterwards appeared that the Vicksburg “gentlemen,” impatient at
  their want of success, selected a man who came nearest to the
  description of Gashface, shot him, and then marked his body in a way
  to satisfy the expectations of those who had formed an imaginative
  idea of the personal peculiarities that would identify the celebrated
  liberator, so long the terror of masters on the Mississippi.

Footnote 15:

  Afterwards the notorious proslavery guerilla leader in Virginia.

Footnote 16:

  The dishonesty of Mr. John Slidell’s attempt to expunge from Davis’s
  history the reproach of repudiation is thoroughly and irrefutably
  exposed by Mr. Robert J. Walker in the Continental Monthly, 1863.

Footnote 17:

  This prediction was merely one among many hundred such which every
  reader of newspapers will remember.

Footnote 18:

  We subjoin one of the various translations:—

             “Yes, it comes at last!
                 And from a troubled dream awaking,
               Death will soon be past,
                 And brighter day around me breaking!
             Hark! methinks I hear celestial voices say,
             Soon thou shalt be free, child of misery,—
             Rest and perfect joy in heaven are waiting thee;
             Spirit, plume thy wings and flee!

             “Yes! the strife is o’er,
                 With all its pangs, with all its sorrow;
               Hope shall droop no more,
                 For heavenly day will dawn to-morrow!
             Proud Oppression, vain thy utmost tyranny!
             Come and thou shalt see, I can smile at thee!
             Mine shall be the triumph, mine the victory,—
             Death but sets the captive free!”

Footnote 19:

  The line is from the following prayer, attributed to Mary, Queen of
  Scots:—

                  “O domine Deus, speravi in Te;
                  Carissime Jesu, nunc libera me!
                  In dura catena, in misera pœna,
                  Desidero Te!
                  Languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo,
                  Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me.”

Footnote 20:

  Some of these note-books have been brought to light by the civil war,
  and a quotation from one of them will be found on another page of this
  work.

Footnote 21:

  Should any person question the probability of the incidents in Vance’s
  narrative, we would refer him to the “Letter to Thomas Carlyle” in the
  Atlantic Monthly for October, 1863. On page 501, we find the
  following: “Within the past year, a document has come into my hands.
  It is the private diary of a most eminent and respectable slaveholder,
  recently deceased. The chances of war threw it into the hands of our
  troops.... One item I must have the courage to suggest more
  definitely. Having bidden a young slave-girl (whose name, age, color,
  &c., with the shameless precision that marks the entire document, are
  given) to attend upon his brutal pleasure, and she silently remaining
  away, he writes, ‘Next morning ordered her a dozen lashes for
  disobedience.’” In a foot-note to the above we are assured by Messrs.
  Ticknor and Fields that the author of the letter is “one whose word is
  not and cannot be called in question; and he pledges his word that the
  above is exact and _proven_ fact.”

Footnote 22:

  “O no, madam, for then I shall be too black.” A Life of Toussaint, by
  Mrs. George Lee, was published in Boston some years since.

Footnote 23:

  By Dsheladeddin, a famous Mahometan mystic.

Footnote 24:

  On the contrary, Mrs. Kemble says they are cruelly treated, and that
  the forms of suffering are “manifold and terrible” in consequence.

Footnote 25:

  The Savannah River Baptist Association of Ministers decreed (1836)
  that the slave, sold at a distance from his home, was not to be
  countenanced by the church in resisting his master’s will that he
  should take a new wife.

Footnote 26:

                    “Beloved eye, beloved star,
                    Thou art so near, and yet so far!”




                             CHAPTER XXIV.
                      CONFESSIONS OF A MEAN WHITE.

 “Throw thyself on thy God, nor mock him with feeble denial;
   Sure of his love, and O, sure of his mercy at last;
 Bitter and deep though the draught, yet drain thou the cup of thy trial,
   And in its healing effect smile at the bitterness past.”
                 _Lines composed by Sir John Herschel in a dream._


After an early breakfast the following morning, Vance proceeded to the
hospital. The patient had been expecting him.

“He has seemed to know just how near you’ve been for the last hour,”
said the nurse. “He followed—”

“Sit down, Mr. Vance, please,” interrupted the patient.

Vance drew a chair near to the pillow and sat down.

“It all kum ter me last night, Mr. Vance! Now I remember whar ’t was I
met yer. But fust lem me tell yer who an’ what I be. My name’s Quattles.
I was born in South Kerliny, not fur from Columby. I was what the
niggers call a _mean white_, and my father he was a mean white afore me,
and all my brothers they was mean whites, and my sisters they mahrrid
mean whites. The one thing we was raised ter do fiust-rate, and what we
tuk ter kindly from the start, was ter shirk labor. We was taught ’t was
degradin’ ter do useful work like a nigger does, so we all tried hard
ter find su’thin’ that mowt be easy an’ not useful.”

“My dear fellow,” interrupted Vance, who saw the man was suffering,
“you’re fatiguing yourself too much. Rest awhile.”

“No, Mr. Vance. You musn’t mind these twitchin’s an’ spazums like. They
airn’t quite as bahd as they look. Wall, as I war sayin’, one cuss of
slavery ar’, it drives the poor whites away from honest labor; makes ’em
think it’s mean-sperretid ter hoe corn an’ plant ’taters. An’ this
feelin’, yer see, ar’ all ter the profit uv the rich men,—the Hammonds,
Rhetts, an’ Draytons,—’cause why? ’cause it leaves ter the rich all the
good land, an’ drives the poor whites ter pickin’ up a mean livin’, any
way they kin, outside uv hard work! Howsomever, I didn’t see this; an’
so, like other mis’rable fools, I thowt I war a sort uv a ’ristocrat
myself, ’cause I could put on airs afore a nigger. An’ this feelin’ the
slave-owners try to keep up in the mean whites; try to make ’em feel
proud they’re not niggers, though the hull time the poor cusses fare
wuss nor any nigger in a rice-swamp.”

“My friend,” said Vance, “you’ve got at the truth at last, though I fear
you’ve been long about it.”

“Yer may bet high on that, Mr. Vance! How I used ter cuss the
Abolishuners, an’ go ravin’ mahd over the meddlin’ Yankees! Wall, what
d’yer think war the best thing South Kerliny could do fur me, after
never off’rin’ me a chance ter larn ter read an’ write? I’ll tell yer
what the _peculiar_ prermoted me ter. I riz to be foreman uv of a
rat-pit.”

“Of a _what_?” interrogated Vance.

“Of a rat-pit. There war a feller in Charleston who kept a rat-pit, whar
a little tareyer dog killed rats, so many a minute, to please the
sportin’ gentry an’ other swells. Price uv admission one dollar. The
swells would come an’ bet how many rats the dog would kill in a
minute,—’t was sometimes thirty, sometimes forty, and wunst ’t was
fifty. My bus’ness was ter throw the rats, one after another, inter the
pit. We’d a big cage with a hole in the top, an’ I had ter put my bar
hand in, an’ throw out the rats fast as I could, one by one. The tareyer
would spring an’ break the backs uv the varmints with one jerk uv his
teeth. Great bus’ness fur a white man,—warn’t it? So much more genteel
than plantin’ an’ hoein’! Wall, I kept at that pleasant trade five yars,
an’ then lost my place ’cause both hands got so badly bit I couldn’t
pull out the rats no longer.”

“You must have seen things from a bad stand-point, my friend.”

“Bad as ’t was, ’t was better nor the slavery stand-pint I kum ter next.
Yer’v heerd tell uv Jeff McTavish? Wall, Jeff hahd an overseer who got
shot in the leg by a runaway swamp nigger, an’ so I was hired as a sort
uv overseer’s mate. I warn’t brung up ter be very tender ’bout niggers,
Mr. Vance; but the way niggers was treated on that air plantation was
too much even for my tough stomach. I’ve seen niggers shot down dead by
McTavish fur jest openin’ thar big lips to answer him when he was mad.
There warn’t ten uv his slaves out uv a hunderd, that warn’t scored all
up an’ down the back with marks uv the lash.”[27]

“Did you whip them?” inquired Vance.

“I didn’t do nothin’ else; but I did it slack, an’ McTavish he found it
out, and begun jawin’ me. An’ I guv it to him back, and we hahd it thar
purty steep, an’ bymeby he outs with his revolver, but I war too spry
for him. I tripped him up, an’ he hahd ter ask pardon uv a mean white
wunst in his life, an’ no mistake. A little tahmrin’ water, please.”

Vance administered a spoonful, and the patient resumed his story.

“In coorse, I hahd ter leave McTavish. Then fur five years I’d a tight
time of it keepin’ wooded up. What with huntin’ and fishin’,
thimble-riggin’ an’ stealin’, I got along somehow, an’ riz ter be a sort
uv steamboat gambler on the Misippy. ’T was thar I fust saw you, Mr.
Vance.”

“On the Mississippi! When and where?”

“Some fifteen yars ago, on boord the Pontiac, jest afore she blowed up.”

“Indeed! I’ve no recollection of meeting you.”

“Don’t yer remember Kunnle D’lancy Hyde?”

“Perfectly.”

“Wall, I war his shadder. He couldn’t go nowhar I didn’t foller. If he
took snuff, I sneezed. If he got drunk, I staggered. Don’t yer remember
a darkish, long-haired feller, he called Quattles?”

“Are you that man?” exclaimed Vance, restraining his emotion.

“I’m nobody else, Mr. Vance, an’ it ain’t fur nothin’ I’ve got yer here
to har what I’ve ter tell. Ef I don’t stop to say I’m sorry for the mean
things I done, ’taint ’cause I hain’t some shame ’bout it, but ’cause
time’s short. When the Pontiac blowed up, I an’ the Kunnle (he’s ’bout
as much uv a kunnle as I’m uv a bishop), we found ou’selves on that part
uv the boat whar least damage was did. We was purty well corned, for
we’d been drinkin’ some, but the smash-up sobered us. The Kunnle’s fust
thowt was fur his niggers. Says I: ‘Let the niggers slide. We sh’ll be
almighty lucky ef we keep out of hell ou’selves.’ ’T was ev’ry man for
hisself, yer know.”

“Were you on the forward part of the wreck?”

“Yes, Mr. Vance, an’ it soon began ter sink. Poor critters, men an’
women, some scalded, some strugglin’ in the water, war cryin’ for help.
The Kunnle an’ I—”

“Stop a moment,” said Vance; and, drawing out paper and pencil, he made
copious notes.

“As I war sayin’, Mr. Vance, the Kunnle an’ I got four life-presarvin’
stools, lahshed ’em together, an’ begun ter make off for the shore. Says
I, ‘We owt ter save one uv those women folks.’ A yaller gal, with a
white child in her arms, was screamin’ out for us to take her an’ the
child. Jest then she got a blow on the head from a block that fell from
one uv the masts. It seemed ter make her wild, an’ she dropped inter the
water, but held on tight ter the young ’un. Says the Kunnle to me, says
he, ‘Now, Cappn, you take the gal, an’ I’ll take the bebby.’ An’ so we
done it, and all got ashore safe. We lahnded on the Tennessee side. The
sun hahdn’t riz, but ’t was jest light enough ter see. We made tracks
away from the river till we kum ter a nigger’s desarted hut, out of
sight ’t ween two hills. Thar we left the yaller gal and the bebby. The
gal seemed kind o’ crazy; so we fastened ’em in.”

“And the child?” asked Vance. “Did you know whose it was?”

“O yes, I knowed it, ’cause I’d seen the yaller gal more ’n a dozen
times, off an’ on, leadin’ the little thing about. The Berwicks, a
North’n family, was the parrents. Wall, the Kunnle an’ I, we went back
ter the river to see what was goin’ on. The sun was up now. The Champion
hahd turned back to give help. Poor critters war dyin’ all round from
scalds and bruises. All at wunst the Kunnle an’ I kum upon a crowd round
Mr. Berwick, who lay thar on the ground bahdly wounded. His wife lay
dead close by. He kept askin’ fur his child. A feller named Burgess told
him he seed the yaller gal an’ child go overboord, an’ that they must
have drownded. Prehaps he did see ’em in the water, but he didn’t see us
pick ’em up. Old Onslow he said he an’ his boy had sarched ev’rywhar,
but couldn’t find the child nowhar. They b’leeved she was drownded. A
drop uv water, Mr. Vance.”

“And didn’t you undeceive them?” asked Vance, giving the water.

“No, Mr. Vance. The Kunnle seed a prize in that yaller gal, and the
Devil put an idee inter his head. Says the Kunnle to me, says he, ‘Now
foller yer leader, Cappn.’ (He used ter call me Cappn.) ‘Swar jest as
yer har me swar.’ Then up he steps an’ says to Mr. Onslow, ’Judge, it’s
all true what Mr. Burgess says; the yaller gal, with the child in her
arms, war crowded overboord. This gemmleman an’ I tried ter save them.
Ef we didn’t, may I be shot. We throw’d the gal a life-presarver, but
she couldn’t hold on, no how. Fust the child went under, an’ we was so
chilled we couldn’t save it. Then the gal let go her grip uv the stool
an’ sunk. ’T war as much as we could do ter git ashore ou’selves.’”

“Did the judge put you to your oaths?” asked Vance.

“Yes, Mr. Vance. He swar’d us both; then writ down all we said, read it
over ter us, and we put our names ter it, an’ ’t was witnessed all
right. The feller Burgess bahcked us up by sayin’ he see us in the water
jest afore the gal fell, which was all true. It seemed a plain case. The
judge tell’d it all ter Mr. Berwick, an’ he growed sort o’ wild, an’
died soon arter. What bekummed of _you_ all that time, Mr. Vance?”

“I landed on the Arkansas side,” said Vance. “I supposed the Berwick
family all lost. The bodies of the parents I saw and identified, and
Burgess told me he’d talked with two men who saw the child go down.”

“Wall, Mr. Vance. Thar ain’t much more uv a story. We went ter Memphis.
The Kunnle swelled round consid’rable, and got his name inter the
newspapers. But the yuller gal she was sort o’ cracked-brained. She war
no use ter us or ter the child. The Kunnle got low-sperreted. He’d made
a bad spec, ahter all. He’d lost his niggers; an’ the yuller gal, she as
he hoped ter sell in Noo Orleenz fur sixteen hunderd dollars, she turned
out a fool. Howzomever, he found a lightish, genteel sort uv a nigger, a
quack doctor, who took her off our hands. He said as how she mowt be
’panned an’ made as good as noo.”

“And what did you do with the child?”

“Wall, another bright idee hahd struck the Kunnle. Says he, ‘Color this
young ’un up a little, and she’d bring risin’ uv four hunderd dollars at
a vahndoo. Any mahn, used ter buyin’ niggers, would see at wunst she’d
grow up ter be a val’able fancy article. Ef I could afford it, I’d hold
her on spekilation till she war fifteen.’ Wall, Mr. Vance, uv all the
mean things I ever done, the meanest was to let the Kunnle, whan we got
ter Noo Orleenz, take that poor little patient thing, as I had toted all
the way down from Memphis, an’ sell her ter the highest bidder.”

With an irrepressible groan, Vance walked to the window. When he
returned, he looked with pity on Quattles, and said, “Proceed!”

“Yer see, Mr. Vance, I owed the Kunnle two hunderd dollars, he’d won
from me at euchre. He offered ter make it squar ef I’d give up my
int’rest in the child. Wall, I’d got kind o’ fond uv the little thing;
an’ ’t wasn’t till I got blind drunk on’t that I could bring my mind ter
say yes. The thowt uv what I done that day has kept me drunk most ever
sence. But the Kunnle, he tried to comfort me like. Says he, ‘The child
was fairly ourn, seein’ as how we saved it from drownin’.’ ‘Don’t take
on so, old feller,’ says he. ‘Think yerself lucky ef yer hahvn’t nothin’
wuss nor that agin yerself.’ But ’t was no go. He never could make me
hold up my head agin like as I used ter; an’ we two cut adrift, an’
hain’t kept ’count uv each other sence.”

“How did he dispose of the child?”

“He stained her skin till she looked like a half mulatter, an’ then he
jest got Ripper, the auctioneer, ter sell her.”

“Who bought the child?”

“Wall, Cash bowt her. That’s all I ever could find out. Ef Ripper knowed
more, he wouldn’t tell.”

“To whom did you sell the yellow girl?”

“We didn’t sell her at all. Was glad to git her off our hahnds at no
price. The chap what took her called hisself Dr. Davy. He was a free
nigger, a trav’lin’ quack,—one of those fellers that ’tises to cure
ev’ry thing.”

“When did you last hear of him?”

“The last I heerd tell uv Davy, he war in Natchez, and that war five
years ago.”

“What became of the yellow girl?”

“Wall, thar’s a quar story ’bout that. Whan we fust saw that air gal on
the wreck, she was callin’ out ter us, ‘Take me an’ the child with yer!’
She said it wunst, an’ hahd jest begun ter say it again, an’ hahd got as
fur as _Take_, whan the block hit her on the head, an’ she fell inter
the water. Wall, six months ahter, Davy took that air gal ter a surgeon
in Philadelphy, an’ hahd her ’panned; an’ jest as the crushed bone war
lifted from the brain, that gal cried out, ‘—me an’ the child with yer!’
Shoot me ef she didn’t finish the cry she’d begun jest six months
afore.[28] She got back her senses all straight, an’ Davy made her his
wife.”

“Did you keep anything that belonged to the child?”

“Jest you feel in the pockets uv them pants under my piller, and git out
my pus.”

Vance obeyed, and drew forth a small bag of wash-leather. This he
emptied on the coverlet, the contents being a few dimes and five-cent
pieces, a tonga-bean, and a small pill-box covered with cotton-wool and
tied round with twine.

“Thar! Open that ar’ box,” said the patient.

Vance opened it, and took out a pair of little sleeve-buttons, gold with
a setting of coral. Examining them, he found on the under surface the
inscription C. A. B. in diminutive characters.

“I’ll tell you how ’t was,” said the wounded man. “That night of the
’splosion the yuller gal an’ the child must have gone ter bed without
ondressin’; for they’d thar cloze all on. Most like the gal fell asleep
an’ forgot. Soon as we touched the shore, the Kunnle says ter me, says
he, ‘Cap’n, you cahrry the child, an’ I’ll pilot the gal.’ Wall; I took
the child in my arms, an’ as I cahrr’d her, I seed she wore gold buttons
on the sleeves uv her little pelisse,—a pair on each; an’, thinks I, the
Kunnle will pocket them buttons sure. So I pocketed ’em myself; but whan
it kum to partin’ with the child, I jest took one pair uv the buttons,
an sowd ’em on inside uv the bosom uv her little shirt whar they
wouldn’t be seen. The other pair is that thar. Take ’em an’ keep ’em,
Mr. Vance.”

“Have you any article of clothing belonging to her?”

“Not a rag, Mr. Vance. They all went with her.”

“Did you notice any mark on the clothes?”

“Yes, they was marked C. A. B., in letters worked in hahnsum with white
silk.”

“Was that the kind of letter?” asked Vance, who, having drawn the cipher
in old English, held it before the patient’s eyes.

“Yes, them’s um. I remember, ’cause I used ter ondress the child. An’,
now I think uv it, one uv her eyes was bluish, an’ t’ other grayish.”

“What day was it you parted with the child?”

“The same day she was sold.”

“When was that?”

“It must have been in May follerin’ the ’splosion. Lem me see. ’T was
that day I got the pill-box. I’d been ter the doctor’s fur some
physickin’ stuff. He give me a prescrip, an’ I went an’ got some pills
in that air box, an’ then throwed the pills away an’ kept the box.”

Vance glanced at the cover. The apothecary’s name and the number of the
prescription were legible. Vance put the box in his pocket.

“Can’t yer think uv su’thin’ else?” asked Quattles.

“Only this,” replied Vance: “How shall I manage Hyde?”

“Wall, ef the Kunnle sh’d hold up his milk, you jest say ter him these
eer words: ‘Dorothy Rusk must be provided for. What kn I do fur her?’
The widder Rusk is his sister, yer see, an’ that’s the one soft spot the
Kunnle’s got.”

Vance carefully recorded the mysterious words; then asked, “Do you
remember Peek, the runaway slave Hyde had in charge?”

“In coorse I do,” said Quattles, twisting with pain from his wound.
“Should you ever see that nigger, Mr. Vance, tell him that Amos Slink,
St. Joseph Street, kn tell him su’thing’ ’bout his wife. Amos wunst
tell’d me how he ’coyed her down from Montreal. ’T was through that same
lawyer chap that kum it over Peek.”

“Can Amos identify you as the Quattles of the Pontiac?”

“In coorse he can, for he knowed all ’bout me at the time.”

“And now, my friend, I wish to have this testimony of yours sworn to and
witnessed; but I’m overtasking your strength.”

“Do it, Mr. Vance. Help me ter lose my strength, ef yer think I kn do
any good tellin’ the truth.”

“Can you get along without this opiate two hours longer?”

“Yes, Mr. Vance, I kn do without it altogether.”

“Then I’ll leave you for two hours.”

“One word, Mr. Vance.”

“What is it?”

“Did yer ever pray?”

“Yes; every man prays who tries to do good or undo evil. You’ve been
praying for the last hour, my friend.”

“How did yer know that? I’ve been thinkin’ of it, that’s a fak. But I’m
not up to it, Mr. Vance. Could you pray for me jest three minutes?”

“Willingly, my poor fellow.”

And kneeling at the little cot, Vance, holding a hand of the sufferer,
prayed for him so tenderly, so fervently, and so searchingly withal,
that the poor dying outcast wept as he had never wept before. O precious
tears, parting the mist that hung upon his future (even as clouds are
parted that hide the sunset’s glories), and revealing to his spiritual
eyes new possibilities of being, fruits of repentance, through a mercy
which (God be thanked!) is not measured by the mercy of men.

Leaving the hospital, Vance stepped into an office, and drew up, in the
form of a deposition, all the facts elicited from Quattles. His next
step was to find Amos Slink. That gentleman had settled down in the
second-hand clothing business. Vance made a liberal purchase of hospital
clothing; and then adverted to the past exploits of Amos in the
“nigger-catching” line. Amos proudly produced letters to authenticate
his prowess. They bore the signature of Charlton. “I want you to lend me
those letters, Mr. Slink.”

“Couldn’t do it, Mr. Vance. Them letters I mean to hand down to my
children.”

“Well, it’s of no consequence. I’ll go into the next store for the rest
of my goods.”

“Don’t think of it. Here! take the letters. Only return ’em.” Vance not
only secured the letters, but got Mr. Slink to go with him to the
hospital to identify Quattles.

Then, on his way, enlisting three friends who were good Union men, one
of them being a justice of the peace, Vance led them where the wounded
man lay. Slink, who was known to the parties, identified the patient as
the Mr. Quattles of the Pontiac; and the identification was duly
recorded and sworn to. Vance then read his notes aloud to Quattles,
whose competency to listen and understand was formally attested by the
surgeon. The justice administered the oath. Quattles put his name to the
document, and the signature was duly witnessed by all present.

No sooner was the act completed than the patient sank into
unconsciousness. “He’ll not rally again,” said the surgeon. A quick,
heavy breathing, gradually growing faint and fainter,—and lo! there was
a smile on the face, but the spirit that had left it there had fled!

Vance first went to the apothecary whose name was on the pill-box. “Did
Mr. Gargle keep the books in which he pasted his prescriptions?”

“Yes, he had them for twenty years back.”

“Would he look in the volume for 18—, for a certain number?”

“Willingly.”

In two minutes the number was found, and the day of the prescription
fixed. Vance then proceeded to the office of _L’Abeille_, turned to the
newspaper of that day, and there, in the advertising columns, found a
sale advertised by P. Ripper & Co., auctioneers. It was a sale of a
“lot” of negroes; and as a sort of postscript to the specifications was
the following:—

  “Also, one very promising little girl, an orphan, two years old,
  almost white; can take care of herself; promises to be very pretty;
  has straight, brown hair, regular features, first-rate figure.
  Warranted sound and healthy. Amateurs who would like to train up a
  companion to their tastes will find this a rare opportunity to
  purchase.”

Not pausing to indulge the emotions which these cruel words awoke, Vance
went in search of Ripper & Co. The firm had been broken up more than ten
years before. Not one of the partners was in the city. They had
disappeared, and left no trace. Were any of their old account-books in
the warehouse? No. The building had been burnt to the ground, and a new
one erected on its site.

“Where next?” thought Vance. “Plainly to Natchez, to see if I can learn
anything of Davy and his wife.”




                              CHAPTER XXV.
                         MEETINGS AND PARTINGS.

                  “I hold it true, whate’er befall,—
                    I feel it when I sorrow most,—
                    ’Tis better to have loved and lost
                  Than never to have loved at all.”
                                          _Tennyson._


It being too late to take the boat for Natchez, Vance proceeded to the
St. Charles. The gong for the fire o’clock ordinary had sounded.
Entering the dining-hall, he was about taking a seat, when he saw Miss
Tremaine motioning to him to occupy one vacant by her side.

“Truly an enterprising young lady!” But what could he do?

“I’m so glad to see you, Mr. Vance! I’ve not forgotten my promise. I
called to-day on Mrs. Gentry,—found her in the depths. Miss Murray has
disappeared,—absconded,—nobody knows where!”

“Indeed! After what you’ve said of her singing, I’m very anxious to hear
her. Do try to find her.”

“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Vance. There’s a mystery. Of that much I’m
persuaded from Mrs. Gentry’s manner.”

“You mustn’t mind Darling’s notions on slavery.”

“O no, Mr. Vance, I shall turn her over to you for conversion.”

“Should you succeed in entrapping her, detain her till I come back from
Natchez, which will be before Sunday.”

“Be sure I’ll hold on to her.”

Mr. Tremaine came in, and began to talk politics. Vance was sorry he had
an engagement. The big clock of the hall pointed to seven o’clock. He
rose, bowed, and left.

“Why,” sighed Laura, “can’t other gentlemen be as agreeable as this Mr.
Vance? He knows all about the latest fashions; all about modes of fixing
the hair; all about music and dancing; all about the opera and the
theatre; in short, what is there the man doesn’t know?”

Papa was too absorbed in his terrapin soup to answer.

Let us follow Vance to the little house, scene of his brief, fugitive
days of delight. He stood under the old magnolia in the tender
moonlight. The gas was down in Clara’s room. She was at the piano,
extemporizing some low and plaintive variations on a melody by Moore,
“When twilight dews are falling soft.” Suddenly she stopped, and put up
the gas. There was a knock at her door. She opened it, and saw Vance.
They shook hands as if they were old friends.

“Where are the Bernards?”

“They are out promenading. I told them I was not afraid.”

“How have you passed your time, Miss Perdita?”

“O, I’ve not been idle. Such choice books as you have here! And then
what a variety of music!”

“Have you studied any of the pieces?”

“Not many. That from Schubert.”

“Please play it for me.”

Tacitly accepting him as her teacher, she played it without
embarrassment. Vance checked her here and there, and suggested a change.
He uttered no other word of praise than to say: “If you’ll practise six
years longer four hours a day, you’ll be a player.”

“I shall do it!” said Clara.

“Have you heard that famous Hallelujah Chorus, which the Northern
soldiers sing?”

“No, Mr. Vance.”

“No? Why, ’tis in honor of John Brown (any relation of Perdita?) You
shall hear it.”

And he played the well-known air, now appropriated by the hand-organs.
Clara asked for a repetition, that she might remember it.

“Sing me something,” he said.

Clara placed on the reading-frame the song of “Pestal.”

“Not that, Perdita! What possessed you to study that?”

“It suited my mood. Will you not hear it?”

“No!... Yes, Perdita. Pardon my abruptness. But that song was the first
I ever heard from lips, O so fair and dear to me!”

Clara put aside the music, and walked away toward the window. Vance went
up to her. He could see that she was with difficulty curbing her tears.

O, if this man whose very presence inspired such confidence and hope,—if
it was sweeter to him to _remember_ another than to _listen_ to
_her_,—where in the wide world should she find, in her desperate strait,
a friend?

There was that in her attitude which reminded Vance of Estelle. Some
lemon-blossoms in her hair intensified the association by their odors.
For a moment it was as if he had thrown off the burden of twenty years,
and was living over, in Clara’s presence, that ambrosial hour of first
love on the very spot of its birth. “For O, she stood beside him like
his youth,—transformed for him the real to a dream, clothing the
palpable and the familiar with golden exhalations of the dawn!” Be wary,
Vance! One look, one tone amiss, and there’ll be danger!

“Let us talk over your affairs,” he said. “To-morrow I must leave for
Natchez. Will you remain here till I come back?”

Clara leaned out of the window a moment, as if to enjoy the balmy
evening, and then, calmly taking a seat, replied: “I think ’t will be
best for me to lay my case before Miss Tremaine. True, we parted in a
pet, but she may not be implacable. Yes, I will call on her. To you, a
stranger, what return for your kindness can I make?”

“This return, Perdita: let me be your friend. As soon as ’t is
discovered you’ve no money, your position may become a painful one. Let
me supply you with funds. I’m rich; and my only heir is my country.”

“No, Mr. Vance! I’ve no claim upon you,—none whatever. What I want for
the moment is a shelter; and Laura will give me that, I’m confident.”

Vance reflected a moment, and then, as if a plan had occurred to him by
which he could provide for her without her knowing it, he replied: “We
shall probably meet at the St. Charles. You can easily send for me,
should you require my help. Be generous, and say you’ll notify me,
should there be an hour of need?”

“I’ll not fail to remember you in that event, Mr. Vance.”

“Honor bright?”

“Honor bright, Mr. Vance!”

“Consider, Perdita, you can always find a home in this house. I shall
give such directions to Mrs. Bernard as will make your presence
welcome.”

“Then I shall not feel utterly homeless. Thank you, Mr. Vance!”

“And by the way, Perdita, do not let Miss Tremaine know that we are
acquainted.”

“I’ll heed your caution, Mr. Vance.”

“We shall meet again, my dear young lady. Of that I feel assured.”

“I hope so, Mr. Vance.”

“And now farewell! I’ll tell Bernard to order a carriage and attend to
your baggage. Good by, Perdita!”

“Good by, Mr. Vance.”

Again they shook hands, and parted. Vance gave his directions to the
Bernards, and then strolled home to his hotel. As he traversed the
corridor leading to his room, he encountered Kenrick. Their apartments
were nearly opposite.

“I was not aware we were such near neighbors, Mr. Kenrick.”

“To me also ’t is a surprise,—and a pleasant one. Will you walk in, Mr.
Vance?”

“Yes, if ’t is not past your hour for visitors.”

They went in, and Kenrick put up the gas. “I can’t offer you either
cigars or whiskey; but you can ring for what you want.”

“Is it possible you eschew alcohol and tobacco?”

“Yes,” replied Kenrick; “I once indulged in cigars. But I found the use
so offensive in others that I myself abandoned it in disgust. One sits
down to converse with a person disguised as a gentleman, and suddenly a
fume, as if from the essence of old tobacco-pipes, mixed with odors from
stale brandy-bottles, poisons the innocent air, and almost knocks one
down. It’s a mystery that ladies endure the nuisance of such breaths. My
sensitive nose has made me an anti-rum, anti-tobacco man.”

“But I fear me you’re a come-outer, Mr. Kenrick! Is it conservative to
abuse tobacco and whiskey? No wonder you are unsound on the slavery
question!”

“Come up to the confessional, Mr. Vance! Admit that you’re as much of an
antislavery man as I am.”

“More, Mr. Kenrick! If I were not, I might be quite as imprudent as you.
And then I should put a stop to my usefulness.”

“You puzzle me, Mr. Vance.”

“Not as much as you’ve puzzled _me_, my young friend. Come here, and
look in the mirror with me.”

Vance took him by the hand and led him to a full-length looking-glass.
There they stood looking at their reflections.

“What do you see?” asked Vance.

“Two rather personable fellows,” replied Kenrick, laughing; “one of them
ten or twelve years older than the other; height of the two, about the
same; figures very much alike, inclining to slimness, but compact,
erect, well-knit; hands and feet small; heads,—I have no fault to find
with the shape or size of either; hair similar in color; eyes,—as near
as I can see, the two pairs resemble each other, and the crow’s-feet at
the corners are the same in each; features,—nose,—brows—I see why you’ve
brought me here, Mr. Vance! We are enough alike to be brothers.”

“Can you explain the mystery?” asked Vance, “for I can’t. Can there be
any family relationship? I had an aunt, now deceased, who was married to
a Louisianian. But his name was not Kenrick.”

“What was it?”

“Arthur Maclain.”

“My father! Cousin, your hand! In order to inherit property, my father,
after his marriage, procured a change of name. I can’t tell you how
pleasant to me it is to meet one of my mother’s relations.”

They had come together still more akin in spirit than in blood. The
night was all too short for the confidences they now poured out to each
other. Vance told his whole story, pausing occasionally to calm down the
excitement which the narrative caused in his hearer.

When it was finished Kenrick said: “Cousin, count me your ally in
compassing your revenge. May God do so to me, and more also, if I do not
give this beastly Slave Power blood for blood.”

“I can’t help thinking, Charles,” said Vance, “that your zeal has the
purer origin. _Mine_ sprang from a personal experience of wrong; yours,
from an abstract conception of what is just; from those inner motives
that point to righteousness and God.”

“I almost wish sometimes,” replied Kenrick, “that I had the spur of a
great personal grievance to give body to my wrath. And yet Slavery, when
it lays its foul hand on _the least of these little ones_ ought to be
felt by me also, and by all men! But now—now—I shall not lack the sting
of a personal incentive. _Your_ griefs, cousin, fall on my own heart,
and shall not find the soil altogether barren. This Ratcliff,—I know him
well. He has been more than once at our house. A perfect type of the
sort of beast born of slavery,—moulded as in a matrix by slavery,—kept
alive by slavery! Take away slavery, and he would perish of inanition.
He would be, like the plesiosaur, a fossil monster, representative of an
extinct genus.”

“Cousin,” said Vance, “all you lack is to join the serpent with the
dove. Be content to bide your time. Here in Louisiana lies your work. We
must make the whole western bank of the Mississippi free soil. Texas can
be taken care of in due time. But with a belt of freedom surrounding the
Cotton States, the doom of slavery is fixed. Give me to see that day,
and I shall be ready to say, ‘Now, Lord, dismiss thy servant!’”

“I had intended to go North, and join the army of freedom,” said
Kenrick; “but what you say gives me pause.”

“We must not be seen together much,” resumed Vance. “And now good night,
or rather, good morning, for there’s a glimmer in the east, premonitory
of day. Ah, cousin, when I hear the braggarts around us, gassing about
Confederate courage and Yankee cowardice, I can’t help recalling an old
couplet I used to spout, when an actor, from a play by Southern,—

                 ‘There is no courage but in innocence,
                 No constancy but in an honest cause!’”




                             CHAPTER XXVI.
                   CLARA MAKES AN IMPORTANT PURCHASE.

“Allow slavery to be ever so humane. Grant that the man who owns me is
ever so kind. The wrong of him who presumes to talk of owning me is too
unmeasured to be softened by kindness.”


Laura Tremaine had just come in from a drive with her invalid mother,
and stood in the drawing-room looking out on a company of soldiers.
There was a knock at the door. A servant brought in a card. It said,
“Will Laura see Darling?” The arrival, concurring so directly with
Laura’s wishes, caused a pleasurable shock. “Show her in,” she said; and
the next moment the maidens were locked in each other’s embrace.

“O, you dear little good-for-nothing Darling,” said Laura, after there
had been a conflux of kisses. “Could anything be more _apropos_? What’s
the meaning of all this? Have you really absconded? Is it a love affair?
Tell me all about it. Rely on my secrecy. I’ll be close as bark to a
tree.”

“Will you solemnly promise,” said Clara, “on your honor as a lady, not
to reveal what I tell you?”

“As I hope to be saved, I promise,” replied Laura.

“Then I will tell you the cause of my leaving Mrs. Gentry’s. ’T was only
day before yesterday she told me,—look at me, Laura, and say if I look
like it!—she told me I was a slave.”

“A slave? Impossible! Why, Darling, you’ve a complexion whiter than
mine.”

“So have many slaves. The hue of my skin will not invalidate a claim.”

“That’s true. But who presumes to claim you?”

“Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”

“A friend of my father’s! He’s very rich. I’ll ask him to give you up.
Let me go to him at once.”

“No, Laura, I’ve seen the man. ’T would be hopeless to try to melt him.
You must help me to get away.”

“But you do not mean,—surely you do not mean to—to—”

“To what, Laura? You seem gasping with horror at some frightful
supposition. What is it?”

“You’d not think of running off, would you? You wouldn’t ask me to
harbor a fugitive slave?”

Clara looked at the door. The color flew to her cheek,—flamed up to her
forehead. Her bosom heaved. Emotions of unutterable detestation and
disgust struggled for expression. But had she not learnt the slave’s
first lesson, duplicity? Her secret had been confided to one who had
forthwith showed herself untrustworthy. Bred in the heartless fanaticism
which slavery engenders, Laura might give the alarm and have her
stopped, should she rise suddenly to go. Farewell, then, white-robed
Candor, and welcome Dissimulation!

After a pause, “What do you advise?” said Clara.

“Well, Darling, stay with me a week or two, then go quietly back to Mrs.
Gentry’s, and play the penitent.”

“Hadn’t I better go at once?” asked Clara, simulating meekness.

“O no, Darling! I can’t possibly permit that. Now I’ve got you, I shall
hold on till I’ve done with you. Then we’ll see if we can’t persuade Mr.
Ratcliff to free you. Who’d have thought of this little Darling being a
slave!”

“But hadn’t I better write to Mrs. Gentry and tell her where I am?”

“No, no. She’ll only be forcing you back. You shall do nothing but stay
here till I tell you you may go. You shall play the lady for one week,
at least. There’s a Mr. Vance in the house, to whom I’ve spoken of your
singing. He’s wild to hear you. I’ve promised him he shall. I wouldn’t
disappoint him on any account.”

Clara saw that, could she but command courage to fall in with Laura’s
selfish plans, it might, after all, be safer to come thus into the very
focus of the city’s life, than to seek some corner, penetrable to
police-officers and slave-hunters.

“How will you manage?” asked Clara.

“What more simple?” replied Laura. “I’ll take you right into my
sleeping-room; you shall be my schoolmate, Miss Brown, come to pass a
few days with me before going to St. Louis. Papa will never think of
questioning my story.”

“But I’ve no dresses with me.”

“No matter. I’ve a plenty I’ve outgrown. They’ll fit you beautifully.
Come here into my sleeping-room. It adjoins, you see. There! We’re about
of a height, though I’m a little stouter.”

“It will not be safe for me to appear at the public table.”

“Well, you shall be an invalid, and I’ll send your meals from the table
when I send mother’s. Miss Brown from St. Louis! Let me see. What shall
be your first name?”

“Let it be Perdita.”

“Perdita? The lost one! Good. How quick you are! Perdita Brown! It does
not sound badly. Mr. Onslow,—Miss Brown,—Miss Perdita Brown from St.
Louis! Then you’ll courtesy, and look so demure! Won’t it be fun?”

Between grief and anger, Clara found disguise a terrible effort. So! Her
fate so dark, so tragic, was to be Laura’s pastime, not the subject of
her grave and tender consideration!

Already had some of the traits, congenital with slavery, begun to
develop themselves in Clara. Strategy now seemed to her as justifiable
under the circumstances as it would be in escaping from a murderer, a
lunatic, or a wild beast. Was not every pro-slavery man or woman her
deadly foe,—to be cheated, circumvented, robbed, nay, if need be, slain,
in defence of her own inalienable right of liberty? The thought that
Laura was such a foe made Clara look on her with precisely the same
feelings that the exposed sentinel might have toward the lurking
picket-shooter.

An expression so strange flitted over Clara’s face, that Laura asked:
“What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?”

Checking the exasperation surging in her heart, Clara affected
frivolity. “O, I feel well enough,” she replied. “A little tired,—that’s
all. What if this Mr. Onslow should fall in love with me?”

“O, but that would be too good!” exclaimed Laura. Between you and me, I
owe him a spite. I’ve just heard he once said, speaking of me,
‘Handsome,—but no depth!’ Hang the fellow! I’d like to punish him. He’s
proud as Lucifer. Wouldn’t it be a joke to let him fall in love with a
poor little slave?”

“So, you don’t mean to fall in love with him yourself?”

“O no! He’s good-looking, but poor. Can you keep a secret?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I mean to set my cap for Mr. Vance.”

“Possible?”

“Yes, Perdita. He’s fine-looking, of the right age, very rich, and so
altogether fascinating! Father learnt yesterday that he pays an enormous
tax on real estate.”

“And is he the only string to your bow?”

“O no. But our best young men are in the army. Onslow is a captain. O, I
mustn’t forget Charles Kenrick. Onslow is to bring him here. Kenrick’s
father owns a whole brigade of slaves. Hark! Dear me! That was two
o’clock. Will you have luncheon?”

“No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”

“Then I must leave you. I’ve an appointment with my dressmaker. In the
lower drawers there you’ll find some of my last year’s dresses. I’ve
outgrown them. Amuse yourself with choosing one for to-night. We shall
have callers.”

Laura hurried off. Clara, terrified at the wrathfulness of her own
emotions, walked the room for a while, then dropped upon her knees in
prayer. She prayed to be delivered from her own wild passions and from
the toils of her enemies.

With softened heart, she rose and went to the window.

There, on the opposite sidewalk, stood Esha! Crumpling up some paper,
Clara threw it out so as to arrest her attention, then beckoned to her
to come up. Stifling a cry of surprise, Esha crossed the street, and
entered the hotel. The next minute she and Clara had embraced.

“But how did you happen to be there, Esha?”

“Bress de chile, I’ze been stahndin’ dar de last hour, but what for I
knowed no more dan de stones. ’T warn’t till I seed de chile hersef it
’curred ter me what for I’d been stahndin’ dar.”

“What happened after I left home?”

“Dar war all sort ob a fuss dat ebber you see, darlin’. Fust de ole
woman war all struck ob a heap, like. Den Massa Ratcliff, he come, and
he swar like de Debble hisself. He cuss’d de ole woman and set her off
cryin’, and den he swar at her all de more. Dar was a gen’ral
break-down, darlin’. Massa Ratcliff he’b goin’ ter gib yer fortygraf ter
all de policemen, an’ pay five hundred dollar ter dat one as’ll find
yer. He sends us niggers all off—me an’ Tarquin an’ de rest—ter hunt yer
up. He swar he’ll hab yer, if it takes all he’s wuth. He come agin
ter-day an’ trow de ole woman inter de highstrikes. She say he’ll be
come up wid, sure, an’ you’ll be come up wid, an’ eberybody else as
doesn’t do like she wants ’em ter, am bound to be come up wid. Yah, yah,
yah! Who’s afeard?”

“So the hounds are out in pursuit, are they?”

“Yes, darlin’. Look dar at dat man stahndin’ at de corner. He’m one ob
’em.”

“He’s not dressed like a policeman.”

“Bress yer heart, dese ’tektivs go dressed like de best gem’men about.
Yer’d nebber suspek dey was doin’ de work ob hounds.”

“Well, Esha, I’m afraid to have you stay longer. I’m here with Miss
Tremaine. She may be back any minute. I can’t trust her, and wouldn’t
for the world have her see you here.”

“No more would I, darlin’! Nebber liked dat air gal. She’m all fur self.
But good by, darlin’! It’s sich a comfort ter hab seed you! Good by!”

Esha slipped into the corridor and out of the hotel. Clara put on her
bonnet, threw a thick veil over it, and hurried through St. Charles
Street to a well-known cutlery store. “Show me some of your daggers,”
said she; “one suitable as a present to a young soldier.”

The shopkeeper displayed several varieties. She selected one with a
sheath, and almost took away the breath of the man of iron by paying for
it in gold. Dropping her veil, she passed into the street. As she left
the shop, she saw a man affecting to look at some patent pistols in the
window. He was well dressed, and sported a small cane.

“Hound number one!” thought Clara to herself, and, having walked slowly
away in one direction, she suddenly turned, retraced her steps, then
took a narrow cross-street that debouched into one of the principal
business avenues. The individual had followed her, swinging his cane,
and looking in at the shop-windows. But Clara did not let him see he was
an object of suspicion. She slackened her pace, and pretended to be
looking for an article of muslin, for she would stop and examine the
fabrics that hung at the doors.

Suddenly she saw Esha approaching. Moment of peril! Should the old black
woman recognize and accost her, she was lost. On came the old slave, her
eyes wide open and her thoughts intent on detecting detectives.
Suddenly, to her consternation, she saw Clara stop before a “magasin”
and take up some muslin on the shelf outside the window; and almost in
the same glance, she saw the gentleman of the cane, watching both her
and Clara out of the corners of his eyes. A sideway glance, quick as
lightning from Clara, and delivered without moving her head, was enough
to enlighten Esha. She passed on without a perceptible pause, and soon
appeared to stumble, as if by accident, almost into the arms of the
detective. He caught her by the shoulder, and said, “Don’t turn, but
tell me if you noticed that woman there,—there by Delmar’s, with a green
veil over her face?”

“Yes, massa, I seed a woman in a green veil.”

“Well, are you sure she mayn’t be the one?”

“Bress yer, massa, I owt to know de chile I’ze seed grow up from a
bebby. Reckon I could tell her widout seem’ her face.”

“Go back and take a look at her. There! she steps into the shop.”

Glad of the opportunity of giving Clara a word of caution, Esha passed
into Delmar’s. Beckoning Clara into an alcove, she said: “De veil,
darlin’! De veil! Dat ole rat would nebber hab suspek noting if’t
hahdn’t been fur de veil. His part ob de play am ter watch eb’ry woman
in a veil.”

“I see my mistake, Esha. I’ve been buying a dagger. Look there!”

“De Lord save us!” said Esha, with a shudder, half of horror and half of
sympathy. “Don’t be in de street oftener dan yer kin help, darlin’?
Remember de fotygrafs. Dar! I mus go.”

Esha joined the detective. “Did you get a good sight of her?” he asked.

“Went right up an’ spoke ter her,” said Esha. “She’s jes as much dat gal
as she’s Madame Beauregard.”

The detective, his vision of a $500 _douceur_ melting into thin air,
pensively walked off to try fortune on a new beat.

Clara, now that the danger was over, began to tremble. Hitherto she had
not quailed. Leaving the shop, she took the nearest way to the hotel.
For the last twenty-four hours agitation and excitement had prevented
her taking food. Wretchedly faint, she stopped and took hold of an iron
lamppost for support.

An officer in the Confederate uniform, seeing she was ill, said,
“Mademoiselle, you need help. Allow me to escort you home.”

Dreading lest she should fall, through feebleness, into worse hands,
Clara thanked him and took his proffered arm. “To the St. Charles, sir,
if you please.”

“I myself stop at the St. Charles. Allow me to introduce myself: Robert
Onslow, Captain in Company D, Wigman Regiment. May I ask whom I have the
pleasure of assisting?”

“Miss Brown. I’m stopping a few days with my friend, Miss Tremaine.”

“Indeed! I was to call on her this evening. We may renew our
acquaintance.”

“Perhaps.”

Clara suddenly put down her veil. Approaching slowly like a fate, rolled
on the splendid barouche of Mr. Ratcliff. He sat with arms folded and
was smoking a cigar. Clara fancied she saw arrogance, hate,
disappointment, rage, all written in his countenance. Without moving his
arms, he bowed carelessly to Onslow.

“That’s one of the prime managers of the secession movement.”

“So I should think,” said Clara; but Onslow detected nothing equivocal
in the tone of the remark. Having escorted her to the door of Miss
Tremaine’s parlor, he bowed his farewell, and Clara went in. Laura had
not yet returned.




                             CHAPTER XXVII.
                           DELIGHT AND DUTY.

“According to our living here, we shall hereafter, by a hidden
concatenation of causes, be drawn to a condition answerable to the
purity or impurity of our souls in this life: that silent Nemesis that
passes through the whole contexture of the universe, ever fatally
contriving us into such a state as we ourselves have fitted ourselves
for by our accustomary actions. Of so great consequence is it, while we
have opportunity, to aspire to the best things.”—_Henry More_, A.D.
1659.


It may seem strange that Onslow and Kenrick, differing so widely, should
renew the friendship of their boyhood. We have seen that Onslow,
allowing the æsthetic side of his nature to outgrow the moral, had
departed from the teachings of his father on the subject of slavery.
Kenrick, in whom the moral and devotional faculty asserted its supremacy
over all inferior solicitings, also repudiated _his_ paternal teachings;
but they were directly contrary to those of his friend, and, in
abandoning them, he gave up the prospect of a large inheritance.

To Onslow, these thick-lipped, woolly-headed negroes,—what were they fit
for but to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the gentle and
refined? It was monstrous to suppose that between such and him there
could be equality of any kind. The ethnological argument was conclusive.
Had not Professor Moleschott said that the brain of the negro contains
less phosphorus than that of the white man? Proof sufficient that Cuffee
was expressly created to pull off my boots and hoe in my cotton-fields,
while I make it a penal offence to teach him to read!

Onslow, too, had been fortunate in his intercourse with slaveholders.
Young, handsome, and accomplished, he had felt the charm of their
affectionate hospitality. He had found taste, culture, and piety in
their abodes; all the graces and all the amenities of life. What wonder
that he should narcotize his moral sense with the aroma of these social
fascinations! Even at the North, where the glamour they cast ought not
to distort the sight, and where men ought healthfully to look the
abstract abomination full in the face, and testify to its deformity,—how
many consciences were drugged, how many hearts shut to justice and to
mercy!

With Kenrick, brought up on a plantation where slavery existed in its
mildest form, meditation on God’s law as written in the enlightened
human conscience, completely reversed the views adopted from upholders
of the institution. Thenceforth the elegances of his home became
hateful. He felt like a robber in the midst of them.

The spectacle of some hideous, awkward, perhaps obscene and depraved
black woman, hoeing in the corn-field, instead of awakening in his mind,
as in Onslow’s, the thought that she was in her proper place, did but
move him to tears of bitter contrition and humiliation. How far there
was sin or accountability on her part, or that of her progenitors, he
could not say; but that there was deep, immeasurable sin on the part of
those who, instead of helping that degraded nature to rise, made laws to
crush it all the deeper in the mire, he could not fail to feel in
anguish of spirit. Through all that there was in her of ugliness and
depravity, making her less tolerable than the beast to his æsthetic
sense, he could still detect those traits and possibilities that allied
her with immortal natures, and in her he saw all her sex outraged, and
universal womanhood nailed to the cross of Christ, and mocked by
unbelievers!

The evening of the day of Clara’s arrival at the St. Charles, Onslow and
Kenrick met by agreement in the drawing-room of the Tremaines. Clara had
told Laura, that, in going out to purchase a few hair-pins, she had been
taken suddenly faint, and that a gentleman, who proved to be Captain
Onslow, had escorted her home.

“Could anything be more apt for my little plot!” said Laura. “But
consider! Here it is eight o’clock, and you’re not dressed! Do you know
how long you’ve been sleeping? This will never do!”

A servant knocked at the door, with the information that two gentlemen
were in the drawing-room.

“Dear me! I must go in at once,” said Laura. “Now tell me you’ll be
quick and follow, Darling.”

Clara gave the required pledge, and proceeded to arrange her hair. Laura
looked on for a minute envying her those thick brown tresses, and then
darted into the next room where the visitors were waiting. Greeting them
with her usual animation of manner, she asked Onslow for the news.

“The news is,” said Onslow, “my friend Charles is undergoing conversion.
We shall have him an out-and-out Secessionist before the Fourth of
July.”

“On what do you base your calculations?” asked Kenrick.

“On the fact that for the last twelve hours I haven’t heard you call
down maledictions on the Confederate cause.”

“Perhaps I conclude that the better part of valor is discretion.”

“No, Charles, yours is not the Falstaffian style of courage.”

“Well, construe my mood as you please. Miss Tremaine, your piano stands
open. Does it mean we’re to have music?”

“Yes. Hasn’t the Captain told you of his meeting a young lady,—Miss
Perdita Brown?”

“I’ll do him the justice to say he _did_ tell me he had escorted such a
one.”

“What did he say of her?”

“Nothing, good or bad.”

“But that’s very suspicious.”

“So it is.”

“Pray who is Miss Perdita Brown?” asked Onslow.

“She’s a daughter of—of—why, of Mr. Brown, of course. He lives in St.
Louis.”

“Is she a good Secessionist?”

“On the contrary, she’s a desperate little Abolitionist.”

“Look at Charles!” said Onslow. “He’s enamored already. I’m sorry she
isn’t secesh.”

“Think of the triumph of converting her!” said Laura.

“That indeed! Of course,” said Onslow, “like all true women, she’ll take
her politics from the man she loves.”

And the Captain smoothed his moustache, and looked handsome as Phœbus
Apollo.

“O the conceit!” exclaimed Laura. “Look at him, Mr. Kenrick! Isn’t he
charming? Where’s the woman who wouldn’t turn Mormon, or even Yankee,
for his sake? Surely one of us weak creatures could be content with one
tenth or even one twentieth of the affections of so superb an Ali. Come,
sir, promise me I shall be the fifteenth Mrs. Onslow when you emigrate
to Utah.”

Onslow was astounded at this fire of raillery. Could the lady have heard
of any disparaging expression he had dropped?

“Spare me, Miss Laura,” he said. “Don’t deprive the Confederacy of my
services by slaying me before I’ve smelt powder.”

“Where’s Miss Brown all this while?” asked Kenrick.

Laura went to the door, and called “Perdita!”

“In five minutes!” was the reply.

Clara was dressing. When, that morning, she came in from her walk, she
thought intently on her situation, and at last determined on a new line
of policy. Instead of playing the humble companion and shy recluse, she
would now put forth all her powers to dazzle and to strike. She would,
if possible, make friends, who should protest against any arbitrary
claim that Ratcliff might set up. She would vindicate her own right to
freedom by showing she was not born to be a slave. All who had known her
should feel their own honor wounded in any attempt to injure hers.

Having once fixed before herself an object, she grew calm and firm. When
her dinner was sent up, she ate it with a good appetite. Sleep, too,
that had been a stranger to her so many hours, now came to repair her
strength and revive her spirits.

No sooner had Laura left to attend to her visitors, than Clara plunged
into the drawers containing the dresses for her choice. With the
rapidity of instinct she selected the most becoming; then swiftly and
deftly, with the hand of an adept and the eye of an artist, she arranged
her toilet. A dexterous adaptation of pins speedily rectified any little
defect in the fit. Where were the collars? Locked up. No matter! There
was a frill of exquisite lace round the neck of the dress; and this
little narrow band of maroon velvet would serve to relieve the bareness
of the throat. What could she clasp it with? Laura had not left the key
of her jewel-box. A common pin would hardly answer. Suddenly Clara
bethought herself of the little coral sleeve-button, wrapped up in the
strip of bunting. That would serve admirably. Yes. Nothing could be
better. It was her only article of jewelry; though round her right wrist
she wore a hair-bracelet of her own braiding, made from that strand
given her by Esha; and from a flower-vase she had taken a small
cape-jasmine, white as alabaster, and fragrant as a garden of
honeysuckles, and thrust it in her hair. A fan? Yes, here is one.

And thus accoutred she entered the room where the three expectants were
seated.

On seeing her, Laura’s first emotion was one of admiration, as at sight
of an imposing _entrée_ at the opera. She was suddenly made aware of the
fact that Clara was the most beautiful young woman of her acquaintance;
nay, not only the most beautiful, but the most stylish. So taken by
surprise was she, so lost in looking, that it was nearly a third of a
minute before she introduced the young gentlemen. Onslow claimed
acquaintance, presented a chair, and took a seat at Clara’s side.
Kenrick stood mute and staring, as if a paradisic vision had dazed his
senses. When he threw off his bewilderment, he quieted himself with the
thought, “She can’t be as beautiful as she looks,—that’s one comfort. A
shrew, perhaps,—or, what is worse, a coquette!”

“When were you last in St. Louis, Miss Brown?” asked Onslow.

“All questions for information must be addressed to Miss Tremaine,” said
Clara. “I shall be happy to talk with you on things I know nothing
about. Shall we discuss the Dahlgren gun, or the Ericsson Monitor?”

“So! She sets up for an eccentric,” thought Onslow. “Perhaps politics
would suit you,” he added aloud. “I hear you’re an Abolitionist.”

“Ask Miss Tremaine,” said Clara.

“O, she has betrayed you already,” replied Onslow.

“Then I’ve nothing to say. I’m in her hands.”

“Is it possible,” said Kenrick, who was irrepressible on the one theme
nearest his heart, “is it possible Miss Brown can’t see it,—can’t see
the loveliness of that divine cosmos which we call slavery? Poor deluded
Miss Brown! I know not what other men may think, but as for me, give me
slavery or give me death! Do you object to woman-whipping, Miss Brown?”

“I confess I’ve my prejudices against it,” replied Clara. “But these
charges of woman-whipping, you know, are Abolition lies.”

“Yes, so Northern conservatives say; but we of the plantations know that
nearly one half the whippings are of women.”[29]

“Come! Sink the shop!” cried Laura. “Are we so dull we can’t find
anything but our horrible _bête noir_ for our amusement? Let us have
scandal, rather; nonsense, rather! Tell us a story, Mr. Kenrick.”

“Well; once on a time—how would you like a ghost-story?”

“Above all things. Charming! Only ghosts have grown so common, they no
longer thrill us.”

“Yes,” said Kenrick,—whose trivial thoughts ever seemed to call up his
serious,—“yes; materialism has done a good work in its day and
generation. It has taught us that the business of this world must go on
just as if there were no ghosts. The supernatural is no longer an
incubus and an oppression. Its phenomena no longer frighten and
paralyze. Let us, then, since we are now freed from their terrors,
welcome the great facts themselves as illumining and confirming all that
there is in the past to comfort us with the assurance of continuous life
issuing from seeming death.”

“Dear Mr. Kenrick, is this a time for a lecture?” expostulated Laura.
“Aren’t you bored, Perdita?”

“On the contrary, I’m interested.”

“What do you think of spiritualism, Miss Brown?”

“I’ve witnessed none of the phenomena, but I don’t see why the testimony
of these times, in regard to them, shouldn’t be taken as readily as that
of centuries back.”

“My father is a believer,” said Onslow; “and I have certainly seen some
unaccountable things,—tables lifted into the air,—instruments of music
floated about, and played on without visible touch,—human hands,
palpable and warm, coming out from impalpable air:—all very queer and
very inexplicable! But what do they prove? _Cui bono?_ What of it all?”

“‘Nothing in it!’ as Sir Charles Coldstream says of the Vatican,”
interposed Laura.

“You demand the use of it all,—the _cui bono_,—do you?” retorted
Kenrick. “Did it ever occur to you to make your own existence the
subject of that terrible inquiry, _cui bono_?”

“Certainly,” replied Onslow, laughing; “my _cui bono_ is to fight for
the independence of the new Confederacy.”

“And for the propagation of slavery, eh?” returned Kenrick. “I don’t see
the _cui bono_. On the contrary, to my fallible vision, the world would
be better off without than with you. But let us take a more extreme
case. These youths—Tom, Dick, and Harry—who give their days and nights,
not to the works of Addison, but to gambling, julep-drinking, and
cigar-smoking,—who hate and shun all useful work,—and are no comfort to
anybody,—only a shame and affliction to somebody,—can you explain to me
the _cui bono_ of their corrupt and unprofitable lives?”

“But how undignified in a spirit to push tables about and play on
accordions!”

“Well, what authority have you for the supposition that there are no
undignified spirits? We know there are weak and wicked spirits _in_ the
flesh; why not _out_ of the flesh? A spirit, or an intelligence claiming
to be one, writes an ungrammatical sentence or a pompous commonplace,
and signs _Bacon_ to it; and you forthwith exclaim, ‘Pooh! this can’t
come from a spirit.’ How do you know that? Mayn’t lies be told in other
worlds than this? Will the ignoramus at once be made a scholar,—the
dullard a philosopher,—the blackguard a gentleman,—the sinner a
saint,—the liar truthful,—by the simple process of elimination from this
husk of flesh? Make me at once altogether other than what I am, and you
annihilate me, and there is no immortality of the soul.”

“But what has the ghost contributed to our knowledge during these
fourteen years, since he appeared at Rochester? Of all he has brought
us, we may say, with Shakespeare, ‘There needs no ghost come from the
grave to tell us that.’”

“I’ll tell you what the ghost has contributed, not at Rochester merely,
but everywhere, through the ages. He has contributed _himself_. You say,
_cui bono?_ And I might say of ten thousand mysteries about us, _cui
bono?_ The lightning strikes the church-steeple,—_cui bono?_ An idiot is
born into the world,—_cui bono?_ It is absurd to demand as a condition
of rational faith, that we should prove a _cui bono_. A good or a use
may exist, and we be unable to see it. And yet grave men are continually
thrusting into the faces of the investigators of these phenomena this
preposterous _cui bono?_”

“Enough, my dear Mr. Kenrick!” exclaimed Laura.

But he was not to be stopped. He rose and paced the room, and continued:
“The _cui bono_ of phenomena must of course be found in the mind that
regards them. ‘I can’t find you both arguments and brains,’ said Dr.
Johnson to a noodle who thought Milton trashy. One man sees an apple
fall, and straightway thinks of the price of cider. Newton sees it, and
it suggests gravitation. One man sees a table rise in the air, and
cries: ‘It can’t be a spirit; ’t is too undignified for a spirit!’
Mountford sees it, and the immortality of the soul is thenceforth to him
a fact as positive as any fact of science.”

“Your story, dear Mr. Kenrick, your story!” urged Laura.

“My story is ended. The ghost has come and vanished.”

“Is that all?” whined Laura. “Are n’t we, then, to have a story?”

“In mercy give us some music, Miss Brown,” said Onslow.

“Play Yankee Doodle, with variations,” interposed Kenrick.

“Not unless you’d have the windows smashed in,” pleaded Onslow; and,
giving his arm, he waited on Clara to the piano.

She dashed into a medley of brilliant airs from operas, uniting them by
extemporized links of melody to break the abruptness of the transitions.
The young men were both connoisseurs; and they interchanged looks of
gratified astonishment.

“And now for a song!” exclaimed Laura.

Clara paused a moment, and sat looking with clasped hands at the keys.
Then, after a delicate prelude, she gave that song of Pestal, already
quoted.[30] She gave it with her whole soul, as if a personal wrong were
adding intensity to the defiance of her tones.

Kenrick, wrought to a state of sympathy which he could not disguise, had
taken a seat where he could watch her features while she sang. When she
had finished, she covered her face with her hands, then, finding her
emotion uncontrollable, rose and passed out of the room.

“What do you think of that, Charles?” asked Onslow.

“It was terrible,” said Kenrick. “I wanted to kill a slaveholder while
she sang.”

“But she has the powers of a _prima donna_,” said Onslow, turning to
Laura.

“Yes, one would think she had practised for the stage.”

Clara now returned with a countenance placid and smiling.

“How long do you stay in New Orleans, Miss Brown?” inquired Onslow.

“How long, Laura?” asked Clara.

“A week or two.”

“We shall have another opportunity, I hope, of hearing you sing.”

“I hope so.”

“I have an appointment now at the armory. Charles, are you ready to
walk?”

“No, thank you. I prefer to remain.”

Onslow left, and, immediately afterwards, Laura’s mother being seized
with a timely hemorrhage, Laura was called off to attend to her. Kenrick
was alone with Clara. Charming opportunity! He drew from her still
another and another song. He conversed with her on her studies,—on the
books she had read,—the pictures she had seen. He was roused by her
intelligence and wit. He spoke of slavery. Deep as was his own
detestation of it, she helped him to make it deeper. What delightful
harmony of views! Kenrick felt that his time had come. The hours slipped
by like minutes, yet there he sat chained by a fascination so new, so
strange, so delightful, he marvelled that life had in it so much of
untasted joy.

Kenrick was not accustomed to be critical in details. He looked at
general effects. But the most trifling point in Clara’s accoutrements
was now a thing to be marked and remembered. The little sleeve-button
dropped from the band round her throat. Kenrick picked it up,—examined
it,—saw, in characters so fine as to be hardly legible, the letters
C.A.B. upon it. (“B. stands for Brown,” thought he.) And then, as Clara
put out her hand to receive it, he noticed the bracelet she wore. “What
beautiful hair!” he said. He looked up at Clara’s to trace a
resemblance. But his glance stopped midway at her eyes. “Blue and gray!”
he murmured.

“Yes, can you read them?” asked Clara.

“What do you mean?”

“Only a dream I had. There’s a letter on them somebody is to open and
read.”

“O, that I were a Daniel to interpret!” said Kenrick.

At last Miss Tremaine returned. Her mother had been dangerously ill. It
was an hour after midnight. Sincerely astounded at finding it so late,
Kenrick took his leave. Heart and brain were full. “Thou art the wine
whose drunkenness is all I can desire, O love!”

And how was it with Clara? Alas, the contrariety of the affections!
Clara simply thought Kenrick a very agreeable young man: handsome, but
not so handsome as Onslow; clever, but not so clever as Vance!

-----

Footnote 27:

  General Ullmann writes from New Orleans, June 6, 1863, to Governor
  Andrew: “Every man (freed negro) presenting himself to be recruited,
  strips to the skin. My surgeons report to me that _not one in fifteen_
  is free from marks of severe lashing. More than one half are rejected
  because of disability from lashing with whips, and the biting of dogs
  on calves and thighs. It is frightful. Hundreds have welts on their
  backs as large as one of your largest fingers.”

Footnote 28:

  Abercrombie relates an authenticated case of the same kind. A woodman,
  while employed with his axe, was hit on the head by a falling tree. He
  remained in a semi-comatose state for a whole year. On being
  trepanned, he uttered an exclamation which was found to be the
  completion of the sentence he had been in the act of uttering when
  struck twelve months before.

Footnote 29:

  Among the foul records the Rebellion has unearthed is one, found at
  Alexandria, La., being a stray leaf from the diary of an overseer in
  that vicinity, in the year 1847. It chronicles the whippings of slaves
  from April 20 to May 21. Of thirty-nine whippings during that period,
  _nineteen were of females_. We give a few extracts from this precious
  and authentic document:—

  “April 20. Whipped Adam for cutting cotton too wide. Nat, for thinning
  cotton.—21. Adaline and Clem, for being behind.—24. Esther, for
  leaving child out in yard to let it cry.—27. Adaline, for being slow
  getting out of quarters.—28. Daniel, for not having cobs taken out of
  horse-trough.—May 1. Anna, Jo, Hannah, Sarah, Jim, and Jane, for not
  thinning corn right. Clem, for being too long thinning one row of
  corn. Esther, for not being out of quarters quick enough.—10. Adaline,
  for being last one out with row.—15. Esther, for leaving grass in
  cotton.—17. Peggy, for not hoeing as much cane as she ought to last
  week.—18. Polly, for not hoeing faster.—20. Martha. Esther, and Sarah,
  for jawing about row, while I was gone.—21. Polly, for not handling
  her hoe faster.”

  A United States officer from Cambridge, Mass., sent home this stray
  leaf, and it was originally published in the Cambridge Chronicle.

Footnote 30:

  See Chapter XII. page 112.




                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
                         A LETTER OF BUSINESS.

“This war’s duration can be more surely calculated from the moral
progress of the North than from the result of campaigns in the field.
Were the whole North to-day as one man on the moral issues underlying
the struggle, the Rebellion were this day crushed. God bids us, I think,
_be just and let the oppressed go free_. Let us do his bidding, and the
plagues cease.”—_Letter from a native of Richmond, Va._


The following letter belongs chronologically to this stage in our
history:—

  _From F. Macon Semmes, New York, to T. J Semmes, New Orleans._

  “DEAR BROTHER: I have called, as you requested, on Mr. Charlton in
  regard to his real estate in New Orleans. Let me give you some account
  of this man. He is taxed for upwards of a million. He inherited a good
  part of this sum from his wife, and she inherited it from a nephew,
  the late Mr. Berwick, who inherited it from his infant daughter, and
  this last from her mother. Mother, child, and father—the whole Berwick
  family—were killed by a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi some
  fifteen or sixteen years ago.

  “In the lawsuit which grew out of the conflicting claims of the
  relatives of the mother on the one side, and of the father on the
  other, it was made to appear that the mother must have been killed
  instantaneously, either by the inhalation of steam from the explosion,
  or by a blow on the head from a splinter; either cause being
  sufficient to produce immediate death. It was then proved that the
  child, having been seen with her nurse alive and struggling in the
  water, must have lived after the mother,—thus inheriting the mother’s
  property. But it was further proved that the child was drowned, and
  that the father survived the child a few hours; and thus the father’s
  heir became entitled to an estate amounting to upwards of a million of
  dollars, all of which was thus diverted from the Aylesford family (to
  whom the property ought to have gone), and bestowed on a man alien in
  blood and in every other respect to all the parties fairly interested.

  “This fortunate man was Charlton. The scandal goes, that even the wife
  from whom he derived the estate (and who died before he got it) had
  received from him such treatment as to alienate her wholly. The
  nearest relative of Mrs. Berwick, _née_ Aylesford, is a Mrs.
  Pompilard, now living with an aged husband and with dependent
  step-children and grandchildren, in a state of great impoverishment.
  To this aunt the large property derived from her brother, Mr.
  Aylesford, ought to have gone. But the law gave it to a stranger, this
  Charlton. I mention these facts, because you ask me to inform you what
  manner of man he is.

  “Let one little anecdote illustrate. Mr. Albert Pompilard, now some
  eighty years old, has been in his day a great operator in Wall Street.
  He has made half a dozen large fortunes and lost them. Five years ago,
  by a series of bold and fortunate speculations, he placed himself once
  more on the top round of the financial ladder. He paid off all his
  debts with interest, pensioned off a widowed daughter, lifted up from
  the gutter several old, broken-down friends, and advanced a handsome
  sum to his literary son-in-law, Mr. Cecil Purling, who had found, as
  he thought, a short cut to fortune. Pompilard also bought a stylish
  place on the Hudson; and people supposed he would be content to keep
  aloof from the stormy fluctuations of Wall Street.

  “But one day he read in the financial column of the newspaper certain
  facts that roused the old propensity. His near neighbor was a rich
  retired tailor, a Mr. Maloney, an Irishman, who used to come over to
  play billiards with the venerable stock-jobber. Pompilard had made a
  visit to Wall Street the day before. He had been fired with a grand
  scheme of buying up the whole of a certain stock (in which sellers at
  sixty days at a low figure were abundant) and then holding on for a
  grand rise. He did not find it difficult to kindle the financial
  enthusiasm of poor Snip.

  “Brief, the two simpletons went into the speculation, and lost every
  cent they were worth in the world. Simultaneously with their
  break-down, Purling, the son-in-law, managed to lose all that had been
  confided to his hands. The widowed daughter, Mrs. Ireton, gave up all
  the little estate her father had settled on her. Poor Maloney had to
  go back to his goose; and Pompilard, now almost an octogenarian, has
  been obliged, he and his family, to take lodgings in the cottage of
  his late gardener.

  “The other day Mr. Hicks, a friend of the family, learning that they
  were actually pinched in their resources, ventured to call upon
  Charlton for a contribution for their relief. After an evident inward
  struggle, Charlton manfully pulled out his pocket-book, and
  tendered—what, think you?—why, a ten-dollar bill! Hicks affected to
  regard the tender as an insult, and slapped the donor’s face. Charlton
  at first threatened a prosecution, but concluded it was too expensive
  a luxury. Thus you see he is a miser. It was with no little
  satisfaction, therefore, that I called to communicate the state of his
  affairs in New Orleans.

  “He lives on one of the avenues in a neat freestone house, such as
  could be hired for twenty-five hundred a year. There is a stable
  attached, and he keeps a carriage. Soon after he burst upon the
  fashionable world as a millionnaire, there was a general competition
  among fashionable families to secure him for one of the daughters. But
  Charlton, with all his wealth, did not want a wife who was merely
  stylish, clever, and beautiful; she must be rich into the bargain. He
  at last encountered such a one (as he imagined) in Miss Dykvelt, a
  member of one of the old Dutch families. He proposed, was accepted,
  married,—and three weeks afterwards, to his consternation and horror,
  he received an application from old D., the father-in-law, for a loan
  of a hundred thousand dollars.

  “Charlton, of course, indignantly refused it. He found that he had
  been, to use his own words, ‘taken in and done for.’ Old Dykvelt,
  while he kept up the style of a prince, was on the verge of
  bankruptcy. The persons to whom Charlton applied for information,
  knowing the object of the inquiry and the meanness of the inquirer,
  purposely cajoled him with stories of Dykvelt’s wealth. Charlton fell
  into the trap. Charlotte Dykvelt, who was in love at the time with
  young Ireton (a Lieutenant in the army and a grandson of old
  Pompilard), yielded to the entreaties of her parents and married the
  man she detested. She was well versed in the history of his first
  wife, and resolved that her own heart, wrung by obedience to parental
  authority, should be iron and adamant to any attempt Charlton might
  make to wound it.

  “He soon found himself overmatched. The bully and tyrant was helpless
  before the impassive frigidity and inexorable determination of that
  young and beautiful woman. He had a large iron safe in his house, in
  which he kept his securities and coupons, and often large sums of
  money. One day he discovered he had been robbed of thirty thousand
  dollars. He charged the theft upon his wife. She neither denied nor
  confessed it, but treated him with a glacial scorn before which he
  finally cowered and was dumb. Undoubtedly she had taken the money. She
  forced him against his inclination to move into a decent house, and
  keep a carriage; and at last, by a threat of leaving him, she made him
  settle on her a liberal allowance.

  “A loveless home for him, as you may suppose! One daughter, Lucy
  Charlton, is the offspring of this ill-assorted marriage; a beautiful
  girl, I am told, but who shrinks from her father’s presence as from
  something odious. Probably the mother’s impressions during pregnancy
  gave direction to the antipathies of the child; so that before it came
  into the world it was fatherless.

  “Well, I called on Charlton last Thursday. As I passed the little
  sitting-room of the basement, I saw a young and lovely girl putting
  her mouth filled with seed up to the bars of a cage, and a canary-bird
  picking the food from her lips. A cat, who seemed to be on excellent
  terms with the bird, was perched on the girl’s shoulder, and
  superintending the operation. So, thought I, she exercises her
  affections in the society of these dumb pets rather than in that of
  her father.

  “I found Charlton sitting lonely in a sort of library scantily
  furnished with books. A well-formed man, but with a face haggard and
  anxious as if his life-blood were ebbing irrecoverably with every
  penny that went from his pockets. On my mentioning your name, his eyes
  brightened; for he inferred I had come with your semiannual
  remittances. He was at once anxious to know if rents in New Orleans
  had been materially affected by the war. I told him his five houses
  near Lafayette Square, excepting that occupied on a long lease by Mr.
  Carberry Ratcliff, would not bring in half the amount they did last
  year. He groaned audibly. I then told him that your semiannual
  collections for him amounted to six thousand dollars, but that you
  were under the painful necessity of assuring him that the money would
  have to be paid all over to the Confederate government.

  “Charlton, completely struck aghast, fell back in his chair, his face
  pale, and his lips quivering. I thought he had fainted.

  “‘Your brother wouldn’t rob me, Mr. Semmes?’ he gasped forth.

  “‘Certainly not,’ I replied; ‘but his obedience is due to the
  authorities that are uppermost. The Confederate flag waves over New
  Orleans, and will probably continue to wave. All your real estate has
  been or will be confiscated.’

  “‘But it is worth two hundred thousand dollars!’ he exclaimed, in a
  tone that was almost a shriek.

  “‘So much the better for the Confederate treasury!’ I replied.

  “I then broached what you told me to in regard to his making a _bona
  fide_ sale of the property to you. I offered him twenty thousand
  dollars in cash, if he would surrender all claim.

  “‘Never! never!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll run my risk of the city’s coming
  back into our possession. I see through your brother’s trick.’

  “‘Please recall that word, sir,’ I said, touching my wristbands.

  “‘Well, your brother’s _plan_, sir. Will that suit you?’

  “‘That will do,’ I replied. ‘My brother will pay your ten thousand
  dollars over to the Confederacy. But I am authorized to pay you a
  tenth part of that sum for your receipt in full of all moneys due to
  you for rents up to this time.’

  “‘Ha! you Secessionists are not quite so positive, after all, as to
  your fortune!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re a little weak-kneed as to your
  ability to hold the place,—eh?’

  “‘The city will be burnt,’ I replied, ‘before the inhabitants will
  consent to have the old flag restored. You’d better make the most, Mr.
  Charlton, of your opportunity to compound for a fractional part of the
  value of your Southern property.’

  “It was all in vain. I couldn’t make him see it. He hates the war and
  the Lincoln administration; but he won’t sell or compound on the terms
  you propose. And, to be frank, I wouldn’t if I were he. It would be a
  capital thing for us if he could be made to do it. But as he is in no
  immediate need of money, we cannot rely on the stimulus of absolute
  want to influence him as we wish. I took my leave, quite disgusted
  with his obstinacy.

  “The fall of Sumter seems to have fired the Northern heart in earnest.
  I fear we are going to have serious work with these Yankees. Secretary
  Walker’s cheerful promise of raising the Confederate flag over Faneuil
  Hall will not be realized for some time. Nevertheless, we are bound to
  prevail—I hope. Of course every Southern man will die in the last
  ditch rather than yield one foot of Southern soil to Yankee
  domination. We must have Maryland and the Chesapeake, Fortress Monroe,
  and all the Gulf forts, Western Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky,
  Delaware,—every square inch of them. Not a rood must we part with. We
  can whip, if we’ll only think so. We’re the master race, and can do
  it. Can hold on to our niggers into the bargain. At least, we’ll talk
  as if we believed it. Perhaps the prediction will work its fulfilment.
  Who knows?

            “Fraternally yours,
                                                           F. M. S.”




                             CHAPTER XXIX.
                   THE WOMAN WHO DELIBERATES IS LOST.

“O North-wind! blow strong with God’s breath in twenty million
men.”—_Rev. John Weiss._

         “Loud wind, strong wind, sweeping o’er the mountains,
           Fresh wind, free wind, blowing from the sea,
         Pour forth thy vials like streams from airy fountains,
             Draughts of life to me.”—_Miss Muloch._


On coming down to the breakfast-table one morning, Kenrick was delighted
to encounter Vance, and asked, “What success?”

“I found in Natchez,” was the reply, “an old colored man who knew Davy
and his wife. They removed to New York, it seems, some three years ago.
I must push my inquiries further. The clew must not be dropped. The old
man, my informant, was formerly a slave. He came into my room at the
hotel, and showed me the scars on his back. Ah! I, too, could have
showed scars, if I had deemed it prudent.”

“Cousin William,” said Kenrick, “I wouldn’t take the testimony of our
own humane overseer as to slavery. I have studied the usages on other
plantations. Let me show you a photograph which I look at when my
antislavery rage wants kindling, which is not often.”

He produced the photograph of a young female, apparently a quarteroon,
sitting with back exposed naked to the hips,—her face so turned as to
show an intelligent and rather handsome profile. The flesh was all
welted, seamed, furrowed, and scarred, as if both by fire and the
scourge.

“There!” resumed Kenrick, “that I saw taken myself, and know it to be
genuine. It is one out of many I have collected. The photograph cannot
lie. It will be terrible as the recording angel in reflecting slavery as
this civil war will unearth it. What will the Carlyles and the
Gladstones say to this? Will it make them falter, think you, in their
Sadducean hoot against a noble people who are manfully fighting the
great battle of humanity against such infernalism as this?”

“They would probably fall back on the doubter’s privilege.”

“Yes, that’s the most decent way of escape. But I would pin them with
the sharp fact. That woman (her name was Margaret) belonged to the Widow
Gillespie,[31] on the Black River. Margaret had a nursing child, and,
out of maternal tenderness, had disobeyed Mrs. Gillespie’s orders to
wean it. For this she was subjected to _the punishment of the hand-saw_.
She was laid on her face, her clothes stripped up to around her neck,
her hands and feet held down, and Mrs. Gillespie, sitting by, then
‘paddled,’ or stippled the exposed body with the hand-saw. She then had
Margaret turned over, and, with heated tongs, attempted to grasp her
nipples. The writhings of the victim foiled her purpose; but between the
breasts the skin and flesh were horribly burned.”

“A favorite remark,” said Vance, “with our smug apologists of slavery,
is, that an owner’s interests will make him treat a slave well.
Undoubtedly in many cases so it is. But I have generally found that
human malignity, anger, or revenge is more than a match for human
avarice. A man will often gratify his spite even at the expense of his
pocket.”

Kenrick showed the photograph of a man with his back scarred as if by a
shower of fire.

“This poor fellow,” said Kenrick, “shows the effects of the _corn-husk
punishment_; not an unusual one on some plantations. The victim is
stretched out on the ground, with hands and feet held down. Dry
corn-husks are then lighted, and the burning embers are whipped off with
a stick so as to fall in showers of live sparks on the naked back. Such
is the ‘patriarchal’ system! Such the tender mercies bestowed on ‘our
man-servants and our maid-servants,’ as that artful dodger, Jeff Davis,
calls our plantation slaves.”

“And yet,” remarked Vance, “horrible as these things are, how small a
part of the wrong of slavery is in the mere _physical_ suffering
inflicted!”

“Yes, the crowning outrage is mental and moral.”

“This war,” resumed Vance, “is not sectional, nor geographical, nor, in
a party sense, political: it is a war of eternally antagonistic
principles,—Belial against Gabriel.”

“I took up a Northern paper to-day,” said Kenrick, “in which the writer
pleads the necessity of slavery, because, he says, ‘white men can’t work
in the rice-swamps.’ Truly, a staggering argument! The whole rice
production of the United States is only worth some four millions of
dollars per annum! A single factory in Lowell can beat that. And we are
asked to base a national policy on such considerations!”

Here the approach of guests led to a change of topic.

“And how have _your_ affairs prospered?” asked Vance.

“Ah! cousin,” replied Kenrick, “I almost blush to tell you what an
experience I’ve had.”

“Not fallen in love, I hope?”

“If it isn’t that, ’t is something very near it. The lady is staying
with Miss Tremaine. A Miss Perdita Brown. Onslow took me to see her.”

“And which is the favored admirer?”

“Onslow, I fear. I’m not a lady’s man, you see. Indeed, I never wished
to be till now. Give me a few lessons, cousin. Teach me a little
small-talk.”

“I must know something of the lady first.”

“To begin at the beginning,” said Kenrick, “there can be no dispute as
to her beauty. But there is a something in her manner that puzzles me.
Is it lack of sincerity? Not that. Is it preoccupation of thought?
Sometimes it seems that. And then some apt, flashing remark indicates
that she has her wits on the alert. You must see her and help me read
her. You visit Miss Laura?”

“Yes. I’ll do your bidding, Charles. How often have you seen this
enchantress?”

“Too often for my peace of mind: three times.”

“Is she a coquette?”

“If one, she has the art to conceal art. There seems to be something on
her mind more absorbing than the desire to fascinate. She’s an
unconscious beauty.”

“Say a deep one. Shall we meet at Miss Tremaine’s to-night?”

“Yes; the moth knows he’ll get singed, but flutter he must.”

“Take comfort, Charles, in that of thought of Tennyson’s, who tells us,

                  ‘That not a moth with vain desire
                  Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire.’”

The cousins parted. They had no sooner quitted the breakfast-room than
Onslow entered. After a hasty meal, he took his sword-belt and
military-cap, and walked forth out of the hotel. As he passed Wakeman’s
shop, near by, for the sale of books and periodicals, he was attracted
by a photograph in a small walnut frame in the window. Stopping to
examine it, he uttered an exclamation of surprise, stepped into the
shop, and said to Wakeman, “Where did you get that photograph?”

“That was sent here with several others by the photographer. You’ll find
his name on the back.”

“I see. What shall I pay you for it?”

“A dollar.”

“There it is.”

Onslow took the picture and left the shop, but did not notice that he
was followed by a well-dressed gentleman with a cigar in his mouth. This
individual had been for several days watching every passer-by who looked
at that photograph. He now followed Onslow to the head-quarters of his
regiment; put an inquiry to one of the members of the Captain’s company,
and then strolled away as if he had more leisure than he knew what to do
with. But no sooner had he turned a corner, than he entered a carriage
which was driven off at great speed.

Not an hour had passed when a black man in livery put into Onslow’s
hands this note:—

  “Will you come and dine with me at five to-day without ceremony?
  Please reply by the bearer.

                             “Yours,
                                                       C. RATCLIFF.”

What can he want? thought Onslow, somewhat gratified by such an
attention from so important a leader. Presuming that the object merely
was to ask some questions concerning military matters, the Captain
turned to the man in livery, and said, “Tell Mr. Ratcliff I will come.”

Punctually at the hour of five Onslow ascended the marble steps of
Ratcliff’s stately house, rang the bell, and was ushered into a large
and elegantly furnished drawing-room, the windows of which were heavily
curtained so as to keep out the glare of the too fervid sunlight.
Pictures and statues were disposed about the apartment, but Onslow, who
had a genuine taste for art, could find nothing that he would covet for
a private gallery of his own.

Ratcliff entered, habited in a cool suit of grass-cloth. The light hues
of his vest and neck-tie heightened the contrast of his somewhat florid
complexion, which had now lost all the smoothness of youth.
Self-indulgent habits had faithfully done their work in moulding his
exterior. Portly and puffy, he looked much older than he really was. But
in his manner of greeting Onslow there was much of that charm which
renders the hospitality of a plantation lord so attractive. Throwing
aside all that arrogance which would have made his overseers and
tradespeople keep their distance, he welcomed Onslow like an old friend
and an equal.

“You’ve a superb house here,” said the ingenuous Captain.

“’T will do, considering that I sometimes occupy it only a month in the
year,” replied Ratcliff. “I’m glad to say I only hire it. The house
belonged to a Miss Aylesford, a Yankee heiress; then passed into the
possession of a New York man, one Charlton; but I pay the rent into the
coffers of the Confederate government. The property is confiscate.”

“Won’t the Yankees retaliate?”

“We sha’n’t allow them to.”

“After we’ve whipped Yankee-Doo-dle-dom, what then?”

“Then a strong military government. Having our slaves to work for us, we
shall become the greatest martial nation in the world. Our poor whites,
now a weakness and a burden, we will convert into soldiers and Cossacks;
excepting the artisan and trading classes, and them we must
disfranchise.”[32]

“Can we expect aid from England?” asked Onslow.

“Not open aid, but substantial aid nevertheless. Exeter Hall may
grumble. The _doctrinaires_, the Newmans, Brights, Mills, and Cobdens
may protest and agitate. The English clodhoppers, mudsills, and workies
of all kinds will sympathize of course with the low-born Yankees. But
the master race of England, the non-producers, will favor the same class
here. The disintegration of North America into warring States is what
they long to see. Already the English government is swift to hail us as
belligerents. Already it refuses what it once so eagerly proffered,—an
international treaty making privateering piracy. Soon it will let us fit
out privateers in English ports. Yes, England is all right.”

Here a slave-boy announced dinner, and they entered a smaller but lofty
apartment, looking out on a garden, and having its two open windows
pleasantly latticed with grape-vines. A handsome, richly dressed
quadroon lady sat at the table. In introducing his young guest, Ratcliff
addressed her as Madame Volney.

Onslow, in his innocence, inquired after Mrs. Ratcliff.

“My wife is an invalid, and rarely quits her room,” said the host.

The dinner was sumptuous, beginning with turtle-soup and ending with
ices and fruits. The costliest Burgundies and Champagnes were uncorked,
if only for a sip of their flavors. Madame Volney, half French, was
gracious and talkative, occasionally checking Ratcliff in his eating,
and warning him to be prudent. At last cigars were brought on, and she
left the room. Ratcliff rose and listened at the door, as if to be sure
she had gone up-stairs. Then, walking on tiptoe, he resumed his seat. He
alluded to the opera,—to the ballet,—to the subject of pretty women.

“And _apropos_ of pretty women,” he exclaimed, “let me show you a
photograph of one I have in my pocket.”

As he spoke, there was a rustling in the grape-vines at a window. He
turned, but saw nothing.

Onslow took the photograph, and exclaimed: “But this is astonishing!
I’ve a copy of the same in my pocket.”

“You surprise me, Captain. Do you know the original?”

“Quite well; and I grant you she’s beautiful.”

Onslow did not notice the expression of Ratcliff’s face at this
confession, but another did. Lifting a glass of Burgundy so as to help
his affectation of indifference, “Confess now, Captain,” said Ratcliff,
“that you’re a favorite! That delicate mouth has been pressed by your
lips; those ivory shoulders have known your touch.”

“O never! never!” returned Onslow, with the emphasis of sincerity in his
tone. “You misjudge the character of the lady. She’s a friend of Miss
Tremaine,—is now passing a few days with her at the St. Charles. A lady
wholly respectable. Miss Perdita Brown of St. Louis! That rascally
photographer ought to be whipped for making money out of her beautiful
picture.”

“Has she admirers in her train?” asked Ratcliff.

“I know of but one beside myself.”

“Indeed! And who is he?”

“Charles Kenrick has called on her with me.”

“By the way, Wigman tells me that Charles insulted the flag the other
day.”

“Poh! Wigman was so drunk he couldn’t distinguish jest from earnest.”

“So Robson told me. But touching this Miss Brown,—is she as pretty as
her photograph would declare?”

“It hardly does her justice. But her sweet face is the least of her
charms. She talks well,—sings well,—plays well,—and, young as she is,
has the bearing, the dignity, the grace, of the consummate lady.”

Here there was another rustling, as if the grape-vine were pulled.
Ratcliff started, went to the window, looked out, but, seeing nothing,
remarked, “The wind must be rising,” and returned to his seat. “I’ve
omitted,” said he, “to ask after your family; are they well?”

“Yes; they were in Austin when I heard from them last. My father, I
grieve to say, goes with Hamilton and his set in opposition to the
Southern movement. My brother, William Temple, is equally infatuated. My
mother and sister of course acquiesce. So I’m the only faithful one of
my family.”

“You deserve a colonelcy for that.”

“Thank you. Is your clock right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must go. I’ve an engagement.”

“Sorry for it. Beware of Miss Brown. This is the day of Mars, not Venus.
Good by.”

When Onslow had gone, Ratcliff sat five minutes as if meditating on some
plan. Then, drawing forth a pocket-book, he took out an envelope,—wrote
on it,—reflected,—and wrote again. When he had finished, he ordered the
carriage to be brought to the door. As he was passing through the hall,
Madame Volney, from the stairs, asked where he was going.

“To the St. Charles, on political business.”

“Don’t be out late, dear,” said Madame. “Let me see how you look. Your
neck-tie is out of place. Let me fix it. There! And your vest needs
buttoning. So!” And as her delicate hands passed around his person, they
slid unperceived into a side-pocket of his coat, and drew forth what he
had just deposited there.

“Bother! That will do, Josephine,” grumbled Ratcliff. She released him
with a kiss. He descended the marble steps of the house, entered a
carriage, and drove off.

Madame passed into the dining-room, the brilliant gas-lights of which
had not yet been lowered, and, opening the pocket-book, drew out several
photographic cards, all containing one and the same likeness of a young
and beautiful girl. As the quadroon scanned that fresh vernal
countenance, that adorably innocent, but earnest and intelligent
expression, those thick, wavy tresses, and that exquisitely moulded
bust, her own handsome face grew grim and ugly by the transmuting power
of anger and jealousy. “So, this is the game he’s pursuing, is it?” she
muttered. “This is what makes him restive! Not politics, as he pretends,
but this smoothed-faced decoy! Deep as you’ve kept it, Ratcliff, I’ve
fathomed you at last!”

Searching further among his papers, she found an envelope, on which
certain memoranda were pencilled, and among them these: “_First see
Tremaine. Arrange for seizure without scandal or noise. Early in morning
call on Gentry,—have her prepared. Take Esha with us to help._”

Hardly had Madame time to read this, when a carriage stopped before the
door. Laying the pocket-book with its contents, as if undisturbed, on
the table, she ran half-way up-stairs. Ratcliff re-entered, and, after
looking about the hall, passed into the dining-room. “Ah! here it is!”
she heard him say to the attendant; “I could have sworn I put it in my
pocket.” He then left the house, and the carriage again drove off,—drove
to the St. Charles, where Ratcliff had a long private interview with the
pliable Tremaine.

While it was going on, Laura and Clara sat in the drawing-room, waiting
for company. Laura having disapproved of the costume in which Clara had
first appeared, the latter now wore a plain robe of black silk; and
around her too beautiful neck Laura had put a collar, large enough to be
called a cape, fastening it in front with an old-fashioned cameo pin.
But how provoking! This dress would insist on being more becoming even
than the other!

Vance was the earliest of the visitors. On being introduced to Clara, he
bowed as if they had never met before. Then, seating himself by Laura,
he devoted himself assiduously to her entertainment. Clara turned over
the leaves of a music-book, and took no part in the conversation. Yes!
It was plain that Vance was deeply interested in the superficial, but
showy Laura. Well, what better could be expected of a man?

Once more was Laura summoned to the bed-side of her mother. “How
vexatious!” Regretfully she left the drawing-room. As soon as she had
gone, Vance rose, and, taking a seat by Clara, offered her his hand. She
returned its cordial pressure. “My dear young friend,” he said, “tell me
everything. What can I do for you?”

O, that she might fling herself on that strong arm and tender heart!
That she might disclose to him her whole situation! Impulses, eager and
tumultuous, urged her to do this. Then there was a struggle as if to
keep down the ready confession. Pride battled with the feminine instinct
that claimed a protector.

What! This man, on whom she had no more claim than on the veriest
stranger,—should she put upon him the burden of her confidence? This man
who in one minute had whispered more flattering things in the ear of
Laura than he had said to Clara during the whole of their
acquaintance,—should she ask favors from _him_? O, if he would, by look
or word, but betray that he felt an interest in her beyond that of mere
friendship! But then came the frightful thought, “I am a slave!” And
Clara shuddered to think that no honorable attachment between her and a
gentleman could exist.

“What of that? Surely I may claim from him the help which any true man
ought to lend to a woman threatened with outrage. Stop there! Does not
the chivalry of the plantation reverse the notions of the old
knight-errants, and give heed to no damsel in distress, unless she can
show free papers? Nay, will not the representative of the blood of all
the cavaliers look calmly on, and smoke his cigar, while a woman is
bound naked to a tree and scourged?”

And then her mind ran rapidly over certain stories which a slave-girl,
once temporarily hired by Mrs. Gentry, had told of the punishments of
female slaves: how, for claiming too long a respite from work after
childbirth, they had been “fastened up by their wrists to a beam, or to
a branch of a tree, their feet barely touching the ground,” and in that
position horribly scourged with a leather thong; perhaps, the father,
brother, or husband of the victim being compelled to officiate as the
scourger![33]

“But surely this man, whose very glance seems shelter and
protection,—this true and generous _gentleman_,—must belong to a very
different order of chivalry from that of the Davises, the Lees, and the
Toombses. Yes! I’ll stake my life he’s another kind of cavalier from
those foul, obscene, and dastardly woman-whipping miscreants and
scoundrels. Yes! I’ll comply with that gracious entreaty of his, ‘Tell
me everything!’ I’ll confess all.”

Her heart throbbed. She was on the point of uttering that one name,
_Ratcliff_,—a sound that would have inspired Vance with the power and
wisdom of an archangel to rescue her,—when there were voices at the
door, and Laura entered, followed by Onslow. They brought with them a
noise of talking and laughing. Soon Kenrick joined the party.

The golden opportunity seemed to have slipped by!

To Kenrick’s gaze Clara never appeared so transcendent. But there was an
unwonted paleness on her cheeks; and what meant that thoughtful and
serious air? For a sensitive moral barometer commend us to a lover’s
heart!

Of course there was music; and Clara sang.

“What do you think of her voice?” asked Laura of Vance.

“It justifies all your praises,” was the reply; and then, seeing that
Clara was not in the mood for display, he took her place at the piano,
and rattled away just as Laura requested. Onslow tried to engage Clara
in conversation; but a cloud, as if from some impending ill, was
palpably over her.

Kenrick sat by in silence, deaf to the brilliant music. Clara’s
presence, with its subtle magnetism, had steeped his own thoughts in the
prevailing hue of hers. Suddenly he turned to her, and whispered: “You
want help. What is it? Grant me the privilege of a brother. What can I
do for you?”

The glance Clara turned upon him was so full of thanks, so radiant with
gratitude, that hope sprang in his heart. But before she could put her
reply in words, Laura had come up, and taken her away to the piano for a
concluding song. Clara gave them Longfellow’s “Rainy Day” to Dempster’s
music.

The little gilt clock over the mantel tinkled eleven.

Vance rose to go, and said to Laura, “May I call on Miss Brown to-morrow
with some new music?”

“I’ll answer for her, yes,” replied Laura. “We shall be at home any time
after twelve.”

The gentlemen all took leave. Onslow made his exit the last. A rose that
had been fastened in Clara’s waist dropped on the floor. “May I have
it?” he asked, picking it up.

“Why not? I wish it were fresher. Good night!” And she put out her hand.
Onslow eagerly pressed it; but Clara, lifting his, said, “May this hand
never strike except for justice and human freedom!”

“Amen to that!” replied Onslow, before he well took in the entire
meaning of what she had said.

He hastened to rejoin his friends, following them through the corridor.
He seemed to tread on air. “I was the only one she offered to shake
hands with!” he exultingly soliloquized.

The three parted, after an interchange of good nights. Both Onslow and
Kenrick betook themselves to their rooms, each with no desire for other
companionship than his own rose-colored dreams.




                              CHAPTER XXX.
                        A FEMININE VAN AMBURGH.

         “She who ne’er answers till a husband cools,
         Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules.”—_Pope._


The morning after the dinner, Madame Volney rose at sunrise, and was
stealing on tiptoe into her dressing-room, when Ratcliff, always a late
riser, grumbled, “What’s the matter?”

“There’s to be an early church-service,” she replied.

“Bah! You’re always going to church!”

The quadroon made no reply, but gently retired, dressed, and glided out
of the house into the open air. On through the yet deserted streets she
swiftly passed. A white fog brooded over the city. Heavy-winged
sea-birds were slowly making their way overhead to the marshes of Lake
Ponchartrain, or still farther out to the beaches of the Gulf. The sound
of drums and fifes in the distance occasionally broke the matutinal
stillness. The walls of the streets were covered with placards of
meetings of volunteer companies,—of the Wigman Rifles, the MacMahon
Guards, the Beauregard Lancers, the Black Flag Invincibles.

After half an hour’s walk, the quadroon paused before a house, on the
door of which was a brass plate presenting the words,—“Mrs. Gentry’s
Seminary for Young Ladies.” While she looked and hesitated, a black girl
came up from some steps leading into the basement, and with a mop and
pail of water proceeded to wash the sidewalk.

“Is Esha in?” asked the quadroon.

“Yes, missis, Esha am in. Jes you go down dem steps inter de kitchen,
an’ dar you’ll fine Esha, sure.” And taking the direction pointed out,
Madame found herself in the presence of a large, powerfully built
mulatto woman, who was engaged in preparations for breakfast.

“Is this Esha?”

“Yes, missis, dis am nob’dy else.”

“Esha, I want a few minutes’ talk with you.”

“Take a char, den, missis, and ’scuse my looks.”

“You look like a good woman, Esha, so no matter for dress.”

“Tahnk yer, missis. Esha’s like de res’,—not too good,—but nebdeless
dar’s wuss folks dan she.”

“Esha, who is this young girl Mr. Ratcliff is after?”

Esha’s eyes snapped, and she looked sharply at her visitor. “Why you
want ter know?” she asked.

“Are you a slave, Esha?”

“Yes, missis, I’se born a slabe,—hab libd a slabe, an’ ’spek to die a
slabe.”

“I too am a slave, Esha. I belonged to old Etienne La Harpe, who died
six years ago. Though I had had two children, one by him and one by his
son, the old man’s widow sent me to the auction-block. I was sold to the
highest bidder. I was bought by Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”

“Ah! by him? by him?” muttered Esha.

“I was handsome. He made me his favorite. I’ve been faithful to him.
Even his wife, poor thing, blesses the day I came into the house. She
would have died long ago but for my care. The slaves, too, come to me
with their sorrows. I do what I can for their relief. I am not, by
nature, a bad woman. I would continue to serve this man and his
household.”

“Do yer lub him,—dis Massa Ratcliff?”

“That’s a hard question, Esha. He has treated me like a lady. I am
practically at the head of his house. I have a carriage at my command.
He gives me all the money I ask for. He prizes me for my prudence and
good temper. I love him so far as this: I should hate the woman who
threatened to step between me and him. Now tell me who this girl is
whose photograph he has.”

“She, missis? She am a slabe too.”

“She a slave? Whose slave?”

“She ’longs to Massa Ratcliff!”

“And he has kept it a secret from me!”

Esha, like most slaves, was a quick judge of character. She had an
almost intuitive perception of shams. Convinced of the quadroon’s
sincerity, she now threw a cushion on the floor, and, seating herself on
it after the Oriental fashion, frankly told the whole story of the child
Clara, and disclosed the true nature of her own relations to Ratcliff.
When she had concluded, Madame Volney impulsively kissed her.

“And are you sure,” she asked, “quite sure that little Darling, as you
call her, will resist Ratcliff to the last?”

“Dat chile will sooner die dan gib up ter dat ole man. What you ’spose
she went out ter buy dat day I met her last? Wall, missis, she buyed a
dagger.”

“Good! I love her!” cried Madame Volney, with flushed cheeks. “But Esha,
do you know where she is now?”

“Yes, missis; but I tink I better not tell eb’n you,—’cause you see—”

“She’s with Miss Tremaine, at the St. Charles!”

“De Lord help us! How yer know dat, missis?” cried Esha, alarmed. “Do
Massa Ratcliff know ’bout it?”

“He knows it all, and has made his preparations for seizing the girl
this very day. He’ll be here this morning to give you your directions.
Now, Esha, don’t make a blunder. Don’t let him see that you’re the
girl’s friend. Say nothing of my visit. I’ll tell you what I suspect:
Ratcliff knows his wife can’t live three months longer. He has never had
a child by her. All his children are mulattoes and illegitimate. The
desire of his heart is for a lawful heir. He means—Are you sure the girl
is white?”

“I tell yer, missis, whoebber sold her, fust stained her skin to put up
de price. Shouldn’t be ’stonished if dat chile was kidnapped.”

Madame Volney looked at her watch. “Esha,” she said, “you’ll be employed
by Ratcliff to help secure her person. If, when he comes to you, the
ribbon on his straw hat is _green_, do as he tells you. Should the
ribbon be _black_, tell him to wait ten minutes. Then do you run round
the corner to Aurora Street, where you’ll see a carriage with a white
handkerchief held out at the right-hand window. You’ll find me there.
We’ll drive to the St. Charles, and take the girl with us somewhere out
of Ratcliff’s reach. Can you remember all I’ve told you?”

“Ebry word ob it, missis! Tahnk de Lord fur sendin’ yer. Watch Massa
Ratcliff sharp. Fix him sure, missis,—fix him sure!”

“Trust me, Esha! He seizes no young girl to-day, unless I let him. But
be very prudent. You may need money.”

“No, missis. No pay fur tellin’ de troof.”

“But you may need it for the child’s sake.”

“O yis, missis. I’ll take it fur de chile, sure.”

Madame Volney placed in her hands thirty dollars in gold, then left the
house, and, hailing a carriage at a neighboring stand, told the driver
where to take her. “Double speed, double fare!” she added. In ten
minutes she was at home.

Ratcliff had not yet come down. He had rung the bell, and given orders
for an early breakfast. Madame went up to her dressing-room, and put on
her most becoming morning attire. We have called her a quadroon; but her
complexion was of that clear golden hue, mixed with olive and a dash of
carnation, which so many Southern amateurs prefer to the pure red and
white of a light-haired Anglo-Saxon.

When Ratcliff came down, he complimented her on her good looks, and
kissed her.

“I’ve been to confession,” she said, as she touched the tap of a
splendid silver urn, and let hot water into the cups.

“And what have you been confessing, Josy?”

“I’ve been confessing how very foolish I’ve been the last few months.”

“Foolish in what, Josephine?”

“Foolish in my jealousy of _you_.”

“Jealousy? What cause have I given you for jealousy? I’ve been too much
bothered about public matters to have time to think of any woman but
you.”

“That’s partly true. But don’t I know what you most desire of earthly
things?”

“Of course! You know I desire the success of the Southern Confederacy,
corner-stone and all.”

“No, not that. You covet one thing even more than that.”

“Indeed! What is it?”

“A legitimate child who may inherit your wealth, and transmit your
name.”

“Yes, I’d like a child. But we must take things as they come along. You
mustn’t be jealous because now and then I may have dropped a hint of
regret that I’ve no direct heir to my estate.”

“You’ve not confined yourself to hints. You’ve been provident in act as
well as in thought.”

“What the deuce do you mean?”

“Don’t be angry when I tell you, you haven’t planned a plan, the last
three months, of which I haven’t been aware.”

“Well, I’ve always thought you the keenest woman of my acquaintance; but
I’d like to have it put through my hair what you’re exactly driving at
now. What is it?”

“This: I know your scheme in regard to Miss Murray, and, what is more, I
highly approve of it.”

“You’re the Devil!” exclaimed Ratcliff, starting up from his seat. Then,
seeing Josephine’s unaffected smile and evident good humor, he sat down.

“At first I was a little chagrined,” she said, “especially when I found
Mademoiselle so very pretty. But I’ve reflected much on it since, and
talked with my confessor about it.”

“The deuce you have! Talked with your confessor, eh?”

“Yes, with my confessor. And the result is, that, so far from opposing
you in your plan, I’ve concluded to give it my support.”

“And what do you understand to be my plan?”

“Perhaps ’ tis vague even in your own mind as yet. But I’ll tell you
what I mean. Your wife is not likely to live many weeks longer. You’ll
inherit from her a large estate. You’ll wish to marry again, and this
time with a view to offspring. Both taste and policy will lead you to
choose a young and accomplished woman. Who more suitable than Miss
Murray?”

“Why, Josephine, she’s a slave!”

“A slave, is she? Look me in the face and tell me, if you can, you
believe she has a drop of African blood in her veins. No! That child
must have been kidnapped. And you have often suspected as much.”

“Where the Devil—Confound the woman!” muttered Ratcliff, half frightened
at what looked like clairvoyance.

“Yes,” she continued, “her parents must have been of gentle blood. Look
at her hands and feet. Hear her speak.”

“What is there you don’t find out, Josy?” exclaimed Ratcliff. “Here you
tell me things that have been working in my mind, which I was hardly
aware of myself till you mentioned them!”

“O, I’ve known all about your search for the girl. ’T was not till after
a struggle I could reconcile it to my mind to lend you my aid. But this
was what I thought: He will soon be a widower. He will desire to marry;
not that he does not love his Josy—”

“Yes, Josy, you’re right there; you’re a jewel of a woman. Such devilish
good common sense! Go on.”

“He would marry, not that he does not love his Josy, but because he
wants a legitimate child of his own. That’s but natural and proper. Why
should I oppose it, and thus give him cause to cast me out from his
affections? Why not give him new reason for attachment, by showing him I
am capable of a sacrifice for his sake? Yes, he will love me none the
less for letting him see that without one jealous pang I can help him to
a young and beautiful wife.”

“But, Josy, would you really recommend my marrying this girl?”

“Why not? Where will you find her equal?”

“But just think of it,—she was sold to me at public auction as a slave.”

“Yes, and the next day Mrs. Gentry wrote you that the coloring stuff had
washed off from her skin, and she was whiter than any one in the school.
You wrote not a word in reply. But did not the thought occur to you, the
child has been kidnapped? Of course it did! In this great city of rogues
and murderers, did you not consider there were plenty of men capable of
such an act? Deny it if you can.”

“Josy, you’re enough to unsteady a man’s nerves. How did you discover
there was such a being as Miss Murray? and how did you get out of my
mind what I had thought about the kidnapping? and how, what I myself had
hardly dreamed of, the idea, namely, of making her my wife?”

“When one loves,” replied Josephine, “one is quick to watch, and sharp
to detect. At first, as I’ve told you, I was disposed to be jealous. But
reflection soon convinced me ’ would be for your happiness to take this
young person, now in the false position of a slave, and educate her for
your wife. Even if the world should know her story, what would you care?
You’re above all social criticism. Besides, would it not be comical for
our swarthy Creole ladies to snuff at such a beautiful blonde, whose
very presence would give the lie to all that malice could insinuate as
to her birth?”

“O, I don’t care for what society may say. I’m out of the reach of its
sneers. And what you urge, Josy, is reasonable,—very. Yes, she’s a
remarkably fine girl, and I’ve certainly taken a strong fancy to her.
Some of our first young men are already deep in love with her. Of course
she’d be eternally grateful, if I were to emancipate her and make her my
wife.”

Josephine could hardly repress a smile of triumph to see this
thorough-bred tyrant, who knew no law but his own will, thus falling
into the snare she was so delicately spreading for him. Something of the
satisfaction Van Amburgh might have felt when his tiger succumbed,
spread its glow over her cheeks. Never in his coarse calculations had
Ratcliff thought of showing Clara any further mercy than he had shown to
the humblest of his concubines. And yet Josephine, by her apt
suggestions, had half persuaded him, little given as he was to
introspective analysis, that the idea of making the girl his wife had
originated in his own mind!

“Did he keep the whole story from her because he supposed Josy would be
jealous?” asked the quadroon, with a caress.

“Why, yes, Josy; to tell the truth, I thought there’d have to be a scene
sure, when you found out I’d been educating such a girl with a view to
her taking your place some time. So I kept dark. But you’re a trump,—you
are! I shouldn’t wonder if you could acquire the same influence over her
that you now have over my wife.”

“Easily!” said Josephine. “I’ve seen her. I like her. I know we should
agree. When she learns it was my wish you should emancipate and marry
her, she will regard me as her friend. I can teach her not to be jealous
of me.”

“Capital!” exclaimed Ratcliff. “Josy can remain where she is in the
family. Josy will not have to abdicate. There’ll be no unpleasant row
between the two women. The whole thing can be harmoniously managed.”

“Why not, Carberry? And let me say ’ would be folly to seize this girl
rudely, wounding her pride and rousing her resentment. The true way is
to decoy her gently till you get her into your possession, and then
secure her by such means as I can suggest.”

“Hang me, but you’re right again, Josy! I had thought of carrying her
off this very day.”

“Yes, I supposed so.”

“Supposed so? Where in the name of all the devils did you get your
information? For there’s but one person beside myself who knows anything
about it.”

“And that’s Mr. Tremaine!”

“So it is, by Jove! How did you know it?”

“I put this and that together, and drew an inference. You mean to place
her again, for the present, at Mrs. Gentry’s.”

“True! That was my plan. But I hadn’t mentioned it to a soul.”

“What of that? Where one loves, one has such insight! But is there any
one at Mrs. Gentry’s on whom you can rely to keep watch of the girl?”

“Yes, there’s an old slave-woman,—Esha. She has a grudge against the
little miss, and isn’t likely to be too indulgent.”

“But why, Carberry, would you take the little miss to Mrs. Gentry’s
rather than to your own house? I see! You thought I would be in the way;
that I would be jealous of her! Confess!”

“Yes, Josy, I didn’t think anything else.”

“Well, now, let me plan for you: first, I, with Esha, will call on her.
Esha can easily persuade her that the best thing she can do will be to
come with us to this house. We’ll have the blue room ready for her. It
being between two other rooms, and having no other exit than through
them, she will not have another chance to abscond. Esha would perhaps be
a suitable person to keep guard. But then probably Mrs. Gentry wouldn’t
part with Esha.”

“Bah! Gentry will have to do as I order, or see her school broken up as
an Abolition concern. Your plan strikes me favorably, Josy; but what if
the girl should refuse to accompany you?”

“We can have an officer close by to apply to in case of need.”

“Of course! What a woman you are for plotting!”

“Yes, Carberry, give me _carte blanche_ to act for you, and I’ll have
her here before one o’clock. But there’s a condition, Carberry.”

“Name it, Josy.”

“It is, that so long as your present wife lives, you shall keep strictly
aloof from the maiden, not even taking the liberty of a kiss. Don’t you
see why? She has been religiously brought up. She is pure, with
affections disengaged. Would it be for your future interests as a
husband to undo all that has been done for her moral education? Surely
no! You mean to make her your wife; and the wife of Carberry Ratcliff
must be intemerate!”

“Right! right! A thousand times right!” exclaimed the debauchee, his
pride getting the ascendency.

“For the present, then,” continued the quadroon, “you, a married man,
must hardly look on her. Consent to this, and I’ll take the whole
trouble of the affair off your hands. I’ll bring the girl here, and so
mould her that she will be prepared to be your lawful wife as soon as
decency may permit.”

Ratcliff rose from the table, and paced the floor. Under Josephine’s way
of presenting the subject, what had seemed rather an embarrassing job
began to assume a new and attractive aspect. How well-judged the whole
arrangement! The idea of elevating Clara to the exalted position of
successor to the present Mrs. Ratcliff was fast becoming more and more
inviting to his contemplation. Wealth in a wife would be of no account.
He would have enough of his own. Family rank was desirable; but did not
the girl give every sign of high blood? It would not be surprising if,
in fact, she were of a stock almost equal to his own in gentility.
Besides, would not he, a Ratcliff, carry, lodged in his own person,
sufficient dignity of pedigree to cover the genealogical shortcomings of
a wife?

The fact that Onslow and Kenrick admired her did much to enhance the
girl’s value in his eyes; and he could readily see how it would be for
Madame Volney’s interests, since she knew he meant to marry again, to
have the training, to a certain extent, of his future wife, and put her
under a seeming obligation. And so the quadroon’s protestations that she
had conquered all jealousy on the subject seemed to him the most natural
thing in the world.

“Well, Josy,” said he, after a silence of some minutes, “I accept your
condition; I give the promise you demand.”

“Honor bright?”

“Yes; you’ll have me close under your eyes. I commit the girl entirely
to your keeping. I will myself go at once and see Esha, and send her to
you here. I’ll also see Tremaine, and shut up his mouth with a plug that
will be effectual. The fellow owes me money. Then you can take Esha in
the carriage, and go and put your plan in execution.”

“Good! You’ve decided wisely, Carberry. Shall I order the carriage for
you?”

“Yes. I’ll send it back to you with Esha, and then myself go on foot to
the St. Charles to see Tremaine.”

Ratcliff passed out of the breakfast-room, and the quadroon went to the
hat-closet in the hall, and removed the straw hat with a _black_ ribbon
on it, leaving the one distinguished by a _green_ band. She then rang
and ordered the carriage.




                             CHAPTER XXXI.
                        ONE OF THE INSTITUTIONS.

       “Small service is true service while it lasts;
       Of friends, however humble, scorn not one.”—_Wordsworth._


On being bought at the auction-block by Ratcliff, and introduced into
his household, Josephine Volney, the quadroon, had devoted herself to
the health of his wife from purely selfish motives. But in natures not
radically perverse, beneficence cannot long be divorced from
benevolence. Josephine believed her interests lay in preventing as long
as possible a second marriage: hence, at first, her sedulous care of the
invalid wife.

Those who know anything of society in the Slave States are well aware
that concubinage (one of the institutions of _the_ institution) is
there, in many conspicuous instances, as patiently acquiesced in by
wives as polygamy is in Utah. Mrs. Ratcliff had, at first, almost adored
her husband. Very unattractive, personally, she had yet an affectionate
nature, and one of her most marked traits was gratitude for kindness.
Soon Ratcliff dropped the mask by which he had won her; and she, instead
of lamenting over her mistake, accepted as a necessary evil the fact of
his relations to the handsome slave. The latter attempted no deception,
but conducted herself as discreetly as any woman, so educated, could
have done, under such compulsory circumstances.

Mrs. Ratcliff was soon touched by Josephine’s obvious solicitude to
minister to her happiness and health. The slave-girl’s childlike
frankness begot frankness on the part of the wife. Seeing that their
interests were identical, each was gradually drawn to the other, till a
sincere and tender attachment was the result. The wife was made aware of
her husband’s calculations in regard to a second marriage; and Josephine
found in that wife a faithful and crafty ally, too deep, with all her
shallowness, to be fathomed by the husband.

No sooner had Ratcliff quitted the house, on the morning of the
breakfast described, than Josephine hurried to the invalid’s room. A
poor diminutive Creole lady, with wrinkled skin, darker even than the
quadroon’s, and with one shoulder higher than the other, she sat, with a
white crape-shawl wrapped round her, in a large arm-chair. Her face, as
Josephine entered, lighted up with a smile of welcome that for a moment
seemed to transfigure even those withered and pain-stricken features. In
half an hour Josephine had put her in possession of all the developments
of the last two days, and of her own plans for controlling the movements
of Ratcliff in regard to the young white woman supposed to be his slave.

With absorbed interest the invalid listened to the details, and approved
warmly of what Josephine had planned. Her feminine curiosity was pleased
with the idea of having, in her own house and under her own eye, this
young person whom Ratcliff had presumed to think of as a second wife;
while the thought of baffling him in his selfish schemes sent a shock of
pleasure to her heart. Furthermore, the excitement seemed to brace up
her frame anew, and to ruffle into breezy action the torpid tide of her
monotonous existence.

Esha was announced and introduced. A new and refreshing incident for the
invalid! And now, if Esha had needed any further confirmation of the
quadroon’s story, it was amply afforded. Josephine’s project for the
present security of Ratcliff’s white slave was discussed and approved.

The carriage was waiting at the door. “Go now,” said Mrs. Ratcliff, “and
be sure you bring the girl right up to see me.”

In less than twenty minutes afterwards, as Clara, lonely and anxious,
sat in Tremaine’s drawing-room, a servant entered and told her that a
colored woman was in Number 13, waiting to see her. Supposing it could
be no other than Esha, she followed the servant to the room, and, on
entering, recoiled at sight of a stranger. For a moment the quadroon was
so absorbed in scanning the girl’s whole personal outline, that there
was silence on both sides.

“What’s wanting?” asked Clara, half dreading some trick.

“Please close the door, and I’ll tell you,” was the reply. Clara did as
she was requested. “Have you any objections to locking the door?”
continued the quadroon.

“None whatever,” replied Clara, and she locked it.

“You fear I may be here as an agent of Mr. Ratcliff,” said Josephine.

“Ah! am I betrayed?” cried Clara, instinctively carrying her hand to her
bosom, where lay the weapon she had bought. The quadroon noticed the
gesture, and smiled. “Sit down,” she said, “and do not consider me an
enemy until I have proved myself such. Listen to what I have to
propose.” Clara took a seat where she could be within reach of the door,
and then pointed to the sofa.

“Yes, I will sit here,” said the quadroon, complying with the tacit
invitation. “Now, listen, dear young lady, to a proposition I am
authorized to make. Mr. Ratcliff will very soon be a widower. His wife
cannot survive three months. He has seen you, and likes you. He is
willing to lift you from slavery to freedom,—from poverty to
wealth,—from obscurity to grandeur,—on one very easy condition; this,
namely: that, as soon after his wife’s death as propriety will allow,
you will yourself become Mrs. Ratcliff.”

“Never!” exclaimed Clara, the blood flaming up like red auroras over
neck, face, and brow.

“But consider, my dear. You will, in the first place, be forthwith
treated with all the respect and consideration due to Mr. Ratcliff’s
future bride. As soon as he has you secure as his wife, he will
emancipate you,—make you a free woman. Think of that! Mr. Ratcliff is
supposed to be worth at least five millions. You will at once have such
a purse as no other young woman in the city can boast. Now why not be
reasonable? Why not say _yes_ to the proposition?”

“Never! never!” cried Clara, carrying her hand again to her breast with
a gesture she thought significant only to herself.

Josephine rose and felt of the bosom of Clara’s dress till she
distinguished the weapon of which Esha had spoken. Then a smile, so
sincere as to forbid suspicion, broke over the quadroon’s face, and she
exclaimed: “Let me kiss you! Let me hug you!” And having given vent to
her satisfaction in an embrace, she unlocked the door, and there stood
Esha.

“What does it all mean, Esha?” asked Clara, bewildered.

“It mean, darlin’, dat Massa Ratcliff hab tracked you to dis yere place,
an’ we two women mean to pull de wool ober his eyes, so he can’t do yer
no harm no how. You jes do what we want yer to, and we’ll bodder him so
he sha’n’ know his head’s his own.”

Josephine then communicated all the facts that had come to her knowledge
in regard to Ratcliff’s pursuit of Clara, together with her own
conversation with him that morning, and the plan she had contrived for
his discomfiture. “As soon,” she said, “as such an opportunity offers
that I can be sure you can be put beyond his reach, I will supply you
with money, and help you to escape.”

Truth beamed from her looks, and made itself musical in her tones, and
Clara gratefully pressed her hand.

“And shall I have Esha with me?” she asked.

“Yes; and Mrs. Ratcliff, though an invalid, will also befriend you. ’T
will be strange indeed if we four women can’t defeat one man.”

“But I shall have all the slave-hunters in the Confederacy after me if I
try to get away.”

“Do not fear. We have golden keys that open many doors of escape.”

Clara did not hesitate. She had faith in Esha’s quickness, as well as in
her own, to detect insincerity. And so she was persuaded that her safest
present course would be to go boldly into the house of the very man she
had most cause to dread!

It was agreed that the three should leave together at once. Clara went
to her sleeping-room, and there, encountering the chambermaid, made her
a present of two dollars, and sent her off. Laura was absent at the
dressmaker’s.

“I would like,” said Clara, “to find out at the bar what charge has been
made for my stay here, and pay it.”

“Let me do it for you,” suggested the quadroon.

“If you would be so kind!” replied Clara. “Here are fifteen dollars. I
don’t think it can come to more than that.”

Without taking the money, Josephine left the room. In five minutes she
returned with a receipted bill, made out against “Miss Tremaine’s
friend.” This receipt Clara enclosed, together with a five-dollar
gold-piece, in a letter to Laura, containing these words:—

  “I thank you for all the hospitality I have received at your hands.
  Enclosed you will find my hotel bill receipted, also five dollars for
  the use of such dresses as I have worn. With best wishes for your
  mother’s restoration to health and for your own welfare, I bid you
  good by.

                                                              P. B.”

The three women now passed through a side entrance to the street where
the carriage was in waiting; and before half an hour had elapsed, Clara
was established in the blue room of the house in Lafayette Square,—the
invalid lady had seen her and approved,—and Esha, like a faithful hound,
was following her steps, keeping watch, as Ratcliff had directed, though
for other reasons than he had imagined.

Hardly had Clara left the hotel, before Vance called. He had come, fully
resolved to wring from her, if possible, the secret of her trouble. Much
to his disappointment, he learned she had gone and would not return. He
called a second time, and saw Miss Tremaine. That young lady, warned and
threatened by her father, now displayed such a ready and facile gift for
lying, as would have highly distinguished her in diplomacy.

“Only think of it, Mr. Vance,” said the intrepid Laura, “it turns out
that Miss Brown has been having a love affair with one of her father’s
clerks, a low-born Yankee. He followed her to New Orleans,—managed to
send a letter to her at Mrs. Gentry’s,—Clara went forth to find him,
but, failing in her search, came to claim hospitality of me. This
morning her father—a very decent man he seems to be—arrived from Mobile
and took her, fortunately before she had been able to meet her lover.”

The story was plausible. Vance, however, looked the narrator sharply and
searchingly in the face. She met his glance with an expression beaming
with innocence and candor. It was irresistible. The strong man
surrendered all suspicion, and gave in “beat.”




                             CHAPTER XXXII.
                           A DOUBLE VICTORY.

“Whence it is manifest that the soul, speaking in a natural sense,
loseth nothing by Death, but is a very considerable gainer thereby. For
she does not only possess as much body as before, with as full and solid
dimensions, but has that accession cast in, of having this body more
invigorated with life and motion than it was formerly.”—_Henry More_, A.
D. 1659.

           “No, sure, ’t is ever youth there! Time and Death
           Follow our flesh no more; and that forced opinion,
           That spirits have no sexes, I believe not.
           There _must_ be love,—there _is_ love!”
                                    _Beaumont and Fletcher._


“I shall be jealous of this little lady if you go on at this rate,” said
Madame Volney to Mrs. Ratcliff, a week after Clara had been established
in the house.

“Never fear that I shall love you less, my dear Josephine,” replied the
invalid. Then, pointing to her heart, she added: “I’ve a place here big
enough for both of you. I only wish ’ were in better repair.”

“Have you had those sharp throbbings to-day?”

“Not badly. You warn me against excitement. I sometimes think I’m better
under it. Certainly I’ve improved since Esha and Darling have been here.
What should I do now without Darling to play and read to me? What a
touch she has! And what a voice! And then her selection of music and of
books is so good. By the way, she promised to translate a story for me
from the German. I wonder if she has it finished. Go ask her.”

The answer was brought by Clara herself, and Josephine left the two
together. Yes, Clara had written out the story. It was called _Zu Spat_,
or “Too Late,” and was by an anonymous author. Clara read aloud from it.
She had read about ten minutes, when the following passage occurred:—

  “Selfish and superstitious, the Baroness put out of her mind the
  irksome thought of making her will; but now, struck speechless by
  disease, and paralyzed in her hands, she was impotent to communicate
  her wishes. Her agonized effort to say something in her last moments
  undoubtedly related to a will. But she died intestate, and all her
  large estate passed into the hands of a comparative stranger. And thus
  the humble friends whose kindness had saved and prolonged her life
  were left to struggle with the world for a meagre support. If in the
  new condition to which she had passed through death she could look
  back on her selfishness and its consequences, what poignant regrets
  must have been hers!”

“Read that passage again,” said Mrs. Ratcliff; adding, after Clara had
complied, “You needn’t read any more now.”

That evening the wife summoned the husband to an interview. Somewhat
surprised at the unusual command, Ratcliff made his appearance and took
a seat at her side. His manner was that of a man who thinks no woman can
resist him, and that his transparent cajoleries are the proper pabulum
for her weak intellect,—poor thing!

“Well, my peerless one, what is it?” he asked.

“I wish to talk with you, Ratcliff, about this white slave of yours.
What do you think of her?”

“Think of her? Nothing! I’ve given no thought to the subject. I’ve
hardly looked at her.”

“Lie Number 1,” thought the invalid, looking him in the face, but
betraying no distrust in her expression.

The truth was, that Ratcliff, for the first time in his life, was under
the power of a sentiment which, if not love, was all that there was in
his nature akin to it. Even at political meetings his thoughts would
stray from the public business, from the fulminations of “last-ditch”
orators and curb-stone generals, and revert to that youthful and
enchanting figure. True, Josephine rigidly exacted conformity to the
conditions that kept him aloof from all communication with the girl. But
Ratcliff, through the window-blinds, would now and then see her, in the
pride of youth and beauty, walking with Esha in the garden. He would
hear her songs, too. And once,—when he thought no one knew it,—though
the quadroon had her eye on him,—he overheard Clara’s conversation. “She
has mind as well as beauty,” thought he.

And that brilliant and dainty creature was _his_,—_his!_ He could, if he
chose, marry her to the blackest of his slaves. Of course he could!
There was no indignity he could not put upon her, under the plea of
upholding his rights as a master. Had he not once proved it in another
case, on his own plantation? And who had ever dared raise a voice
against the just assertion of his rights? Truly, any such rash
malcontents, opening their lips, would have been in danger of being
ducked as Abolitionists!

Patience! Yes, Josephine was right in her scheme of keeping the young
girl secluded from his too fascinating society. Not a hint must the
maiden have of the favor with which he regarded her,—not an intimation,
until the present Mrs. Ratcliff should considerately “step out.”
Then—Well, what then? Why, then an end to hopes deferred and desires
unfulfilled! Then an immediate private marriage, to be followed by a
public one, after a decent interval.

Every secret device and cherished anticipation, meanwhile, of that
imperious nature was understood and analyzed by the quadroon. She felt a
vindictive satisfaction in seeing him riot in calculations which she
would task her best energies to baffle. Esha’s stories of his conduct to
Estelle had withered the last bloom of affection which Josephine’s heart
had cherished towards him.

“I’m glad you’re so indifferent to this white slave,” said Mrs. Ratcliff
to her husband.

“And why should you be glad, my pet?”

“Because, Ratcliff, I want you to give her to me.”

Staggered by the suddenness of the request, and puzzled for an answer,
he replied: “But she may prove a very valuable piece of property.
There’s many a man who would pay ten thousand dollars for her, two or
three years hence.”

“Well, if you don’t want to _give_ her, then _sell_ her to me. I’ll pay
you twenty thousand dollars for her.”

“You shall have her for nothing, my dear,” said Ratcliff, after
reflecting that the slave would still be virtually his, inasmuch as no
conveyance of her could be made by his wife without his consent.

Detecting the trap, the wife at once replied: “Thank you, dear husband.
This generosity is so like you! Can she be freed?”

“No. There are recent State laws against emancipation. It was found
there were too many weak-minded persons, who, in their last moments,
beginning to have scruples about slave-holding, would think to purchase
heaven by emancipating their slaves. The example was bad, and productive
of discontent among those left in bondage.”

“Well, then, Ratcliff, there’s one little form you must consent to. The
title-deed must be vested in Mr. Winslow.”

Ratcliff started as if recoiling from a pitfall. The remark brought home
to his mind the disagreeable consideration that there was nearly half a
million of dollars which ought to come to his wife, but which was
absolutely in the keeping and under the control of Simon Winslow. It
happened in this wise: The father of Mrs. Ratcliff, old Kittler, not
having that entire faith in his son-in-law which so distinguished a
member of the chivalry as the South Carolinian ought to have commanded,
gave into the hands of Winslow a large sum of money, relying solely upon
his honor to use it _in loco parentis_ for the benefit of the lady. But
there were no legal restrictions imposed upon Simon as to the
disposition of the property, and if he had chosen to give or throw it
away, or keep it himself, he might have done it with impunity.

Winslow acted much as he would have done if Mrs. Ratcliff had been his
own daughter. He invested the money solely for her ultimate benefit and
disposal, seeing that her husband already had millions which she had
brought him. Ratcliff, however, regarded as virtually his the money in
Winslow’s hands, and had several angry discussions with him on the
subject. But Simon was impracticable. The only concession he would make
was to say, that, in the event of Mrs. Ratcliff’s death, he should
respect any _requests_ she might have made. There had consequently been
an informal will, if _will_ it could be called, made by her a year
before, in Ratcliff’s favor.

Wanting money now to carry out his speculations in slaves, Ratcliff had
again applied to Winslow for this half a million,—had tried wheedlings
and threats, both in vain. He had even threatened to denounce Simon
before the Committee of Safety,—to denounce him as a “damned Yankee and
Abolitionist.” To which Simon had replied by taking a pinch of snuff.

Simon, though born somewhere in the vicinity of Plymouth Rock, was one
of the oldest residents of New Orleans. He had helped General Jackson
beat off Packenham. He had stood by him in his rough handling of the
_habeas corpus_ act. Simon had been a slaveholder, though rather as an
experiment than for profit; for, finding that the State Legislature were
going to pass a law against emancipation, he took time by the forelock,
and not only made all his slaves free, but placed them where they could
earn their living.

The invalid wife’s proposal to vest the title to the white slave in
Winslow caused in Ratcliff a visible embarrassment.

“You know, my dear,” he replied, “I would do anything for your
gratification; but there are particular reasons why—”

“Why what, husband?”

“Give me a few days to think the matter over. We’ll talk of it when I
haven’t so much on my mind. Meanwhile I’ll tell you what I _will_
consent to: Josephine shall be yours to do with just as you please.”

“Come, that’s something,” said the wife. “What I ask, then, is, that you
convey Josephine to Mr. Winslow to hold in trust for me. Will you do
this the first thing in the morning?”

“I certainly will,” replied Ratcliff, flattering himself that his ready
compliance with one of his wife’s morbid whims would more than content
her for his evasion of the other.

“Well, then, good night,” said she, pointing to the door.

She submitted, with a slight shudder, imperceptible to Ratcliff, to be
kissed by him, and he went down-stairs. Josephine issued from behind a
screen whither the wife had beckoned her to go on his first coming in.
If there had been any remnant of affection for him in the quadroon’s
heart, she was well cured of it by what she had heard.

The invalid called for writing materials, and penned a note. “Take this,
Josephine,” she said, “early to-morrow to Mr. Winslow. In it I simply
tell him of Ratcliff’s proposition in regard to yourself, and ask him,
the moment that affair is attended to, to come and see me.”

The clock was striking twelve the next day when Mr. Winslow came, and
Josephine ushered him into the invalid’s presence.

“You may leave us alone for a while, Josephine,” she said.

As soon as the quadroon had gone out and shut the door, the invalid
motioned to Winslow to draw near. He was upwards of seventy, tall and
erect, with venerable gray locks, and an expression of face at once
brisk and gentle, benevolent and keen.

“What’s the state of the property you still hold for me, Mr Winslow?”

“It is half invested in real estate in Northern cities, and half in
special deposits of gold in Northern banks.”

“Indeed! Then you must have sent it North long before these troubles
began.”

“Yes, more than four years ago,—soon after the Nashville Convention.”

“What’s the amount in your hands?”

“Half a million; probably it will be seven hundred thousand, if gold
should rise, as I think it will.”

“And how much, Mr. Winslow, of the property, my father left me has gone
to Mr. Ratcliff?”

“More than three millions.”

“Very well. I wish to revoke all previous requests I may have made as to
the disposition of the property in your hands. Now take your pen and
write as I shall dictate.”

“Let me first explain, Mrs. Ratcliff, that any conveyance of personalty
you might make would be null without your husband’s consent. But in this
case forms are of no account, and even witnesses are unnecessary.
Everything is left to my individual honor and discretion.”

“I’m aware of that, Mr. Winslow. It is not so much a will as a series of
requests I’ve to make.”

“I see you understand it, madam. The memoranda you give me I will embody
in the form of a will of my own. Proceed!”

“Put down,” said the invalid, “a hundred thousand for the Orphan
Asylum.”

“Excellent; but as the Secessionists are using that sacred fund for war
purposes, I shall take the liberty of withholding the bequest for the
present. Go on.”

“A hundred thousand to the Lying-in Hospital.”

“Nothing could be more proper. Proceed.”

“A hundred thousand to the fund for the Sisters of Charity.”

“Ah! those dear sisters! Bless you for remembering them, madam.”

“A hundred thousand to be distributed in sums of five thousand severally
to the persons whose names I have here written down.”

She handed him a sheet of paper containing the names, and he transcribed
them carefully.

“And now,” resumed the invalid, “the remainder of the fund in your
possession I wish paid over, when you can safely do it, one half to the
slave Josephine, the other half to the white slave, Ellen Murray, of
whom Josephine will tell you, and whom you must rescue from slavery.
Both must be free before the money can be of any service to them.”

“Of course. Their owner could at once appropriate any sum you might
leave to them, even though it were a million of dollars.”

“You have now heard all I have to say, Mr. Winslow.”

“Then, madam, you will please write under these memoranda with your own
hand something to this effect, and sign your name, with date, place, et
cetera: ‘_This I declare to be my own spontaneous, unbiassed request to
Mr. Winslow, to dispose of the property in his possession, in the manner
hereinabove stated._’ The autograph will have no legal force, but it may
serve to satisfy your husband.”

The lady wrote, and handed back the paper.

“Good!” said Winslow. “Before taking another meal, I will draw up and
sign a will by which your requests can be made effectual.”

“Your hand, Mr. Winslow! My father trusted you as he did no other man,
and I thank you for your loyalty to what you knew to be his wishes.”

“The task he put upon me has been a very simple one, madam. Good by. We
shall soon meet again, I hope.”

“Yes. I shall be quite well of my heart-complaint _then_. Good by.”

Hardly had Winslow left the house than Ratcliff drove up and entered. He
was in a jubilant mood. News had just been received of the Confederate
victory at Bull Run. He knocked at his wife’s door. “Come in!” He
entered. Josephine and Clara were present, trying to soothe the invalid.
One was bathing her forehead with _eau de Cologne_; the other was
kneeling, and rubbing her feet. She had been telling them what she had
done. She had kissed first one and then the other, lavishing on them
profuse tokens of affection. Her eyes gleamed with an unnatural
brightness, and her cheeks were flushed with the glow of a great
excitement.

As Ratcliff came in she rose, and, standing between Josephine and Clara,
put an arm round the shoulder of each, and looked her husband steadily
in the face. Her expression was that of one who cannot find words
adequate to the utterance of some absorbing emotion. The look was
compounded at once of defiance and of pity. Her lips moved, but no
articulation followed. Then suddenly, with a gasped “Ah!” she
convulsively bowed her body like a tree smitten by the tornado. The
pain, if sharp, was but for a moment.

The motion was her last. She sank into the faithful arms that encircled
her. The one attenuated chord that bound her to the mortal life had been
snapped.

Ratcliff started forward, and satisfied himself that his wife was really
dead. Then he looked up at Clara.

She caught the expression of his countenance, and instinctively
comprehended it, even as the little bird understands the hawk, or the
lamb the wolf. Josephine saw it too. What a triumph now to think that
she was no longer _his_ slave!

But Clara,—what of _her_? Mrs. Ratcliff’s sudden death seemed to shatter
the last barrier between her and danger.

Ratcliff did not affect to conceal his satisfaction. Here was a double
victory! The Federals and his wife both disposed of in one day! Youth
and beauty within his grasp! Truly, fortune seemed to be heaping her
good things upon him. That half a million too, in Winslow’s hands, would
come very opportunely; for slaves could be bought cheap, dog-cheap, now
that croakers were predicting ruin to the institution.

“Josephine,” said he, “I must go at once to see Winslow, the late”—how
readily he seized on that word!—“the late Mrs. Ratcliff’s man of
business. I may not be home to dinner. You’d better not take out the
carriage. The horses would be frightened; for the streets are all in
commotion with salvos for our great victory. Good by till I return.”

Once more he turned on Clara that look from which she had twice before
shrunk dismayed and exasperated.

After he had gone, “Help me to escape at once!” she exclaimed.

“No,” replied Josephine. “This is our safest place for the present. The
avenues of escape from the city are all closed; and we should find it
difficult to go where we would not be tracked. The danger is not
immediate. Do not look so wild, Darling. I swear to you that I will
protect you to the last. Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou
lodgest I will lodge.”




                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
                          SATAN AMUSES HIMSELF

          “We can die;
          And, dying nobly, though we leave behind us
          These clods of flesh, that are too massy burdens,
          Our living souls fly crowned with living conquests.”
                                   _Beaumont and Fletcher._


Vance sat in his room at the St. Charles. He seemed plunged in
meditation. His fingers were playing with a little gold cross he wore
round his neck; a trinket made very precious by the dying kiss and pious
faith of Estelle. It recalled to him daily those memorable moments of
their last earthly parting. And she now seemed so near to him, so truly
alive to him, in all his perplexities, that he would hardly have been
surprised to see her suddenly standing in immortal youth by his side.
How could he, while thus possessed with her enchanting image, evoke from
his heart any warmer sentiment than that of friendship for any other
woman?

He thought of the so-called Perdita. He feared he would have to leave
the city without getting any further light than Miss Tremaine had
vouchsafed on the mystery that surrounded that interesting young person.
One thing, on reconsideration, puzzled him and excited his distrust in
Laura’s story. Perdita had pretended that the name Brown was improvised
for the occasion,—assumed while she was conversing with him. Could she
have been deceiving?

There were still other reflections that brought anxiety. He had not yet
heard from Peek. Could that faithful friend have failed in all his
inquiries for Hyde?

The immediate matter for consideration, however, was the danger that
began to darken over Vance’s own path. It had been ascertained by
leading Secessionists, interested in providing for the financial wants
of the Rebellion, that Vance had drawn more than a hundred thousand
dollars of special deposits of gold from the banks since the fall of
Sumter. The question was now put to him by the usurpers, What had been
done with that money? He was summoned to appear before the authorities
with an explanation. A committee would be in session that very evening
to hear his statement.

There was still another subject to awaken his concern. Kenrick had been
called on to set at rest certain unfavorable reports, by appearing
before that same committee, and accepting a captaincy in the confederate
army. Onslow was to be presented with a colonel’s commission.

Vance had made preparations for the escape of Kenrick and himself. A
little steam-tug called the Artful Dodger, carrying the Confederate
flag, lay in the river. Everybody supposed she was a sort of spy on
United States cruisers. For two days she had lain there with steam all
up, ready to start at a moment’s warning. Her crew appeared to be all
ashore, except the captain, mate, engineer, cook, and two stewards. The
last three were black men. The other three, if they were not Yankees,
had caught some peculiarities of pronunciation which the schoolmaster is
vainly striving to extirpate at the North. These men said _beeyownd_ for
_bounds_ and _neeyow_ for _now_.

While Vance was meditating on his arrangements, a card was brought to
him. It bore the name “Simon Winslow.”

“Show him in,” said Vance to the servant.

As Simon entered, Vance recognized him as the individual who had aided
him the day of the rescue of Quattles from the mob.

“There’s a sort of freemasonry, Mr. Vance,” said Winslow, “that assures
me I may trust you. Your sympathies, sir, are with the Union.”

Wary and suspicious, Vance bowed, but made no reply.

“Do not doubt me,” continued Winslow. “True, I’ve been a slaveholder.
But ’t is now several years since I owned a slave. Mr. Vance, I want
your counsel, and, it may be, your aid. Still distrustful? How shall I
satisfy you that I’m not a traitor knave?”

“Enough, Mr. Winslow! I’ll trust your threescore years and your loyal
face. Tell me what I can do for you. Be seated.”

They sat down, and the old man resumed: “I have lived in this city more
than forty years, Mr. Vance, but for some time I’ve foreseen that there
would be little hope for a man of Northern birth unless he would consent
to howl with the pack for secession and a slave confederacy. Now I’m too
old to tune my bark to any such note. The consequence is, I am a marked
man, liable at any moment to be seized and imprisoned. My property here
is nearly all in real estate; so if that is confiscated, as it will be,
I’ve no fear but Uncle Sam will soon come to give it back to me. The
rest of my assets it will be hard for the keenest-scented inquisitor to
find. To-day, by the death of Mrs. Ratcliff—”

“Of what Mrs. Ratcliff?” inquired Vance.

“Mrs. Carberry Ratcliff. By her death I become the legally
irresponsible, and therefore all the more _morally_ the responsible,
manager of an estate of more than half a million, of which a
considerable portion is to be used by me for the benefit of two women at
present slaves.”

“But her husband will never consent to it!” interposed Vance.

“Fortunately,” replied Winslow, “all the property was some time since
sent North and converted into gold. Well: I’ve just come from an
interview with Ratcliff himself. He came to tell me of his wife’s death.
He brought with him a _quasi_ will, signed a year ago, in which his wife
requests me to hand over to him such property as I may consider at her
disposal. He called on me to demand that I should forthwith surrender my
trust; said he was in immediate need of three hundred thousand dollars.
He did not dream of a rebuff. He was in high spirits. The news from Bull
Run had greatly elated him. His wife’s death he plainly regarded as a
happy relief. Conceive of his wrath, when, in the midst of his lofty
hopes and haughty demands, I handed him a copy of the memoranda, noted
down by me this very day, in which Mrs. Ratcliff makes a very different
disposition of the property.”

“I know something of the man’s temper,” said Vance.

“He laughed a scornful laugh,” resumed Winslow, “and, shaking his
forefinger at me, said: ‘You shall swing for this, you damned old
Yankee! Your trusteeship isn’t worth a straw. I’ll have you compelled to
disgorge, this very hour.’ But when I told him that the whole
half-million, left in my hands by his wife’s father, was safely
deposited in gold in a Northern city, the man actually grew livid with
rage. He drew his Derringer on me, and would probably have shot me but
for the sober second thought that told him he could make more out of me
living than dead. In a frenzy he left my office. This was about half an
hour ago. After reflection on our interview I concluded it would be
prudent in me to escape from the city if possible, and I have come to
ask if you can aid me in doing it.”

“Nothing could be more opportune,” replied Vance, “than your coming. I
have laid all my plans to leave in a small steamer this very night. A
young friend goes with me. You shall accompany us. Have you any
preparations to make?”

“None, except to find some trustworthy person with whom I can leave an
amount of money for the two slave-women of whom I spoke. For it would be
dangerous, if not impracticable, to attempt to take them with us.”

“Yes, use your golden keys to unlock their chains in this case,” said
Vance. “Do not show yourself again on the street. Ratcliff will at once
have detectives at your heels. Hark! There’s a knock at the door. Pass
into my chamber, and lock yourself in, and open only to my rapping,
thus,—one, two—one, two—one.”

Winslow obeyed, and Vance, opening his parlor door, met Kenrick.

“Well, cousin,” asked Vance, “are you all ready? You look pale, man!
What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” replied Kenrick; “that is, everything. I wish I’d never seen
that Perdita Brown! Look here! They’ve got her photograph in the
print-shops. Beautiful, is it not?”

“Yes; it almost does her justice. Could you draw out from the Tremaines
no remark which would afford a further clew?”

“After you had failed, what could I hope to do? But I’ll tell you what I
ventured upon. All stratagems in love and war are venial, I suppose.
Seeing that Miss Tremaine was deeply interested in your conquering self,
I tried to pique her by making her think you were secretly enamored of
Miss Brown. She denied it warmly. I then said: ‘Reflect! Hasn’t he been
very inquisitive in trying to find out all he could about her?’ She was
obliged to confess that you had; and at last, after considerable
skirmishing between us, she dropped this remark: ‘Those who would fall
in love with her had better first find out whether she’s a lady.’ ‘She
certainly appears one,’ I replied. ‘Yes,’ said Miss Tremaine, ‘and so
does many a Creole who has African blood in her veins.’”

“Ah! what could that mean?” exclaimed Vance, thoughtfully. “Can that
story of a paternal Brown be all a lie?”

Here there was a low knock at the door. Vance opened it, and there stood
Peek.

“Come in!” said Vance, grasping him by the hand, drawing him in, and
closing the door. “What news?”

And then, seeing the negro’s hesitation, Vance turned to Kenrick, and
said: “Cousin, this is the man to whom you need no introduction. He was
christened Peculiar Institution; but, for brevity, we call him Peek.”

Kenrick put out his hand with a face so glowing with a cordial respect
that Peek could not resist the proffer.

“Now, Peek,” said Vance, “pull off that hot wig and those green
spectacles, and, unless you would keep us standing, sit down and be at
ease. There! That’s right. Now, first of all, did you hit upon any trace
of your wife and boy?”

“None, Mr. Vance. I think they cannot be in Texas.”

“Then what of Colonel Delancy Hyde?”

“The Colonel was said to have attached himself to the fortunes of
General Van Dorn. That’s all I could find out about Hyde.”

“Pity! I must unearth the fellow somehow. The fate of that poor little
girl of the Pontiac haunts me night and day. My suspicions of foul play
have been fully confirmed. When you have time, read this letter which I
had written to send you. It will tell you of all I learnt from Quattles
and Amos Slink. But you have something to ask. What is it?”

“Where shall I find Captain Onslow of the Confederate army?”

Vance pointed to Kenrick, who replied: “I know him well. He is probably
now in this house. ’T is his usual time for dressing for dinner.”

“I’ve terrible news for him,” said Peek.

“What has happened?”

“On my way from Austin to Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande I passed through
San Antonio. You have heard something of the persecutions of Union men
in Western Texas?”

“Yes. Good Heavens! Is old Onslow among the victims?”

“He and his whole family—wife, son, and daughter—have been slain by the
Confederate agents.”

The cousins looked at each other, and each grew paler as he read the
other’s thought. Vance spoke first. “Go on, Peek,” he said. “Tell us
what you know.”

“The old man, you see,” said Peek, “has been trying for some time to do
without slave labor. He has employed a good many Germans on his lands.
The slaveholders haven’t liked this. At the beginning of the Rebellion
he went with old Houston and others against secession; but when Houston
caved in, Onslow remained firm and plucky. He kept quiet, however, and
did nothing that the Secesh authorities could find fault with. But what
they wanted was an excuse for murdering him and seizing his lands. They
employed three scoundrels, a broken-down lawyer, a planter, and a
horse-jockey, to visit him under the pretence that they were good Union
and antislavery men, trying to escape the conscription. The old man fell
into the trap. Thinking he was among friends, he freely declared, that
‘he meant to keep true to the old flag; that only one of his family had
turned traitor; the rest (thank God!) including the women, were
thoroughly loyal; that secession would prove a failure, and end (thank
God always!) in the breaking up of slavery.’ At the same time he told
them he should make no resistance, either open or clandestine, to the
laws of the State. The scoundrels tried to implicate him in some secret
plot, but failed. They had drawn out of him enough, however, for their
purposes. They left him, and straightway denounced him as an
Abolitionist. A gang of cutthroats, set on by the Rebel leaders, came to
hang him. Well knowing he could expect no mercy, the old man barricaded
his doors, armed his household, and prepared to resist. The women loaded
the guns while the men fired. Several of the assailants were wounded.
The rest grew furious, and at last made an entrance by a back door,
rushed in, and overpowered William Onslow, the son, who had received a
ball in his neck. They dragged him out and hung him to a tree. The
daughter they tried to pinion and lash to the floor, but she fought so
desperately that a ruffian, whose hair she had torn out by the roots,
shot her dead. The mother, in a frantic attempt to save the daughter,
received a blow on the head from which she died. The old man, exhausted
and fatally wounded, was disarmed, and placed under guard in the room
from which he had been firing. It was not till the women and the son
were dead that I arrived on the spot. I claimed to be a Secesh nigger,
and the passes Mr. Vance had given me confirmed my story. The Rebels
regarded me as a friend and helper. I lurked round the room where the
old man was confined, and at last, through whiskey, I persuaded his
guard to lie down and go to sleep. I then made myself known to the
sufferer. I helped him write a letter to his surviving son. Here it is,
stained as you see by the writer’s blood. You can read it, Mr. Vance. It
contains no secrets. Hardly had I concealed it in my pocket, when some
of the Rebels came in, seized the old man, helpless and dying as he was,
and, dragging him out, hung him on a tree by the side of his son.”

Peek ended his narrative, and Vance, taking the proffered letter, slowly
drew it from the envelope and unfolded it. There dropped out four
strands of hair: one white, one iron-gray, one a fine and thick flaxen,
and one a rich brown-black.

“I cut off those strands of hair, thinking that Captain Onslow might
prize them,” said Peek.

“You did well,” remarked Vance. “And since you have authority to permit
it, I will read this letter.”

He then read aloud as follows:—

     “Stricken down by a death-wound, I write this. When it
     reaches you, my son, you will be the last survivor of your
     family. The faithful negro who bears this letter will tell you
     all. You may rely on what he says. This crafty, this Satanic
     Slave Power has—I can use the pen no longer. But I
     can dictate. The negro must be my amanuensis.”

And then, in a different handwriting, the letter proceeded:—

  “This Slave Power, which, for many weeks past, has been hunting down
  and hanging Union men, has at last laid its bloody hand on our
  innocent household. Should you meet Colonel A. J. Hamilton,[34] he
  will tell you something of what the pro-slavery butchers have been
  doing.

  “Yesterday three men called on me. They brought forged letters from
  one I knew to be my friend. The trick succeeded. I admitted them to my
  confidence. They left and denounced me to the Confederate leaders. My
  only crime was a secret sympathy with the Union cause. Not a finger
  had I lifted or threatened to lift against the ruling powers of the
  State. But I did not love slavery,—that was the crime of crimes in the
  eyes of Jeff Davis’s immediate partisans and friends.

  “To-day they came with ropes to hang us,—to hang us, remember, not for
  resistance to authority, however usurped, not for one imprudent act or
  threat against slavery, but simply because we were known at heart to
  disapprove of slavery, and consequently to love the old flag. And many
  hundreds have been hung here for no other offence. We knew we could
  expect no better fate than our neighbors had bravely encountered; and
  we resolved, men and women, to sell our lives dearly. Your brother
  fell wounded, and was hung; then your sister, resisting outrage, was
  slain; then your mother, striving to protect Emily, received a mortal
  blow. And I am lying here wounded, soon to be dragged forth and
  hung—for what?—for unbelief, not in a God, but in the Southern
  Confederacy and its corner-stone!

  “And this is slavery! All these brutalities and wrongs spring from
  slavery as naturally as the fruit from the blossom. That which is
  inherently wrong must, by eternal laws, still produce and reproduce
  wrong. The right to hold one innocent man a slave, implies the right
  to enslave or murder any other man! There is no such right. It is a
  lie born in the inmost brain of hell. No laws can make it a right. No
  clamor of majorities can give it a sanction. In slavery, Satan once
  more scales the heavenly heights.

  “Jeff Davis, I hear, has just joined the church. Would he be pardoned,
  and _retain_ the offence? If so, not prayers nor sacraments can save
  his trembling and perjured soul from the guilt of such wrongs as I and
  mine, and hundreds of other true men and women, here in Texas have
  fallen under because of slavery. God is not to be cheated by any such
  flattering unction as Davis is laying to his heart. The more he seeks
  to cover profane with holy things, the deeper will be his damnation in
  that world where all shams and self-delusions are dissolved, and the
  true man stands revealed, to be judged by his fidelity to Christ’s
  golden rule,—to the cause of justice and humanity on earth.

  “Our national agony is the old conflict of the Divine with the Satanic
  principle. Believe in God, my son, and you cannot doubt the result. Do
  you suppose Eternal Justice will be patient much longer? Think of the
  atrocities to which this American slave system has reconciled us! A
  free white man can, in any of the Slave States, go into a negro’s
  house and beat or kill any of the inmates, and not be prosecuted by
  law, except a free white man sees him do it; because _a negro’s
  testimony is not taken against a white man_. As for the _marriage_ of
  slaves, you well know what a mere farce—what a subject for ribaldry
  and laughter—it is among the masters. No tie, whether of affection, of
  blood, or of form, is respected.[35]

  “The originators of this rebellion saw that _by inevitable laws of
  population_ slavery must go down under a republican form of
  government. Their fears and their jealousies of freedom grew
  intolerable. The very word _free_ became hateful. They saw that their
  property in slaves depended for its duration on the action of
  political forces slumbering in the mass of their white population,
  which population, though now densely ignorant, would gradually learn
  that slavery is adverse to the interests of nine tenths of the whites.
  And so this war was originated _even less to separate from the North
  than to crush into hopeless subjection, through that separation, the
  white masses at the South_. The slave barons dreaded lest this drugged
  and stupefied giant should rouse from his ignoble slumber, and,
  learning his strength, and opening his eyes to the truth, should,
  Samson-like, seize the pillars of their system. To prevent this, a
  grand oligarchy of slaveholders must be created, and the liberties of
  the whites destroyed!

  “You will see all this now, my son. Yes, I have this comfort in my
  extremity: my son will be converted from wrong; the stubborn head will
  be reached through the stricken heart; we shall not have died in vain.
  And his conversion will be instantaneous. But be prudent, my son. Let
  not passion betray you. These Rebel leaders are as remorseless as they
  are crafty. All the bad energies of the very prince of devils are
  ranged on their side, and will help them to temporary success.

  “Let them see that higher and more persistent energies can spring from
  the right. What I most fear for the North is the paralyzing effect of
  its prosperity. It will go on thriving on the war, while the South is
  learning the wholesome training of adversity. Young men at the North
  will be tempted by money-making to stay at home. The voice of Mammon
  will be louder than the voice of God in their hearts. This will be
  their tremendous peril. But God will not be thwarted. If prosperity
  will not make the North do God’s work, then adversity must be called
  in.

  “Set your heart on no private vengeance, my son. Take this as my dying
  entreaty. Let your revenge be the restoration of the old flag. All the
  rest must follow as the night the day.... And now, farewell! May God
  bless and guide you. I go to join your mother, brother, and sister.
  Their spirits are round me while I speak. Their love goes forth to you
  with mine, and my prayer for you is their prayer also. Adieu!”

There was silence for a full minute after the reading.

“I’ll wait,” said Kenrick, “till he gets through dinner before I tell
him the news. He’ll need all his strength, poor fellow!”

“I foresee,” said Vance, “that Onslow will be of our party of escape
this night.” And then, turning to Peek, he remarked: “Your coming,
Peculiar, is timely. I want the help of a trustworthy driver. You are
the man for us. Can you, without exciting suspicion, get the control of
a carriage and two fast, fresh horses?”

Peek reflected a moment, and then said: “Yes; I know a colored man,
Antoine Lafour, who has the care of two of the best horses in the city.
His master really thinks Antoine would fight any Abolitionist who might
come to free him; but Antoine and I laugh at the old man’s credulity.”

“There’s yet another service you can render,” said Vance; and he gave
five raps on the door of his chamber.

The lock was turned from the inside, and Winslow appeared.

“You’re among friends,” said Vance. “This is my cousin, Mr. Kenrick; and
this is Peculiar Institution, otherwise called Peek. Notwithstanding his
inauspicious name, you may trust him as you would your own right hand.”

“But I want an agent who can write and keep accounts.”

“Then Peek is just the man for you. Of his ability you can satisfy
yourself in five minutes. For his _honesty_ I will vouch.”

“But will he remain in New Orleans the next six months?”

“I hope so,” replied Vance. “This is my plan for you, Peek: that you
should still occupy that little house of mine with the Bernards. I’ve
spoken to them about it; and they will treat you well for my sake. I
want some one here with whom I may freely communicate; and more, I want
you to pursue your search for Colonel Delancy Hyde, and to secure him
when found, which you can easily do with money. Will you remain?”

“You know how it is with me, Mr. Vance,” said Peek. “I have two objects
in life: One is to find my wife and child; the other is to help on the
great cause. For both these objects I can have no better head-quarters
than New Orleans.”

“Good! He will remain, Mr. Winslow. Go now both of you into the next
room. You’ll find writing materials on the table.”

The old man and the negro withdrew. Kenrick paced the floor, thinking
one moment of Clara, and the next of the dreadful communication he must
make to Onslow. Vance sat down and leaned his head on his hands to
consider if there was anything he had left undone.

“I hear some one knocking at the door of my room,” said Kenrick. He went
into the corridor, and a servant handed him a card. It was from Onslow,
and pencilled on it was the following:—

  “Come to the dinner-table, Kenrick. Where are you?
  Dreaming of Perdita? Or planning impracticable victories
  for your Yankee friends? Come and join me in a bottle of
  claret. It may be our last together. Only think of it, my
  dear fellow, I am to be made a Colonel! But that will not
  please you. Sink politics! We will ignore all that is disagreeable.
  There shall be no slavery,—no Rebeldom,—no
  Yankeedom. All shall be Arcadian. We will talk over old
  times, and compare notes in regard to Perdita. I don’t believe
  you are a tenth part as much in love as I am. Where has the
  enchantress gone? ‘O matchless sweetness! whither art thou
  vanished? O thou fair soul of all thy sex! what paradise hast
  thou enriched and blessed?’ Come, Kenrick, come; if only
  for auld lang syne, come and chat with me; for the day of
  action draws near, when there shall be no more chatting!”

Sick at heart, Kenrick handed the card to Vance, who read it, and said:
“The sooner a disagreeable duty is discharged, the better. Go, cousin,
and let him know the character of that fell Power which he would serve.
Let him know what reason he, of all men, has to love it!”

“I’d rather face a battery than do it; but it must be done.”

At the same moment Winslow and the negro entered.

“I’ve arranged everything with Peek,” said the old man. “I’ve placed in
his hands funds which I think will be sufficient.”

“That reminds me that I must do the same,” said Vance; and, taking a
large sum in bank-bills from his pocket-book, he gave it to Peek to use
as he might see fit, first for the common cause, and secondly for
prosecuting inquiries in regard to the kidnapped child of the Pontiac,
and his own family.

Peek carefully noted down dates and amounts in a memorandum-book, and
then remarked, “Now I must see Captain Onslow.”

“Give me that letter from his father, and I will myself deliver it,”
said Kenrick.

“But I promised to see him.”

“That you can do this evening.”

Peek gave up the letter, and Kenrick darted out of the room.

Turning to Vance and Winslow, Peek remarked: “I thank you for your
confidence, gentlemen. I’ll do my best to deserve it.”

“I wish our banks deserved it as well,” said Vance; then he added: “And
now, Peek, make your arrangements carefully, and be with the carriage at
the door just under my window at nine o’clock precisely.”

Peek compared watches with Vance, promised to be punctual, and took his
leave.

Vance rang the bell, and ordered a private dinner for two. Unlocking a
drawer, he took from it two revolvers and handed one to Winslow, with
the remark, “You are skilled in the use of the pistol, I suppose?”

“Though I’ve been a planter and owned slaves, I must say _no_.”

“Then a revolver would rather be a danger than a security.”

And Vance thrust the pistols into the side pockets of his own coat.

Dinner was brought in.

“Come,” said Vance, “we must eat. My way of life has compelled me to
suffer no excitement to impair my appetite. Indeed, I have passed
through the one supreme excitement, after which all others, even the
prospect of immediate death, are quite tame. Happy the man, Mr. Winslow,
who can say, I cling to this life no longer for myself, but for others
and for humanity!”

“Such a sentiment would better become a man of my age than of yours,”
replied Winslow.

“Here’s the dinner,” said Vance. “Now let us talk nothing but nonsense.
Let us think of nothing that requires the effort of a serious thought.”

“Well then,” replied Winslow. “Suppose we discuss the last number of De
Bow’s Review, or that charlatan Maury’s last lying letter in the London
Times.”

“Excellent!” said Vance. “For reaching the very sublime of the
superficial, commend me to De Bow or to the Chevalier Maury.”

Before the dinner was over, each man felt that the day had not been
unprofitable, since he had earned a friend.




                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
                          LIGHT FROM THE PIT.

         “There’s not a breathing of the common wind
         That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
         Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
         And love, and Man’s unconquerable mind.”—_Wordsworth._


Kenrick found Onslow seated at one of the tables of the large
dining-hall and expecting his coming. The chair on his right was tipped
over on its fore legs against the table as a signal that the seat was
engaged. On Onslow’s left sat the scoffer, Robson.

As Kenrick advanced, Onslow rose, took him by the hand, and placed him
in the reserved seat. Robson bowed, and filled three glasses with
claret.

“But how grave and pale you look, Charles!” said Onslow. “What the deuce
is the matter? Come on! _Absit atra cura!_ Begone, dull care! Toss off
that glass of claret, or Robson will scorn you as a skulker.”

“The wine is not bad,” said Robson, “but there should have been ice in
the cooler. May the universal Yankee nation be eternally and immitigably
consigned to perdition for depriving us of our ice. Every time I am
thirsty,—and that is fifty times a day,—my temper is tried, and I wish I
had a plenipotentiary power of cursing. With the thermometer at ninety,
’t is a lie to say Cotton is king. Ice is king. The glory of our juleps
has departed. For my own part, I would grovel at old Abe’s feet if he
would give us ice.”

Kenrick could not force a smile. He touched his lips with the claret.

“You will take soup?” inquired Onslow. “It is tomato, and very good.”

“What you please, I’m not hungry.”

Onslow ordered the servant to bring a plate of soup. Kenrick stirred it
a moment, tasted, then pushed it from him. Its color reminded him of the
precious blood, dear to his friend, which had been so ruthlessly shed.

“A plate of pompinoe,” said Onslow.

The dainty fish was put before Kenrick, and he broke it into morsels
with his fork, then told the servant to take it away.

“But you’ve no appetite,” complained Onslow. “Is it the Perdita?”

Kenrick shook his head mournfully.

“Is it Bull Run?”

“No. Had not somebody been afraid of hurting slavery, and so played the
laggard, the United States forces would have carried the day; and that
would have been the worst thing for the country that could have
happened!”

“Did I not promise there should be no politics? Nevertheless, expound.”

“He laughs best who laughs last. Let that suffice. It is not time yet
for the Union to gain decisive victories; nor will it be time till the
conscience of the people of the North is right and ripe for the
uprooting of slavery. Their conservative politicians,—their Seymours and
Pughs,—who complain of the ‘irrepressible negro,’—must find out it is
the irrepressible God Almighty, and give up kicking against the pricks.
Then when the North as one man shall say, ‘Thy kingdom come,’—Thy
kingdom of justice and compassion,—then, O then! we may look for the
glorious day-star that shall herald the dawn. God reigns. Therefore
shall slavery not reign. I believe in the moral government of the
world.”

“Isn’t it a pity, Robson, that so good a fellow as Charles should be so
bitter an Abolitionist?”

“Wait till he’s tempted with a colonelcy in the Confederate army,”
sneered Robson. “Ah! Mr. Kenrick, when you see Onslow charging into
Philadelphia, at the head of his troop of horse, sacking that plethoric
old city of rectangles,—leering at the pretty Quakeresses,—knocking down
his own men for unsoldierly familiarities,—walking into those Chestnut
Street jewelry stores and pocketing the diamond rings,—when you see all
that, you’ll wish you’d gone with the winning side.”

“As I live,” cried Onslow, “there’s a tear in his eye! What does it
mean, Charley?”

“If it is a tear, respect its sanctity,” replied Kenrick, gravely.

“Gentlemen, I must go,” said Robson, who found the atmosphere getting to
be unjoyous and uncongenial. “Good by! I’ve a polite invitation to be
present at a meeting to raise money for the outfit of a new regiment.
Between ourselves, if it were a proposition to supply the alligators in
our bayous with gutta-percha tails, I would contribute my money much
more cheerfully, assured that it would do much more good, and be a far
more profitable investment. Addio!”

No sooner had he gone than Kenrick said: “Let us adjourn to your room. I
have something to say to you.”

In silence the friends passed out of the hall and up-stairs into
Onslow’s sleeping apartment.

“Kenrick,” said he, “your manner is inexplicable. It chills and
distresses me. If I can do anything for you before I go North to fight
for the stars and bars—”

“Never will you lift the arm for that false flag!” interrupted Kenrick.
“You will join me this very hour in cursing it and spurning it.”

“Charles, your hate of the Confederacy grows morbid. Let it not make us
private as well as public enemies.”

“No, Robert, we shall be faster friends than ever.”

And Kenrick affectionately threw his arms round his friend and pressed
him to his breast.

“But what does this mean, Charles?” cried Onslow. “There’s a terrible
pity in your eyes. Explain it, I beseech you.”

Kenrick drew from his pocket a letter-envelope, and, taking from it four
strands of hair, placed them on the white marble of the bureau before
Onslow’s eyes. The Captain looked at them wonderingly; took up one after
another, examined it, and laid it down. His breast began to heave, and
his cheek to pale. He looked at Kenrick, then turned quickly away, as if
dreading some foreshadowing of an evil not to be uttered. For five
minutes he walked the room, and said nothing. Then he again went to the
bureau and regarded the strands of hair.

“Well,” said he, speaking tremulously and quickly, and not daring to
look at Kenrick, “I recognize these locks of hair. This white hair is my
father’s; this half gray is my mother’s; this beautiful flaxen is my
sister Emily’s; and this brownish black is my brother’s. Why do you put
these before me? A sentimental way of telling me, I suppose, that they
all send their love, and beg I would turn Abolitionist!”

“Yes,” sighed Kenrick. “From their graves they beg it.”

With a look of unspeakable horror, his hands pressed on the top of his
head as if to keep down some volcanic throe, his mouth open, his tongue
lolling out, idiot-like, Onslow stood speechless staring at his friend.

Kenrick led him gently to the sofa, forced him to sit down, and then,
with a tenderness almost womanly in its delicacy, removed the sufferer’s
hands from his head, and smoothed back his thick fine hair from his
brow, and away from his ears. Onslow’s inward groanings began to grow
audible. Suddenly he rose, as if resolved to master his weakness. Then,
sinking down, he exclaimed, “God of heaven, can it be?” And then groans
piteous but tearless succeeded.

At last, as if bracing himself to an effort that tore his very
heart-strings, he rose and said, “Now, Charles, tell me all.”

Kenrick handed him the letter which Peek had brought. “Let me leave you
while you read,” he said. Onslow did not object; and Kenrick went into
the corridor, and walked there to and fro for nearly half an hour. Then
he re-entered the chamber. Onslow was on his knees by the sofa; his
father’s letter, smeared with his father’s life-blood, in his hand. The
young man had been praying. And his eyes showed that prayer had so
softened his heart that he could weep. He rose, calm, though very pale.

“Where can I see this negro?” he asked.

“He will be here at the hotel this evening,” replied Kenrick.

“And what,—what,” said Onslow hesitatingly, “what did they do with my
father?”

“They hung him on the same tree with your brother.”

“Yes,” said Onslow, with a calmness more terrible than a frantic grief.
“Yes! Of course his gray hairs were no protection.”

There was a pause; and then, “What do you mean to do?” said Kenrick.

“Can you doubt?” exclaimed Onslow.

A servant knocked at the door and left a package. It contained a
complimentary letter and a Colonel’s commission, signed by the
Confederate authorities. “You see these,” said Onslow, handing them to
Kenrick. Then, taking them, he contemptuously tore them, and madly threw
the pieces on the floor.

“Yes, my father is right,” he cried. “It is Slavery that has done this
horror. On the head of Slavery lies the guilt. O the blind fool, the
abject fawner, that I’ve been! Instead of being by the side of my brave
brother, here I was wearing the detested livery of the brutal Power that
smote down a whole family because they would not kneel at its bloody
footstool! Who ever heard of a man being harmed at the North for
_defending_ Slavery? No! ’t is a foul lie to say that aught but Slavery
can prompt and lend itself to such barbarities! The cowardly butchers!
O, damn them! damn them!”

And he tore from his shoulders the badges of his military rank, and,
spurning them with his foot, continued: “My noble father! the good, the
devout, the heroic old man! How, even under his mortal agony, his belief
in God, in right, in immortality, shines forth! Did ever an outcast
creature apply to him in vain for help? Quick to resent, how much
quicker he was to forgive! The soul of rectitude and truth! Did you ever
see his seal, Charles? A straight line, with the motto _Omnium
brevissima recta!_ But he could not bow to Slavery as the supreme good.
For that he and his must be slaughtered! And William, the brave and
gentle! And Emily, the tenderly-bred and beautiful! And my sainted—”

He knelt, and, raising both arms to heaven, cried: “Hear me, O God!
Eternal Justice, hear me! If ever again, in thought or act, I show mercy
to this merciless Slave Power,—if ever again I palliate its crimes or
utter a word in extenuation of its horrors,—that moment annihilate me as
a wretch unfit either for this world or any other!”

Then, rising, he said, “Kenrick, your hand!”

“Not yet,” said Kenrick. “My friend, Slavery is no worse to-day than it
was yesterday. You have known for the last three months that these
minions and hirelings of the slave aristocracy were hounding, hanging,
and torturing men throughout Slavedom, for the crime of being true to
their country’s flag.”

“I knew it, Kenrick; but my heart was hardened, and therefore have God’s
hammers smitten it thrice,—nay, four times, terribly! I saw these
things, but turned away from them! Idle and false to say, Slavery is not
responsible for them! They are the very spawn of its filthy loins. I
know it,—I, who have been behind the scenes, know what the leaders say
as to the means of treading out every spark of Union fire. And
I—heedless idiot that I was!—never once thought that the bloody
instructions might return to plague _me_,—that my own father’s family
might be among the foremost victims! I acknowledge the hand of God in
this stroke! A voice cries to me, as of old to Saul, ‘Why persecutest
thou me?’ And now there fall from my eyes as it were scales, and I arise
and am baptized!”

“My dear friend,” said Kenrick, “I want your conversion to be, not the
result of mere passion, but of calm conviction. I have been asking
myself, What if a party of Unionists should outrage and murder those who
are nearest and dearest to myself,—would I, therefore, embrace the
pro-slavery cause? And from the very depths of my soul, I can cry _No!_
Not through passion,—though I have enough of that,—but through the
persuasion of my intellect, added to the affirmation of my heart, do I
array myself against this hideous Moloch of slavery. By a terrible law
of affinity, wrongs and crimes cannot stand alone. They must summon
other wrongs and crimes to their support; and so does murder as
naturally follow in the train of slavery, as the little parasite fish
follows the shark. It is fallacy to say that the best men among
slaveholders do not approve of these outrages; for these outrages are
now the necessary and inseparable attendants of the system.”

“I believe it,” said Onslow. “O the wickedness of my apostasy from my
father’s faith! O the sin, and O the punishment! It needed a terrible
blow to reach me, and it has come. Kenrick, do not withhold your hand.
Trust me, my conversion is radical. The ‘institution’ shall henceforth
find in me its deadliest foe. ‘_Delenda est!_’ is now and henceforth my
motto!”

Kenrick clasped his proffered hand, and, looking up, said, “So prosper
us, Almighty Disposer, as we are true to the promises of this hour!”

“Charles,” said Onslow, “I did not think that Perdita would so soon have
her prayer granted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her last words to me were, ‘May this arm never be lifted except in the
cause of right!’ I feel that God has heard her.”

It jarred on Kenrick’s heart for the moment to see that Onslow, in the
midst of his troubles, still thought of Perdita; but soon, stilling the
selfish tremor, he said: “What we would do we must do quickly. Will you
go North with me and join the armies of the Union?”

“Yes, the first opportunity.”

“That opportunity will be this very night.”

“So much the better! I’m ready. I had but one tie to bind me here; and
that was Perdita. And she has fled. And what would I be to her, were she
here? Nothing! Charles, this day’s news has made me ten years older
already. O for an army with banners, to go down into that bloody region
of the Rio Grande, and right the wrongs of the persecuted!”

“Be patient. We shall live to see the old flag wave resplendent over
free and regenerated Texas.”

“Amen! Good heavens, Charles!—it appalls me, when I think what a
different man I am from what I was when I crossed this threshold, one
little hour ago!”

“In these volcanic days,” said Kenrick, “such changes are not
surprising. These terrible eruptions, ‘painting hell on the sky,’ uptear
many old convictions, and illumine many benighted minds.”

“Yes,” rejoined Onslow, “in that infernal flash, coming from my own
violated home, I see slavery as it is,—monstrous, bestial, devilish!—no
longer the graceful, genteel, hospitable, and fascinating embodiment
which I—fond fool that I was!—have been wont to think it. The
Republicans of the North were right in declaring that not one inch more
of national soil should be surrendered to the pollutions of slavery.”

“Time flies,” said Kenrick. “Have you any preparations to make?”

“Yes, a few bills to pay and a few letters to write.”

“Can you despatch all your work by quarter to nine?”

“Sooner, if need be.”

“That will answer. Have your baggage ready, and let it be compact as
possible. I’ll call for you at your room at quarter to nine. Vance goes
with us.”

“Is it possible? I supposed him an ultra Secessionist.”

“He has a stronger personal cause than even you to strike at slavery.”

“Can that be? Well, he shall find me no tame ally. Do you know, Charles,
you resemble him personally?”

“Yes, there’s good reason for it. We are cousins.”

Onslow’s heart was too full to comment on the reply. He took up the
strands of hair, kissed them fervently, and placed them with his
father’s letter in a little silk watch-bag, which he pinned inside of
his vest just over his heart.

“If ever my new faith should falter,” he said, “here are the mementos
that will revive it. God! Did I need all this for my reformation?”

“Be firm,—be prudent, my friend,” said Kenrick. “And now good by till we
meet again.”

Onslow pressed Kenrick’s proffered hand, and replied, “You shall find me
punctual.”




                             CHAPTER XXXV.
                        THE COMMITTEE ADJOURNS.

       “Why now, blow, wind; swell, billow; and swim, bark!
       The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.”—_Shakspeare._


Vance’s plan was to escape down the river in his little steam-tug, and
join some one of the blockading fleet of the United States, either at
Pass à l’Outre or at the Balize. The unexpected accession of two
fellow-fugitives led him to postpone his departure from the St. Charles
to nine o’clock. His own and Kenrick’s baggage had been providently put
on board the Artful Dodger the day before. Winslow, in order not to
jeopard any of the proceedings, had accepted Vance’s offer to get from
the latter’s supply whatever articles of apparel he might need.

At ten minutes before nine, the four fugitives met in Vance’s room.
Vance and Onslow grasped each other by the hand. That silent pressure
conveyed to each more than words could ever have told. The sympathy
between them was at once profound and complete.

“The negro who is to drive us,” said Vance, “is the man to whom your
father confided his last messages.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Onslow; “let me be with him. Let me learn from him all I
can!”

Vance told him he should ride on the outside with Peek. Then turning to
Winslow, he said: “Those white locks of yours are somewhat too
conspicuous. Do me the favor to hide them under this black wig.”

The disguise was promptly carried into effect. At nine o’clock Vance put
his head out of the window. A rain-storm had set in, but he could see by
the gas-lights the glistening top of a carriage, and he could hear the
stamping of horses.

“All right,” said he. “Peek is punctually on the spot. Does that
carpet-bag contain all your baggage, Mr. Onslow?”

“Yes, and I can dispense with even this, if you desire it.”

“You have learnt one of the first arts of the soldier, I see,” said
Vance. “There can be no harm in your taking that amount. Now let me
frankly tell you what I conceive to be our chief, if not our only
hazard. My venerable friend, here, Winslow, was compelled, a few hours
since, in the discharge of his duty, to give very dire offence to Mr.
Carberry Ratcliff, of whom we all have heard. Knowing the man as I do, I
am of opinion that his first step on parting with our friend would be to
put spies on his track, with the view of preventing his departure or
concealment. Mr. Winslow thinks Ratcliff could not have had time to do
this. Perhaps; but there’s a chance my venerable friend is mistaken, and
against that contingency I wish to be on my guard. You see I take in my
hand this lasso, and this small cylindrical piece of wood, padded with
india-rubber at either end. Three of us, I presume, have revolvers; but
I hope we shall have no present use for them. You, Mr. Winslow, will go
first and enter the carriage; Kenrick and I will follow at ten or a
dozen paces, and you, Onslow, will bring up the rear. In your soldier’s
overcoat, and with your carpet-bag, it will be supposed you are merely
going out to pass the night at the armory.”

While this conversation was going on, Peek had dismounted from the
driver’s seat. He had taken the precaution to cover both the horses and
the carriage with oil-cloth, apparently as a protection against the
rain, but really to prevent an identification. No sooner had his feet
touched the side-walk, than a man carrying a bludgeon stepped up to him
and said, “Whose turn-out have you here, darkey?”

“Dis am massa’s turn-out, an’ nobody else’s, sure,” said Peek,
disguising his voice.

“Well, who’s massa?”

“Massa’s de owner ob dis carriage. Thar, yer’v got it. So dry up, ole
feller!”

The inquirer tried to roll up the oil-cloth to get a sight of the panel.
Peek interposed, telling him to stand off. The man raised his bludgeon
and threatened to strike. Peek’s first impulse was to disarm him and
choke him into silence, but, fearing the least noise might bring other
officers to the spot, he prudently abstained. Just at this moment,
Winslow issued from the side door of the hotel, and was about to enter
the carriage, when the detective who had succeeded in rolling up the
covering of the panel till he could see the coat-of-arms, politely
stopped the old man, and begged permission to look at him closely by the
gaslight, remarking that he had orders from head-quarters to arrest a
certain suspected party.

“Pooh! Everybody in New Orleans knows me,” said Winslow.

“I can’t help that, sir,” said the detective, laying his hand on the old
man’s shoulder, “I must insist on your letting—”

Before the speaker could finish his sentence, his arms were pinioned
from behind by a lasso, and he was jerked back so as to lose his
balance. But one articulation escaped from his lips, and that was half
smothered in his throat. “O’Gorman!” he cried, calling to one of his
companions; but before he could repeat the cry, a gag was inserted in
his mouth, and he was lifted into the carriage and there held with a
power that speedily taught him how useless was resistance.

Kenrick made Peek and Onslow acquainted, and these two sprang on to the
driver’s seat. The rest of the party took their places inside.

“Down! down!” cried Peek, thrusting Onslow down on his knees and
starting the horses. The next moment a pistol was discharged, and there
was the whiz of a bullet over their heads. But the horses had now found
out what was wanted of them, and they showed their blood by trotting at
a two-fifty speed along St. Charles Street.

Peek was an accomplished driver. That very afternoon he had learnt where
the steam-tug lay, and had gone over the route in order to be sure of no
obstructions. He now at first took a direction away from the river to
deceive pursuit. Then winding through several obscure streets, he came
upon the avenue running parallel with the Levee, and proceeded for
nearly two miles till he drew near that part of the river where the
Artful Dodger, with steam all up, was moored against the extensive
embankment, from the top of which you can look down on the floor of the
Crescent City, lying several feet below the river’s level.

The rain continued to pour furiously, each drop swelling to the size of
a big arrow-head before reaching the earth. It was not unusual to see
carriages driven at great speed through the streets during such an
elementary turmoil: else the policemen or soldiers would have tried to
stop Peek in his headlong career. Probably they had most of them got
under some shelter, and did not care to come out to expose themselves to
a drenching. On and on rolled the carriage. The rain seemed to drown all
noises, so that the occupants could not tell whether or no there was a
trampling of horses in pursuit.

As the carriage passed on to a macadamized section of the road, “Tell
me,” said Onslow, “what happened after my father gave you the letter?”

“I hardly had time to conceal it,” replied Peek, “when six of the
ruffians entered the room, and I was ordered out. I pleaded hard to
stay, but ’ was no use. The house was entirely surrounded by armed men,
ready to shoot down any one attempting to escape. Your father had
enjoined it upon me that I should leave him to die rather than myself
run the risk of not reaching you with his letter and his messages.”

“_Did_ he?” cried Onslow. “Was he, then, more anxious that I should know
all, than that he himself should escape?”

“He feared life more than death after what had happened,” said Peek.
“The six ruffians tried to get out of him words to implicate certain
supposed Union men in the neighborhood; but he would tell no secrets. He
obstinately resisted their orders and threats, and at last their leader,
in a rage, thrust his sword into the old man’s lungs. The wound did not
immediately kill; but the loss of blood seemed likely to make him faint.
Fearing he would balk them in their last revenge, the ruffians dragged
him out to a tree and hung him.”

“Did you see it done?”

“I saw him the moment after it was done. I had been trying to satisfy
myself that there was no life in your mother’s body; and it was not till
I heard the shouts of the crowd that I learnt what was going on below. I
ran out, but your father was already dead. He died, I learnt, without a
struggle, much to the disappointment of the Rebels.”

“And my mother,” asked Onslow. “Was there any hope?”

“None whatever, sir. She was undoubtedly dead.”

“Peek, you have a claim upon me henceforth. At present I’ve but little
money with me, but what I have you must take.”

“Not a penny, sir! You’ll need it more than I. Mr. Vance and Mr. Winslow
have supplied me with ten times as much as I shall require.”

Onslow said no more. For the first time in his life he felt that a negro
could be a gentleman and his equal.

“Peek,” said he, “you may refuse my money, but you must not refuse my
friendship and respect. Promise me you will seek me if I can ever aid
you. Nay, promise me you will visit me when you can.”

“That I do cheerfully, sir. Here we are close by the steam-tug.”

Peek pulled up the horses, and he and Onslow jumped to the ground. The
door was opened, and those inside got out. The detective, who was the
principal man of his order in New Orleans (Myers himself), and whose
mortification at being overreached by a non-professional person was
extreme, made a desperate effort to escape. Vance was ready for it. He
simply twisted the lasso till Myers cried out with pain and promised to
submit. Then pitching him on board the steam-tug, Vance left him under
the guard of Kenrick and the Captain. Winslow followed them on board;
and Vance, turning to Peek, said: “Now, Peek, drive for dear life, and
take back your horses. Our danger is almost over; but yours is just
beginning.”

“Never fear for me, Mr. Vance. I could leave the horses and run, in case
of need. Do not forget the telegraph wires.”

“Well thought of, Peek! Farewell!”

They interchanged a quick, strong grasp of the hand, and Peek jumped on
the box and drove off.

Vance saw a telegraph-pole close by, the wires of which communicated
with the forts on the river below. Climbing to the top of it, he took
from his pocket a knife, having a file on one of its blades, and in half
a minute severed the wire, then tied it by a string to the pole so that
the place of the disconnection might not be at once discovered.

The next moment he cast off the hawser and leaped on board the tug.
Everything was in readiness. Captain Payson was in his glory. The pipes
began to snort steam, the engines to move, and the little tug staggered
off into the river. Hardly were they ten rods from the levee, however,
when a carriage drove up, and a man issued from it who cried: “Boat
ahoy! Stop that boat! Every man of you shall be hung if you don’t stop
that boat.”

Captain Payson took up his speaking-trumpet, and replied: “Come and stop
it yourself, you blasted bawler!”

“By order of the Confederate authorities I call on you to stop that
boat,” screamed the officer.

“The Confederate authorities may go to hell!” returned old Payson.

The retort of the officer was lost in the mingled uproar of winds and
waves.

Confounded at the steam-tug’s defiance, the officer, O’Gorman by name,
stood for a minute gesticulating and calling out wildly, and then,
re-entering the carriage, told the driver to make his best speed to
Number 17 Diana Street.

Let us precede him by a few minutes and look in upon the select company
there assembled. In a stately apartment some dozen of the principal
Confederate managers sat in conclave. Prominent among them were
Ratcliff, and by his side his lawyer, Semmes, an attenuated figure,
sharp-faced and eager-eyed. Complacent, but inwardly cursing the
Rebellion, sat Robson with his little puffed eyes twinkling through
gold-rimmed spectacles, and his fat cheeks indicating good cheer. It was
with difficulty he could repress the sarcasms that constantly rose to
his lips. Wigman and Sanderson were of the company; and the rest of the
members were nearly all earnest Secessionists and gentlemen of position.

Ratcliff had communicated his grievances, and it had been decided to
send a messenger to bring Winslow before the conclave to answer certain
questions as to his disposition of the funds confided to him by the late
Mrs. Ratcliff. The messenger having returned once with the information
that Winslow was not at home, had been sent a second time with orders to
wait for him till ten o’clock.

It had been also resolved to summon Charles Kenrick before the conclave,
and an officer had been sent to the hotel for that purpose.

There was now a discussion as to Vance. Who knew him? No one intimately.
Several had a mere bowing acquaintance with him. Ratcliff could not
remember that he had ever seen him. Had Vance contributed to the cause?
Yes. He had paid a thousand dollars for the relief of the suffering at
the hospital. Did anybody know what he was worth? A cotton-broker
present knew of his making “thirty thousand dollars clean” in one
operation in the winter of 1858. Did he own any real estate in the city?
His name was not down in the published list of holders. If he owned any,
it was probably held under some other person’s name. Among tax-payers he
was rated at only fifty thousand dollars; but he might have an income
from property in other places, perhaps at the North, on which he ought
to pay his quota in this hour of common danger. It was decided to send
to see why Vance did not come; and a third officer was despatched to
find him.

“Does any one know,” asked Semmes, “whether Captain Onslow has yet got
the news of this terrible disaster to his family in Texas?”

“The intelligence has but just reached us at head-quarters,” replied Mr.
Ferrand, a wealthy Creole. “I hope it will not shake the Captain’s
loyalty to the good cause.”

“Why should it?” inquired Ratcliff.

“He must be a spooney to let it make any difference,” said Sanderson.

“Some people are so weak and prejudiced!” replied Robson. “Tell them the
good of the institution requires that their whole family should be
disembowelled, and they can’t see it. Tell them that though their sister
was outraged, yet ’ was in the holy cause of slavery, and it doesn’t
satisfy ’em. Such sordid souls, incapable of grand sacrifices, are too
common.”

“That’s a fact,” responded George Sanderson, who was getting thirsty,
and adhered to Robson as to the genius of good liquor.

“Old Onslow deserved his fate,” said Mr. Curry, a fiery little man,
resembling Vice-President Stephens.

“To be sure he deserved it!” returned Robson. “And so did that heretical
young girl, his daughter, deserve hers. Why, it’s asserted, on good
authority, that she had been heard to repeat Patrick Henry’s remark,
that slavery is inconsistent with the Christian religion!”

Mr. Polk, who, being related to a bishop, thought it was incumbent on
him to rebuke extreme sentiments, here mildly remarked: “We do not make
war on young girls and women. I’m sorry our friends in Texas should
resort to such violent practices.”

“Let us have no half-way measures!” exclaimed Robson. “We can’t check
feminine treason by sprinkling rose-water.”

“The rankest Abolitionists are among the women,” interposed Ratcliff.

“No doubt of it,” replied Robson. “Or if a woman isn’t an Abolitionist
herself, she may become the mother of one. An ounce of precaution is
worth a pound of cure.”

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Polk, “I base my support of slavery on evangelical
principles, and they teach me to look upon rape and murder as crimes.”

“It will do very well for you and the bishops,” replied Robson, “to tell
the _hoi polloi_,—the people,—that slavery is evangelical; but here in
this snug little coterie, we mustn’t try to fool each other,—’ wouldn’t
be civil. We’ll take it for granted there are no greenhorns among us. We
can therefore afford to speak plainly. Slavery is based on the principle
that _might makes right_, and on no other.”

“That’s the talk,” said Ratcliff.

“That being the talk,” continued Robson, “let us face the music without
dodging. The object of this war is to make the slaveholding interest,
more than it has ever been before, the ruling interest of America; to
propagate, extend, and at the same time consolidate slavery; to take
away all governing power from the people and vest it in the hands of a
committee of slaveholders, who will regard the wealth and power of their
order as paramount to all other considerations and laws, human or
divine. I presume there’s nobody here who will deny this.”

“Is it quite prudent to make such declarations?” asked Mr. Polk, in a
deprecatory tone.

“Is there any one here, sir, you want to hoodwink?” returned Robson.

“O no, no!” replied Mr. Polk. “I presume we are all qualified to
understand the esoteric meaning of the Rebellion.”

“It is no longer esoteric,” said Robson. “The doctrine is openly
proclaimed. What says Spratt of South Carolina? What says Toombs? What
De Bow, Fitzhugh, Grayson, the Richmond papers, Trescott, Cobb? They are
openly in favor of an aristocracy, and against popular rights.”

Before any reply was made, there was a knock at the door, and Ratcliff
was called out. In three minutes he returned, his face distorted with
anger and excitement. “Gentlemen,” said he, “we are the victims of an
infernal Yankee trick. I have reason to believe that Winslow, aided
perhaps by other suspected parties, has made his escape this very night
in a little steam-tug that has been lying for some days in the river,
ready for a start.”

“Which way has it gone?” asked Semmes.

“Down the river. Probably to Pass à l’Outre.”

“Telegraph to the forts to intercept her,” said Semmes.

“A good idea!” exclaimed Ratcliff. “I’d do it at once.” He joined
O’Gorman outside, and the next moment a carriage was heard rolling over
the pavements.

“Gentlemen,” said Robson, “if we expect to see any of the parties we
have summoned here to-night, there is something so touching and amiable
in our credulity that I grieve to harshly dispel it. But let me say that
Mr. Kenrick would see us all in the profoundest depths before he would
put himself in our power or acknowledge our jurisdiction; Mr. Vance can
keep his own counsel and will not brook dictation, or I’m no judge of
physiognomy; Captain Onslow has a foolish sensitiveness which leads him
to resent murder and outrage when practised against his own family; and
as for old Winslow, he hasn’t lived seventy years not to know better
than to place himself within reach of a tiger’s claws. I think we may as
well adjourn, and muse over the mutability of human affairs.”

Before Robson’s proposition was carried into effect, an errand-boy from
the telegraph-office brought Semmes this letter:—

  “The scoundrels have cut the telegraph wires, and we can’t communicate
  with the forts. I leave here at once to engage a boat for the pursuit.
  Shall go in her myself. You must do this one thing for me without
  fail: Take up your abode at once, this very night, in my house, and
  stay there till I come back. Use every possible precaution to prevent
  another escape of that young person of whom I spoke to you. Do not let
  her move a step out of doors without you or your agents know precisely
  where she is. I shall hold you responsible for her security. I may not
  be back for a day or two, in which case you must have my wife’s
  interment properly attended to.

                                               “Yours,
                                                          RATCLIFF.”

“I agree with Mr. Robson,” said Semmes, “that we may as well adjourn.
The telegraph wires are cut, and I should not wonder if all the summoned
parties were among the fugitives. Ratcliff pursues.”

The select assemblage broke up, and above the curses, freely uttered,
rang the sardonic laugh of Robson. “Two to one that Ratcliff doesn’t
catch them!” said he; but no one took up the bet, though it should be
remembered, in defence of Wigman and Sanderson, that they were too busy
in the liquor-closet to heed the offer.

“Ah! my pious friends,—still at it, I see!” exclaimed Robson, coming in
upon them. “You remind me of a French hymn I learnt in my youth:

                 ‘Tous les méchants sont buveurs d’eau;
                 C’est bien prouvé par le déluge!’

Which, for Sanderson’s benefit, I will translate:

             ‘Who are the wicked? Why, water-drinkers!
             The deluge proves it to all right thinkers.’”

Leaving the trio over their cups, let us follow the enraged Ratcliff in
his adventures subsequent to his letter to Semmes.

The Rebel was a boat armed with a one-hundred-pound rifled gun, and used
for occasional reconnoitring expeditions down the river. Ratcliff had no
difficulty in inducing the captain to put her on the chase; but an hour
was spent hunting up the engineer and getting ready. At last the Rebel
was started in pursuit. The rain had ceased, and the moon, bursting
occasionally from dark drifting clouds, shed a fitful light. Ratcliff
paced the deck, smoking cigars, and nursing his rage.

It was nearly sunrise before they reached Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
thirty-three miles above the Balize. Nothing could yet be seen of the
steam-tug; but there was a telltale pillar of smoke in the distance. “We
shall have her!” said Ratcliff, exultingly.

Following in the trail of the Rebel were numerous sea-gulls whom the
storm had driven up the river. The boat now entered that long canal-like
section where the great river flows between narrow banks, which,
including the swamps behind them, are each not more than two or three
hundred yards wide, running out into the Gulf of Mexico. Here and there
among the dead reeds and scattered willows a tall white crane might be
seen feeding. Over these narrow fringes of swampy land you could see the
dark-green waters of the Gulf just beginning to be incarnadined by the
rising sun. With the saltwater so near on either side that you could
shoot an arrow into it, you saw the river holding its way through the
same deep, unbroken channel, keeping unmixed its powerful body of fresh
water, except when hurricanes sweep the briny spray over these long
ribbons of land into the Mississippi.

Vance had abandoned his original intention of trying the Pass à l’Outre.
Having learned from a pilot that the Brooklyn, carrying the Stars and
Stripes, was cruising off the Southwest Pass, he resolved to steer in
that direction. But when within five miles of the head of the Passes,
one of those capricious fogs, not uncommon on the river, came down,
shrouding the banks on either side. The Artful Dodger crept along at an
abated speed through the sticky vapor. Soon the throb of a steamer close
in the rear could be distinctly heard. The Artful had but one gun, and
that was a 5-inch rifled one; but it could be run out over her after
bulwarks.

All at once the fog lifted, and the sun came out sharp and dazzling,
scattering the white banks of vapor. The Rebel might be seen not a third
of a mile off. A shot came from her as a signal to the Artful to heave
to. Vance ordered the Stars and Stripes to be run up, and the engines to
be reversed. The Rebel, as if astounded at the audacity of the act on
the part of her contemptible adversary, swayed a little in the current
so as to present a good part of her side. Vance saw his opportunity,
and, with the quickness of one accustomed to deadshots, decided on his
range. The next moment, and before the Rebel could recover herself, he
fired, the shock racking every joint in the little tug.

The effect of the shot was speedily visible and audible in the issuing
of steam and in cries of suffering on board the Rebel. The boiler had
been hit, and she was helpless. Vance fired a second shot, but this time
over her, as a summons for surrender. The confederate flag at once
disappeared. The next moment a small boat, containing half a dozen
persons, put out from the Rebel as if they intended to gain the bank and
escape among the low willows and dead reeds of the marshy deposits. But
before this could be done, two cutters bearing United States flags, were
seen to issue from a diminutive bayou in the neighborhood, and intercept
the boat, which was taken in tow by the larger cutter. The Artful Dodger
then steamed up to the disabled Rebel and took possession.

At the mouth of the Southwest Pass they met the Brooklyn. Vance went on
board, found in the Commodore an old acquaintance, and after recounting
the adventures of the last twelve hours, gave up the two steamers for
government use. It was then arranged that he and his companions should
take passage on board the store-ship Catawba, which was to sail for New
York within the hour; while all the persons captured on board the Rebel,
together with the detective carried off by Vance, should be detained as
prisoners and sent North in an armed steamer, to leave the next day.

“There’s one man,” said Vance,—“his name is Ratcliff,—who will try by
all possible arts and pleadings to get away. Hold on to him, Commodore,
as you would to a detected incendiary. ’T is all the requital I ask for
my little present to Uncle Sam.”

“He shall be safe in Fort Lafayette before the month is out,” replied
the Commodore. “I’ll take your word for it, Vance, that he isn’t to be
trusted.”

“One word more, Commodore. My crew on board the little tug are all good
men and true. Old Skipper Payson, whom you see yonder, goes into this
fight, not for wages, but for love. He has but one fault!”

“What’s that? Drinks, I suppose!”

“No. He’s a terrible Abolitionist.”

“So much the better! We shall all be Abolitionists before this war is
ended. ’T is the only way to end it.”

“Good, my Commodore! Such sentiments from men in your position will do
as much as rifled cannon for the cause.”

“More, Mr. Vance, more! And now duty calls me off. Your men, sir, shall
be provided for. Good by.”

Vance and the Commodore shook hands and parted. Vance was rowed back to
the Artful Dodger. On his way, looking through his opera-glass, he could
see Ratcliff in the cutter, gnawing his rage, and looking the
incarnation of chagrin.

The Catawba was making her toilet ready for a start. She lay at a short
distance from the Artful. Vance, Winslow, Kenrick, and Onslow went on
board, where the orders of the Commodore had secured for them excellent
accommodations. Before noon a northeasterly breeze had sprung up, and
they took their leave of the mouths of the Mississippi.

Ratcliff no sooner touched the deck of the Brooklyn, than, conquering
with an effort his haughtiness, he took off his hat, and, approaching
the Commodore, asked for an interview.

The Commodore was an old weather-beaten sailor, not far from his
threescore and ten years. He kept no “circumlocution office” on board
his ship, and as he valued his time, he could not tolerate any tortuous
delays in coming to the point.

“Commodore,” said Ratcliff, “’t is important I should have a few words
with you immediately.”

“Well, sir, be quick about it.”

“Commodore, I have long known you by reputation as a man of honor. I
have often heard Commodore Tatnall—”

“The damned old traitor! Well sir?”

“I beg pardon; I supposed you and Tatnall were intimate.”

“So we were! Loved him once as my own brother. He and I and Percival
have had many a jolly time together. But now, damn him! The man who
could trample on the old flag that had protected and honored and
enriched him all his life is no better than a beast. So damn him! Don’t
let me hear his name again.”

“I beg pardon, Commodore. As I was saying, we know you to be a
gentleman—”

“Stop! I’m an officer in the United States service. That’s the only
capacity I shall allow you to address me in. Your salvy compliments make
me sick. What do you want?”

“It’s necessary I should return at once to New Orleans.”

“Indeed! How do you propose to get there?”

“When you hear my story, you’ll give me the facilities.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I shall do no such thing.”

“But, Commodore, I came out in pursuit of an unfaithful agent, who was
running off with my property.”

“Hark you, sir, when you speak in those terms of Simon Winslow, you lie,
and deserve the cat.”

Ratcliff grew purple in the struggle to suppress an outburst of wrath.
But, after nearly a minute of silence, he said: “Commodore, my wife died
only a few hours ago. Her unburied remains lie in my house. Surely
you’ll let me return to attend her funeral. You’ll not be so cruel as to
refuse me.”

“Pah! Does your dead wife need your care any more than my live wife
needs mine? ’T is your infernal treason keeps me here. Can you count the
broken hearts and ruined constitutions you have already made,—the
thousands you have sent to untimely graves,—in this attempt to carry out
your beastly nigger-breeding, slavery-spreading speculation? And now you
presume to whine because I’ll not let you slip back to hatch more
treason, under the pretence that you want to go to a funeral! As if you
hadn’t made funerals enough already in the land! Curse your impudence,
sir! Be thankful I don’t string you up to the yard-arm. Here, Mr.
Buttons, see that this fellow is placed among the prisoners and strictly
guarded. I hold you responsible for him, sir!”

The Commodore turned on his heel and left Ratcliff panting with an
intolerable fury that he dared not vent. Big drops of perspiration came
out on his face. The Midshipman, playfully addressed as Mr. Buttons, was
a very stern-looking gentleman, of the name of Adams, who wore on his
coat a very conspicuous row of buttons, and whose fourteenth birthday
had been celebrated one week before. Motioning to Ratcliff, and frowning
imperiously, he stamped his foot and exclaimed, “Follow me!” The
slave-lord, with an internal half-smothered groan of rage and despair,
saw that there was no help, and obeyed.




                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
                    THE OCCUPANT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

               “They forbore to break the chain
                 Which bound the dusky tribe,
               Checked by the owner’s fierce disdain,
                 Lured by ‘Union’ as the bribe.
               Destiny sat by and said,
                 ‘Pang for pang your seed shall pay;
               Hide in false peace your coward head,—
                 I bring round the harvest-day.’”
                                         _R. W. Emerson._


In one of the smaller parlors of the White House in Washington sat two
men of rather marked appearance. One of them sat leaning back in his
tipped chair, with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, and his
right ancle resting on his left knee. His figure, though now flaccid and
relaxed, would evidently be a tall one if pulled out like the sliding
joints of a spy-glass; but gaunt, lean, and ungainly, with harsh angles
and stooping shoulders. He was dressed in a suit of black, with a black
satin vest, and round his neck a black silk kerchief tied carelessly in
a knot, and passing under a shirt-collar turned down and revealing a
neck brawny, sinewy, and tanned.

The face that belonged to this figure was in keeping with it, and yet
attractive from a certain charm of expression. Nose prominent and
assertive; cheek-bones rather obtrusive, and under them the flesh sallow
and browned, though partially covered by thick bristling black whiskers;
eyes dark and deeply set; mouth and lips large; and crowning all these
features a shock of stiff profuse black hair carelessly put aside from
his irregularly developed forehead, as if by no other comb than that
which he could make of his long lank fingers.

This man was not only the foremost citizen of the Republic, officially
considered, but he had a reputation, exaggerated beyond his deserts, for
homeliness. By the Rebel press he was frequently spoken of as “the ape”
or the “gorilla.” From the rowdy George Sanderson to the stiff, if not
stately Jefferson Davis (himself far from being an Adonis), the
pro-slavery champions took a harmless satisfaction, in their public
addresses, in alluding, in some contemptuous epithet, to the man’s
personal shortcomings. So far from being disturbed, the object of all
these revilings would himself sometimes playfully refer to his personal
attractions, unconscious how much there was in that face to redeem it
from being truly characterized either as ugly or commonplace.

As he sat now, with eyes bent on vacancy, and his mind revolving the
arguments or facts which had been presented by his visitor, his
countenance assumed an expression which was pathetic in its indication
of sincere and patient effort to grasp the truth and see clearly the way
before him. The expression redeemed the whole countenance, for it was
almost tender in its anxious yet resigned thoughtfulness; in its
profound sense of the enormous and unparalleled responsibilities resting
on that one brain, perplexing it in the extreme.

The other party to the interview was a man whose personal appearance was
in marked contrast. Although he had numbered in his life nearly as many
years as the President, he looked some ten years younger. His figure was
strikingly handsome, compact, and graceful; and his clothes were nicely
adapted to it, both in color and cut. Every feature of his face was
finely outlined and proportioned; and the whole expression indicated at
once refinement and energy, habits of intellectual culture and of robust
physical exercise and endurance. This man was he who has passed so long
in this story under the adopted name of Vance.

There had been silence between the two for nearly a minute. Suddenly the
President turned his mild dark eyes on his visitor, and said: “Well,
sir, what would you have me do?”

“I would have you lead public opinion, Mr. President, instead of waiting
for public opinion to lead you.”

“Make this allowance for me, Mr. Vance: I have many conflicting
interests to reconcile; many conflicting facts and assertions to sift
and weigh. Remember I am bound to listen, not merely to the men of New
England, but to those of Kentucky, Maryland, and Eastern Tennessee.”

“Mr. President, you are bound to listen to no man who is not ready to
say, Down with slavery if it stands in the way of the Republic! You
should at once infuse into every branch of the public service this
determination to tear up the bitter root of all our woes. Why not give
me the necessary authority to raise a black regiment?”

“Impossible! The public are not ripe for any such extreme measure.”

“There it is! You mean that the public shall be the responsible
President instead of Abraham Lincoln. O, sir, knowing you are on the
side of right, have faith in your own power to mould and quicken public
opinion. When last August in Missouri, Fremont declared the slaves of
Rebels free, one word of approval from you would have won the assent of
every loyal man. But, instead of believing in the inherent force of a
great idea to work its own way, you were biased by the semi-loyal men
who were lobbying for slavery, and you countermanded the righteous
order, thus throwing us back a whole year. Do I give offence?”

“No, sir, speak your mind freely. I love sincerity.”

“We know very well, Mr. President, that you will do what is right
eventually. But O, why not do it at once, and forestall the issue? We
know that you will one of these days remove Buell and other generals,
the singleness of whose devotion to the Union as against slavery is at
least questionable. We know that you will put an end to the atrocious
pro-slavery favoritism of many of our officers. We know you will issue a
proclamation of emancipation.”

“I think not, Mr. Vance.”

“Pardon me, you will do it before next October. You will do it because
the pressure of an advanced public opinion will force you to do it, and
because God Almighty will interpose checks and defeats to our arms in
order that we of the North may, in the fermentation of ideas, throw off
this foul scum, redolent of the bottomless pit, which apathy or sympathy
in regard to slavery engenders. Yes, you will give us an emancipation
proclamation, and then you will give us permission to raise black
regiments, and then, after being pricked, and urged, and pricked again,
by public opinion, you will offset the Rebel threats of massacre by
issuing a war bulletin declaring that the United States will protect her
fighting men of whatever color, and that there must be life for life for
every black soldier killed in violation of the laws of war.”

“But are you a prophet, Mr. Vance?”

“It requires no gift of prophecy, Mr. President, to foretell these
things. It needs but full faith in the operation of Divine laws to
anticipate all that I have prefigured. You refuse now to let me raise a
black regiment. In less than ten months you will give me a _carte
blanche_ to enlist as many negroes as I can for the war.”

“Perhaps,—but I don’t see my way clear to do it yet.”

“A great man,” said Vance, “ought to lead and fashion public opinion in
stupendous emergencies like this,—ought to throw himself boldly on some
great principle having its root in eternal justice,—ought to grapple it,
cling to it, stake everything upon it, and make everything give way to
it.”

“But I am not a great man, Mr. Vance,” said the President, with
unaffected _naïveté_.

“I believe your intentions are good and great, Mr. President,” was the
reply; “for what you supremely desire is, to do your duty.”

“Yes, I claim that much. Thank you.”

“Well, your duty is to take the most energetic measures for conquering a
peace. Under the Constitution, the war power is committed to your hands.
That power is not defined by the Constitution, for it is
imprescriptible; regulated by international usage. That usage authorizes
you to free the slaves of an enemy. Why not do it?”

“Would not a proclamation of emancipation from Abraham Lincoln be much
like the Pope’s bull against the comet?”

“There is this difference: in the latter case, the fulmination is
against what we have no reason to suppose is an evil; in the former
case, you would attack with moral weapons what you know to be a wrong
and an injustice immediately under your eyes and within your reach. If
it could be proved that the comet is an evil, the Pope’s bull would not
seem to me an absurdity; for I have faith in the operation of ideas, and
in the triumph of truth and good _throughout the universe_. But the
emancipation proclamation would not be futile; for it would give body
and impulse to an _idea_, and that idea one friendly to right and to
progress.”

The President rose, and, walking to the window, drummed a moment with
his fingers abstractedly on the glass, then, returning to his chair,
reseated himself and said: “As Chief Magistrate of the Republic, my
first duty is to save it. If I can best do that by tolerating slavery,
slavery shall be tolerated. If I can best do it by abolishing slavery,
you may be sure I will try to abolish it. But I mustn’t be biased by my
feelings or my sentiments.”

“Why not?” asked Vance. “Do not all great moral truths originate in the
feelings and the sentiments? The heart’s policy is often the safest. Is
not cruelty wrong because the heart proclaims it? Is not despotism to be
opposed because the heart detests it?”

“Mr. Vance, you eager philanthropists little know how hard it often is
for less impulsive and more conservative men to withstand the urgency of
those feelings that you give way to at once. But you have read history
to little purpose if you do not know that the best cause may be
jeoparded by the premature and too radical movements of its friends. I
have been blamed for listening to the counsels of Kentucky politicians
and Missouri conservatives; and yet if we had not held back Kentucky
from the secession madness, she might have contributed the straw that
would have broken the camel’s back.”

“O Kentucky!” exclaimed Vance, “I know thy works, that thou art neither
cold nor hot. I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art
lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth!
Mr. President, the ruling powers in Kentucky would hand her over bound
to Jeff Davis to-morrow, _if they dared_; but they dare not do it. In
the first place, they fear Uncle Sam and his gunboats; in the next
place, they fear Kentuckians, of whom, thank God! there are enough who
do not believe in slavery; and, lastly, they fear the nineteenth century
and the spirit of the age. Better take counsel from the Rhetts and
Spratts of South Carolina than from the selfish politicians of Kentucky!
They will moor you to the platform of a false conservatism till the
golden opportunity slips by, and new thousands must be slaughtered
before it can be recovered.”

“Well, what would be your programme?”

“This, Mr. President: accept it as a foregone conclusion that slavery
_must_ be exterminated; and then bend all your energies on accelerating
its extermination. We sometimes hear it said, ‘What! do you expect such
a vast system—so interwoven with the institutions of the South—to be
uprooted and overthrown all at once?’ To which I reply, ‘Yes! _The price
paid has been already proportionate to the magnitude of the overthrow._’
Before the war is over, upwards of a million of men will have lost their
lives in order that Slavery might try its experiment of establishing an
independent slave empire. A million of men! And there are not four
millions of slaves in the country! We will not take into account the
treasure expended,—the lands desolated,—the taxes heaped upon the
people,—the ruin and anguish inflicted. It strikes me the price we have
paid is big enough to offset the vastness of the social change. And,
after all, it is not such a formidable job when you consider that there
are not forty thousand men in the whole country who severally own as
many as ten slaves. Why, in a single campaign we lose more soldiers than
there are slaveholders having any considerable stake in the institution.
Experience has proved that there could be universal emancipation
to-morrow without bad results to either master or slave,—with advantage,
on the contrary, to both.”[36]

“Well, Mr. Vance, we will suppose the Mississippi opened; New Orleans,
Mobile, Charleston, and Richmond captured,—the Rebellion on its last
legs;—what then?”

“With the capture of New Orleans and Vicksburg, and the opening of the
Mississippi, you have Secessia on the hip, and her utter subjugation is
merely a question of time. When she cries _peccavi_, and offers to give
in, I would say to the people of the Rebel States: ‘_First_, Slavery,
the cause of this war, must be surrendered, to be disposed of at the
discretion of the victors. _Secondly_, you must so modify your
constitutions that Slavery can never be re-established among you.
_Thirdly_, every anti-republican feature in your State governments must
be abandoned. _Fourthly_, every loyal man must be restored to the
property and the rights you may have robbed him of. _Fifthly_, no man
offensively implicated in the Rebellion must represent any State in
Congress. _Sixthly_, no man must be taxed against his will for any debt
incurred through rebellion against the United States. Under these easy
and honorable terms, I would readmit the seceded States to the Union;
and if these terms are refused, I would occupy and hold the States as
conquered territory.”

“And could we reconcile such a course with a due regard to law?”

“Surely yes; for the people in rebellion are at once subjects and
belligerents. They are public enemies, and as such are entitled only to
such privileges as we may choose to concede. They are subjects, and as
such must fulfil their obligations to the Republic.”

“But you say nothing of confiscation, Mr. Vance.”

“I would be as generous as possible in this respect, Mr. President.
Loyal men who have been robbed by the secession fury must of course be
reimbursed, and the families of those who have been hung for their
loyalty must be provided for. I see no fairer way of doing this than by
making the robbers give up their plunder, and by compelling the
murderers to contribute to the wants of those they have orphaned. But
beyond this I would be governed by circumstances as they might develop
themselves. I would practice all the clemency and forbearance consistent
with justice. Those landholders who should lend themselves fairly and
earnestly to the work of substituting a system of paid labor for slavery
should be entitled to the most generous consideration and encouragement,
whatever their antecedents might have been. I would do nothing for
vengeance and humiliation; everything for the benefit of the Southern
people themselves and their posterity. Questions of indemnification
should not stand in the way of a restored Union.”

“Undoubtedly, Mr. Vance, the interests of the masses, North and South,
are identical.”

“That is true, Mr. President, but it is what the Rebel leaders try to
conceal from their dupes. The most damnable effect of slavery has been
the engendering at the South of that large class of mean whites, proud,
ignorant, lazy, squalid, and brutally degraded, who yet feel that they
are a sort of aristocracy because they are not niggers. Having produced
this class, Slavery now sees it must rob them of all political rights.
Hence the avowed plan of the Secession leaders to have either a close
oligarchical or a monarchical government. The thick skulls of these mean
whites (or if not of them, of their children) we must reach by help of
the schoolmaster, and let them see that their interests lie in the
elevation of labor and in opposition to the theories of the shallow
_dilettanti_ of the South, who, claiming to be great political thinkers
and philosophers, maintain that capital ought to own labor, and that
there must be a hereditary servile race, if not black, then white, in
whom all mental aspiration and development shall be discouraged and kept
down, in order that they may be content to be hewers of wood and drawers
of water. As if God’s world-process were kept up in order that a few
Epicurean gentlemen may have a good time of it, and send their sons to
Paris to eat sumptuous dinners and attend model-artist entertainments,
while thousands are toiling to supply the means for their base
pleasures. As if a Frederick Douglas must be brutified into a slave in
order that a Slidell may give Sybarite banquets and drive his neat span
through the Champs Elysées!”

“What should we do with the blacks after we had freed them?”

“Let them alone! Let them do for themselves. The difficulties in the way
are all those of the imagination.”

“I like the moderation of your views as to confiscation.”

“When the mass of the people at the South,” continued Vance, “come to
see, as they will eventually, that we have been fighting the great
battle of humanity and of freedom, for the South even more than for the
North, for the white man even more than for the black, there will be
such a reaction as will obliterate every trace of rancor that
internecine war has begotten. But I have talked too much. I have
occupied too much of your time.”

“O no! I delight to meet with men who come to me, thinking how they may
benefit, not themselves, but their country. The steam-tugs you gave us
off the mouths of the Mississippi we would gladly have paid thirty
thousand dollars for. I wish I could meet your views in regard to the
enlistment of black troops; but—but—that pear isn’t yet ripe. Failing
that, you shall have any place you want in the Butler and Farragut
expedition against New Orleans. As for your young friends,—what did you
say their names are?”

“Robert Onslow and Charles Kenrick.”

“O yes! Onslow, you say, has been a captain in the Rebel service. Both
the young men shall be honorably placed where they can distinguish
themselves. I’ll speak to Stanton about them this very day. Let me make
a note of it.”

The President drew from his pocket a memorandum-book and hastily wrote a
line or two. Vance rose to take his leave.

“Mr. President,” said he, “I thank you for this interview. But there’s
one thing in which you’ve disappointed me.”

“Ah! you think me rather a slow coach, eh?”

“Yes; but that wasn’t what I alluded to.”

“What then?”

“From what I’ve read about you in the newspapers, I expected to have to
hear one of your stories.”

A smile full of sweetness and _bonhommie_ broke over the President’s
care-worn face as he replied: “Really! Is it possible? Have you been
here all this time without my telling you a story? Sit down, Mr. Vance,
and let me make up for my remissness.”

Vance resumed his seat.

The President ran his fingers through his long, carelessly disposed
hair, pushing it aside from his forehead, and said: “Once on a time the
king of beasts, the lion, took it into his head he would travel into
foreign parts. But before leaving his kingdom he installed an old ’coon
as viceroy. The lion was absent just four months to a day; and on his
return he called all the principal beasts to hear their reports as to
the way in which affairs had been managed in his absence. Said the fox,
‘You left an old imbecile to rule us, sire. No sooner were you gone than
a rebellion broke out, and he appointed for our leader a low-born mule,
whose cardinal maxim in military matters was to put off till to-morrow
whatever could be just as well done to-day; whose policy was a masterly
inactivity instead of a straightforward movement on the enemy’s works.’
Said the sheep, ‘The ’coon could have had peace if he had listened to me
and others who wanted to draw it mild and to compromise. Such a
bloodthirsty wretch as the ’coon ought to be expelled from civilized
society.’ Said the horse, ‘He is too slow.’ Said the ox, ‘He is too
fast.’ Said the jackass, ‘He doesn’t know how to bray; he can’t utter an
inspiring note.’ Said the pig, ‘He is too full of his jokes and
stories.’ Said the magpie, ‘He is a liar and a thief.’ Said the owl, ‘He
is no diplomatist.’ Said the tiger, ‘He is too conservative.’ Said the
beaver, ‘He is too radical.’ ‘Stop!’ roared the king,—‘shut up, every
beast of you!’ At once there was silence in the assembly. Then, turning
to his viceroy, the lion said, ‘Old ’coon, I wish no better proof that
you have been faithful than all this abuse from opposite parties. You
have done so well, that you shall be reinstalled for another term of
four months!’”

“And what did the old ’coon say to that?” asked Vance.

“The old ’coon begged to be excused, protesting that he had experienced
quite enough of the charms of office.”

The President held out his hand. Vance pressed it with a respectful
cordiality, and withdrew from the White House.




                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
                            COMPARING NOTES.

             “But thou art fled,...
             Like some frail exhalation which the dawn
             Robes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled;
             The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
             The child of grace and genius!”
                                            _Shelley._


Not many weeks after the conversation (not altogether imaginary) at the
White House, a young man in the uniform of a captain lay on the sofa in
a room at Willard’s Hotel in Washington. He lay reading a newspaper, but
the paleness of his face showed that he had been suffering either from
illness or a serious wound. This young man was Onslow. In a cavalry
skirmish at Winchester, in which the Rebels had been handsomely routed,
he had been shot through the lungs, the ball coming out at his back.
There was one chance in a thousand that the direction taken by the ball
would be such that the wound should not prove fatal; and this thousandth
chance happened in his favor. Thanks to a naturally vigorous
constitution, he was rapidly convalescing. He began to be impatient once
more for action.

There was a knock at the door, and Vance entered.

“How is our cavalry captain to-day?” he asked cheerily.

“Better and better, my dear Mr. Vance.”

“Let me feel of his pulse. Excellent! Firm, regular! Appetite?”

“Improving daily. He ate two boiled eggs and a lamb chop for breakfast,
not to speak of a slice of aerated bread.”

“Come now,—that will do. He will be ready soon for a bullet through his
other lung. But he must not get restless. There’s plenty of fighting in
store for him.”

“Mr. Vance, I’ve been pondering the strange story of your life; your
interview with my father on board the Pontiac; the loss of the Berwicks;
the supposed loss of their child; the developments by which you were led
to suspect that the child was kidnapped; Peek’s unavailing search for
the rascal Hyde; the interview with Quattles, confirming your suspicion
of foul play; and finally your interview last week in New York with the
mulatto woman, Hattie Davy. Let me ask if Hattie thinks she could still
identify the lost child.”

“Yes, by certain marks on her person. She at once recognized the little
sleeve-button I got from Quattles.”

“Please let me look at it.”

Vance took from his pocket a small circular box which he unscrewed, and
there, in the centre of a circle of hair, lay the button. He handed the
box to the wounded soldier. At this moment Kenrick entered the room.

“Ha, Lieutenant! What’s the news?” exclaimed Vance.

“Ask any one but me,” returned Kenrick. “Have I not been all the morning
trying guns at the navy-yard? What have you there, Robert! A lock of
hair? Ah! I have seen that hair before.”

“Impossible!” said Vance.

“Not at all!” replied Kenrick. “The color is too peculiar to be
confounded. Miss Perdita Brown wore a bracelet of that hair the last
evening we met her at the St. Charles.”

“Again I say, impossible,” quoth Vance. “Something like it perhaps, but
not this. How could she have come by it?”

“Cousin,” replied Kenrick, “I’m quick to detect slight differences of
color, and in this case I’m sure.”

Suddenly the Lieutenant noticed the little sleeve-button in Onslow’s
hand, and, while the blood mounted to his forehead, turning to him said,
“How did you come by _this_, Robert?”

“Why do you ask with so much interest?” inquired Vance.

“Because that same button I’ve seen worn by Perdita.”

“Now I know you’re raving,” said Vance; “for, till now, it hasn’t been
out of my pocket since Quattles gave it me.”

“Do you mean to say,” exclaimed Kenrick, “that this is the jewel of
which you told me; that which belonged to the lost infant of the
Pontiac?”

“Yes; her nurse identifies it. Undoubtedly it is one of a pair worn by
poor little Clara.”

“Then,” said Kenrick, with the emphasis of sudden conviction, “Clara and
Perdita are one and the same!”

Startling as a severe blow was this declaration to Vance. It forced upon
his consideration a possibility so new, so strange, so distressing, that
he felt crushed by the thought that there was even a chance of its
truth. Such an opportunity, thrust, as it were, by Fate under his eyes,
had it been allowed to escape him? His emotions were those of a blind
man, who being suddenly restored to sight, learns that he has passed by
a treasure which another has picked up. He paced the room. He struck his
arms out wildly. He pushed up the sleeves of his coat with an objectless
energy, and then pulled them down.

“O blind mole!” he groaned, “too intent on thy own little burrow to see
the stars out-shining! O beast with blinders! looking neither on the
right nor on the left, but only straight before thy nose!”

And then, as if ashamed of his ranting, he sat down and said: “How
strange that this possibility should never have occurred to me! I saw
there was a mystery in the poor girl’s fate, and I tried to make her
disclose it. Had I only seen her that last day I called, I should have
extorted her confidence. Once or twice during our interviews she seemed
on the point of telling me something. Then she would check herself, as
if from some prompting of delicacy or of caution. To think that I should
have been so inconsiderate! To think, too, that I should have been duped
by that heartless lay-figure for dressmakers and milliners, Miss
Tremaine! Yes! I almost dread to look further lest I should be convinced
that Charles is right, and that Clara Berwick and Perdita Brown are one
and the same person. If so, the poor girl we all so admired is a slave!”

“A slave!” gasped Kenrick, struck to the heart by the cruel word, and
turning pale.

“I’d like to see the man who’d venture to style himself her master in my
presence!” cried Onslow, forgetting his wound, and half rising from the
sofa.

“Soft!” said Vance. “We may be too hasty in our conclusion. There may be
sleeve-buttons by the gross, precisely of this pattern, in the shops.”

“No!” replied Kenrick. “Coral of that color is what you do not often
meet with. Such a delicate flesh tint is unusual. You cannot convince me
that the mate of this button is not the one worn by the young lady we
knew as Perdita. Perhaps, too, it is marked like the other pair. If so,
it ought to have on it the letters—”

“What letters?” exclaimed Vance, fiercely, arresting Kenrick’s hand so
he could not examine the button.

“The letters C. A. B.,” replied Kenrick.

“Good heavens, yes!” ejaculated Vance, releasing him, and sinking into
an arm-chair. And then, after several seconds of profound sighing, he
drew forth from his pocket-book an envelope, and said: “This contains
the testimony of Hattie Davy in regard to certain personal marks that
would go far to prove identity. One of these marks I distinctly remember
as striking my attention in Clara, the child, and yet I never noticed it
in the person we knew as Perdita. Could I have failed to remark it, had
it existed?”

“Why not?” answered Kenrick. “Your thoughts are too intent on public
business for you to apply them very closely to an examination of the
personal graces or defects of any young woman, however charming.”

“Tell me, Captain,” said Vance to Onslow, “did you ever notice in
Perdita any physical peculiarity, in which she differed from most other
persons?”

“I merely noticed she was peculiarly beautiful,” replied Onslow; “that
she wore her own fine, rich, profuse hair exclusively, instead of
borrowing tresses from the wig-maker, as nine tenths of our young ladies
do now-a-days; that her features were not only handsome in themselves by
those laws which a sculptor would acknowledge, but lovely from the
expression that made them luminous; that her form was the most
symmetrical; her—”

“Enough, Captain!” interrupted Vance. “I see you did not detect the
peculiarity to which I allude. Now tell me, cousin, how was it with
_you_? Were you more penetrating?”

“I think I know to what you refer,” replied Kenrick. “Her eyes were of
different colors; one a rich dark blue, the other gray.”

“Fate! yes!” exclaimed Vance, dashing one hand against the other. “Can
you tell me which was blue?”

“Yes, the left was blue.”

Vance took from the envelope a paper, and unfolding it pointed to these
lines which Onslow and Kenrick perused together:—

  _Vance._ “You tell me one of her eyes was dark blue, the other dark
  gray. Can you tell me which was blue?”

  _Hattie._ “Yes; for I remember a talk about it between the father and
  the mother. The father had blue eyes, the mother gray. The mother
  playfully boasted that the eye of _her_ color was the child’s _right_
  eye; to which the father replied, ‘But the _left_ is nearest the
  heart.’ And so, sir, remembering that conversation, I can swear
  positively that the child’s left eye was the blue one.”

“Rather a striking concurrence of testimony!” said Onslow. “I wonder I
should never have detected the oddity.”

“Let me remark,” replied Kenrick, “that it required a near observation
to note the difference in the hue of the eyes. Three feet off you would
hardly discriminate. The depth of shade is nearly equal in both. You
might be acquainted with Perdita a twelvemonth and never heed the
peculiarity. So do not, cousin, take blame to yourself for inattention.”

“Do you remember, Charles,” said Vance, “our visit to the hospital the
day after our landing in New York?”

“Yes, I shall never forget the scene,” replied Kenrick.

“Do you remember,” continued Vance, “among the nurses quite a young
girl, who, while carrying a salver of food to a wounded soldier, was
asked by you if you should not relieve her of the burden?”

“Yes; and her reply was, ‘Where are your shoulder-straps?’ And she eyed
me from head to foot with provoking coolness. ‘I’m on my way to
Washington for them,’ answered I. ‘Then you may take the salver,’ said
the little woman, graciously thrusting it into my hands.”

“Well, Charles, when I was in New York last week, I saw that same little
woman again, and found out who she is. How strangely, in this
kaleidoscope of events which we call the world, we are brought in
conjunction with those persons between whose fate and our own Chance or
Providence seems to tender a significance which it would have us heed
and solve! This girl was a Miss Charlton, the daughter of that same
Ralph Charlton who holds the immense estate that rightfully belongs to
our lost Clara.”

“Would he be disposed to surrender it?” asked Onslow.

“Probably not. I took pains while in New York to make inquiries. I
learnt that his domestic _status_ is far from enviable. He himself,
could he follow his heart’s proclivities, would be a miser. Then he
could be happy and contented—in his way. But this his wife will not
allow. She forces him by the power of a superior will into expenses at
which his heart revolts, although they do not absorb a fifth part of his
income. The daughter shrinks from him with an innate aversion which she
cannot overcome. And so, unloving and unloved, he finds in his own base
avarice the instrument that scourges him and keeps him wretched.”

“I should not feel much compunction in compelling such a man to unclutch
his riches,” remarked Onslow.

“It will be very difficult to do that, I fear,” said Vance, “even
supposing we can find and identify the true heir.”

“We must find her, cost what it may!” cried Kenrick. “Cousin, take me to
New Orleans with you.”

“No, Charles. You are wanted here on the Potomac. Your reputation in
gunnery is already high. The country needs more officers of your stamp.
You cannot be spared. The Captain here can go with me to the Gulf. He is
wounded and entitled to a furlough. A trip to New Orleans by sea will do
him good.”

With a look of grave disappointment Kenrick took up a newspaper and kept
his face concealed by it for a moment. Then putting it down, and turning
to Vance, he said, with a sweet sincerity in his tone: “Cousin, where my
wishes are so strongly enlisted, you can judge better than I of my duty.
I yield to your judgment, and, if you persist in it, will make no effort
to get from government the permission I covet.”

“Truly I think your place is here,” said Vance.

A servant entered with a letter. It was for Vance. He opened it, and
finding it was from Peek, read as follows:—

                                       “NEW ORLEANS, February, 1862.

  ”DEAR MR. VANCE: On leaving you at the Levee I drove straight for the
  stable where my horses belonged. I passed the night with my friend
  Antoine, the coachman. The next day I went to your house, where I have
  stayed with those kind people, the Bernards, ever since.

  “Please inform Mr. Winslow I duly attended to his commissions. What
  will seem strange to you is the fact that in attending to his affairs
  I am attending to yours. Two days after your departure the newspapers
  contained flaming accounts of the treacherous seizure of the Artful
  Dodger by Messrs. Vance, Winslow, & Co.,—their pursuit by the Rebel,
  the encounter, the Rebel’s discomfiture, the ‘abduction’ of Mr.
  Ratcliff, the funeral of his poor wife, etc. Seeing that Mr. Ratcliff
  was absent, I thought the opportunity favorable for me to call at his
  house on the quadroon lady, Madame Volney, to whom Mr. Winslow had
  commended me. I went and found in the servant who opened the door an
  old acquaintance, Esha, whom years ago you sought for in vain. She was
  here keeping watch over a white slave.

  “And who is the white slave? you will ask. Ah! there’s the mystery.
  Who _is_ she indeed! In the first place, she is claimed by Ratcliff;
  in the next, she and Madame Volney are the residuary legatees of the
  late Mrs. Ratcliff; in the next, she is the young lady who has been
  staying with Miss Tremaine at the St. Charles.”

Here there was a cry of pain from Vance, so sharp and sudden that
Kenrick started forward to his relief.

“What’s the matter? Is it bad news?” inquired Onslow.

“I’ll finish reading the letter by myself,” replied Vance, taking his
departure without ceremony.

Seated in his own apartment, he continued the reading:—

  “Do not think me fanciful, Mr. Vance, but the moment I set eyes on
  this young woman the conviction struck me, She is the lost Clara for
  whom we are seeking. The coincidence of age and the fact that I have
  had the search of her on my mind, may fully explain the impression.
  _May._ But you know I believe in the phenomena of Spiritualism.
  _Belief_ is not the right word. _Knowledge_ would be nearer the truth.

  “There is here in New Orleans a young man named Bender who calls
  himself a _medium_. He is a worthless fellow, and I have several times
  caught him cheating. But he nevertheless gives me glimpses of
  spiritual powers. There are some plain cases in which cheating is
  impossible. For instance, if without throwing out any previous hint,
  however remote, I think of twenty different persons in succession, my
  knowledge of whom is a secret in my own brain, and if I say to a
  medium, ‘Of what person am I thinking now?’ and if the medium
  instantly, without hesitation or inquiry, gives me the right reply
  twenty times in succession, I may reasonably conclude—may I not?—that
  the power is what it appears to be, and that the medium gets his
  knowledge through a faculty which, if not preternatural, is very rare,
  and is denied as possible by science. Well, this test has been
  fulfilled, not once only, but more than fifty different times.[37]

  “I got Madame Volney’s consent to bring Bender to the house. After he
  had showed her his wonderful powers of thought-reading, we put the
  hand of the white slave in his, and bade him tell us her name. He
  wrote with great rapidity, _Clara Aylesford Berwick_. We asked her
  father’s name. In a moment the medium’s limbs twitched and writhed,
  his eyeballs rolled up so that their natural expression was lost, and
  he extended his arm as if in pain. Then suddenly dropping the girl’s
  hand he drew up the sleeve from his right arm, and there, in crimson
  letters on the white skin were the words _Henry Berwick_.[38]

  “Now whether this is the right name or not I do not know. I presume
  that it is; though it is rarely safe to trust a medium in such cases.
  The child’s name I have heard you say was Clara Berwick. I have never
  spoken or written it except to yourself. Still Bender may have got the
  father’s name,—the surname at least,—from my mind. But if the name
  _Henry_ is right, where did he get _that_? I am not aware of ever
  having known the father’s name. The check he once gave you for me you
  never showed me, but cashed it yourself. Still I shall not too
  positively claim that the name was communicated preternaturally; for
  experience has convinced me it may have been in my mind without my
  knowing it. Every thought of our lives is probably photographed on our
  brains, never to be obliterated. Let me study, then, to multiply my
  good thoughts. But in whatever way Bender got the name, whether from
  my mind or from a spirit, the fact is interesting and important in
  either case.

  “The effect upon Clara (for so we now all call her) of this singular
  event was such as to convince her instantaneously that the name was
  right, and that she is the child of Henry Berwick. As soon as the
  medium had gone, she asked me if I could not find out who Mr. Berwick
  was. I then told her the story of the Pontiac, down to the recent
  confession of Quattles, and my own search for Colonel Delancy Hyde.
  All my little group of hearers—Madame Volney, Esha, and Clara—were
  deeply interested, as you may suppose, in the narrative. Clara was
  much moved when she learnt that the same Mr. Vance, whose acquaintance
  she had made, was the one who had known the parents, and was now
  seeking for their daughter. She has a serene conviction that she is
  the identical child. When I read what you had written about different
  colored eyes, she simply said, ‘Look, Peek!’ And there they were,—blue
  and gray!

  “Mr. Ratcliff’s house is in the charge of his lawyer, Mr. Semmes, who
  keeps a very strict eye over all outgoings and incomings. Esha has his
  confidence, but he distrusts both Clara and Madame Volney. By
  pretending that I am her half-brother, Esha enables me to come and go
  unsuspected. The medium, Bender, was introduced as a chiropedist.
  Clara never goes out without a driver and footman, who are agents and
  spies of Semmes. It does not matter at present; for it would be
  difficult in the existing state of affairs to remove Clara out of the
  city without running great risk of detection and pursuit. I have
  sometimes thought of putting her in a boat and rowing down the river
  to Pass à l’Outre; but the hazard would be serious.

  “As it is important to collect all the proofs possible for Clara’s
  identification, it was at first agreed among the women that Esha
  should call, as if in the interests of Mr. Ratcliff, on Mrs. Gentry,
  the teacher, and get from that lady all the facts, dates, and
  memorials that may have a bearing on Clara’s history. But, on
  reflection, I concluded it would be better to put the matter in the
  hands of a lawyer who could take down in legal form, with the proper
  attestation, all that Mrs. Gentry might have to communicate. Mr.
  Winslow had given me a letter of introduction to Mr. Jasper, his
  confidential adviser, and a loyal man. To him I went and explained
  what I wanted. He at once gave the business his attention. With two
  suitable witnesses he called on Mrs. Gentry and took down her
  deposition. I had told him to procure, if possible, some articles of
  dress that belonged to the child when first brought to the house. This
  he succeeded in doing. A little undershirt and frock,—a child’s
  petticoat and pocket-handkerchief,—were among the articles, and they
  were all marked in white silk, C. A. B. Mrs. Gentry said that her own
  oath as to the clothes could be confirmed by Esha’s. Esha was
  accordingly sent for, and she came, and, being duly sworn, identified
  the clothes as those the child had on when first left at the house;
  which clothes Esha had washed, and the child had subsequently worn.
  This testimony being duly recorded, the clothes were done up carefully
  in a paper package, to which the seals of all the gentlemen present
  were attached; and then the package was placed in a small leather
  trunk which was locked.

  “I should mention one circumstance that adds fresh confirmation. In
  telling Miss Clara what Quattles had confessed (the details of which
  you give in that important letter you handed me) I alluded to the pair
  of sleeve-buttons. ‘Was there any mark upon them?’ she asked. ‘Yes,
  the initials C. A. B.’ She instantly drew forth from her bosom another
  pair, the counterpart probably of that described in your letter, and
  on one of the buttons were the same characters! Can we resist such
  evidences?

  “Let me mention another extraordinary development. Madame Volney does
  not scruple to resort to all the stratagems justifiable in war to get
  information from the enemy. Mr. Semmes is an old fox, but not so
  cunning as to guard against an inspection of his papers by means of
  duplicate keys. In one of the drawers of the library he deposits his
  letters. In looking them over the other day, Madame V. found one from
  Mr. Semmes’s brother in New York, in which the fact is disclosed that
  this house, hired by Mr. Ratcliff, belonged to Miss Clara’s father,
  and ought, if the inheritance had not been fraudulently intercepted,
  to be now her property! Said Miss Clara to me when she learnt the
  fact, ‘Peek, if I am ever rich, you shall have a nice little cottage
  overlooking my garden.’ Ah! Mr. Vance, I thought of Naomi, and
  wondered if she would be living to share the promised fortune.

  “I have a vague fear of this Mr. Semmes. Under the affectation of
  great frankness, he seems to me one of those men who make it a rule to
  suspect everybody. I have warned the women to take heed to their
  conversation; to remember that walls have ears. I rely much on Esha.
  She has, thus far, been too deep for him. He has several times tried
  to throw her off her guard; but has not yet succeeded. He is evidently
  distrustful and disposed to lay traps for us.

  “It appears that Mr. Ratcliff’s plan, at the time you intercepted him
  in his career, and had him sent North, was to offer marriage to this
  young girl he claims to hold as a slave. Marriage with him would
  plainly be as hateful to her as any other species of relation; and my
  present wish is to put her as soon as possible beyond his reach, lest
  he should any time unexpectedly return. Madame Volney is so confident
  in her power to save her, that Clara’s anxieties seem to be much
  allayed; and now that she fully believes she is no slave, but the
  legitimate child of honorable parents, she cultivates an assurance as
  to her safety, which I hope is not the precursor of misfortune. The
  money which Mr. Winslow left in my hands for her use would be
  sufficient to enable us to carry out some effectual scheme of escape;
  but Madame Volney does not agree with me as to the importance of an
  immediate attempt. Will Ratcliff come back? That is the question I now
  daily ask myself.

  “I recognized on Clara’s wrist the other day a bracelet of your wife’s
  hair. How did she come by it? The reply was simple. Esha gave it to
  her. Clara is very fond of questioning me about you. She has learnt
  from me all the particulars of your wife’s tragical fate, and of the
  debt you yourself owe to the Slave Power. She takes the intensest
  interest in the war. Learning from me that my friend Cailloux was
  forming a secret league among the blacks in aid of the Union cause,
  she made me take five hundred dollars of the money left by Mr. Winslow
  for her in my possession, and this she sent to Cailloux with a letter.
  He wrote her in reply, that he wished no better end than to die
  fighting for the Union and for the elevation of his race.[39]

  “I have not forgotten the importance of getting hold of Colonel Hyde.
  I have searched for him daily in the principal drinking-saloons, but
  have found no trace of him as yet. I have also kept up my search for
  my wife, having sent out two agents, who, I trust, may be more
  fortunate than I myself have been; for I sometimes think my own
  over-anxiety may have defeated my purpose. In making these searches I
  have availed myself of the means you have so generously placed at my
  disposal.

  “The few Union men who are here are looking hopefully to the promised
  expedition of Farragut and Butler. But the Rebels are defiant and even
  contemptuous in their incredulity. They say our fleet can never pass
  Forts Jackson and St. Philip. And then they have an iron ram, on the
  efficacy of which they largely count. Furthermore, they mean to
  welcome us with bloody hands, &c.; die in the last ditch, &c. We shall
  see. This prayer suffices for me: _God help the right!_ Adieu!

                           “Faithfully,
                                                              PEEK.”

We have seen with what profound emotion Vance received the information,
that the man whose formidable power was enclosing Clara in its folds was
the same whose brutality had killed Estelle. Vance could no longer doubt
that Clara and Perdita were identical. He looked in his memorandum-book
to assure himself of the name of Clara’s father. Yes! Bender was right.
There were the words: _Henry Berwick_.

Then putting on his hat Vance hurried to the War Office. Would the
Secretary have the goodness to address a question to the officer
commanding at Fort Lafayette? Certainly: it could be done instantly by
telegraph. Have the goodness to ask if Mr. Ratcliff, of New Orleans, is
still under secure confinement.

The click of the telegraph apparatus in the War Office was speedily
heard, putting the desired interrogatory.

“Expect a reply in half an hour,” said the operator.

Vance looked at his watch, and then passed out into the paved corridor
and walked up and down. He thought of Clara,—of the bracelet of his
wife’s hair on her wrist. It moved him to tears. Was there not something
in the identity in the position of these two young and lovely women that
seemed to draw him by the subtle meshes of an overruling fate to Clara’s
side? Could it be that Estelle herself, a guardian angel, was favoring
the conjunction?

For an instant that gracious image which had so long been the light of
his waking and his sleeping dreams, seemed to retire, and another to
take her place; another, different, yet hardly less lovely.

For an instant, and for the second time, visions of a new domestic
paradise,—of beautiful children who should call him father,—of a
daughter whose name should be Estelle,—of life’s evening spent amid the
amenities of a refined and happy home,—flitted before his imagination,
and importuned desire. But they speedily vanished, and that other
transcendent image returned and resumed its place.

Ah! it was so life-like, so real, so near and positive in its presence,
that no other could be its substitute! For no other could his heart’s
chalice overflow with immortal love. Had she not said,—

                   “And dear as sacramental wine
                   To dying lips was all she said,”—

had she not said, “I shall see you, though you may not see me?” Vance
took the words into his believing heart, and thenceforth they were a
reality from the sense of which he could not withdraw himself, and would
not have withdrawn himself if he could.

He looked again at his watch, and re-entered that inner office of the
War Department, to which none but those high in government confidence
were often admitted.

“We have just received a reply to your inquiry,” said the clerk. “Mr.
Ratcliff of New Orleans made his escape from Fort Lafayette ten days
ago. The Department has taken active measures to have him rearrested.”

-----

Footnote 31:

  The names and the facts are real. See Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1868.

Footnote 32:

  Mr. W.S. Grayson of Mississippi writes, in De Bow’s Review (August,
  1860): “Civil liberty has been the theme of praise among men, and most
  wrongfully. This is the infatuation of our age.” And Mr. George
  Fitzhugh of Virginia writes: “Men are never efficient in military
  matters, or in industrial pursuits, until wholly deprived of their
  liberty. _Loss of liberty is no disgrace._”

Footnote 33:

  Testimony of Mrs. Fanny Kemble to facts within her knowledge.

Footnote 34:

    Late member of Congress from Texas. In his speech in New York (1862)
    he said: “I know that the loyalists of Texas have died deaths not
    heard of since the dark ages until now; not only hunted and shot,
    murdered upon their own thresholds, but tied up and scalded to death
    with boiling water; torn asunder by wild horses fastened to their
    feet; whole neighborhoods of men exterminated, and their wives and
    children driven away.”

    It is estimated by a writer in the New Orleans Crescent (June,
    1863), that at least _twenty-five hundred_ persons had been hung in
    Texas during the preceding two years _for fidelity to the Union_.

    The San Antonio (Texas) Herald, a Rebel sheet of November 13th,
    1862, taunted the Unionists with the havoc that had been made among
    them! It says: “They (Union men) are known and will be remembered.
    Their numbers were small at first, and they are becoming every day
    less. In the mountains near Fort Clark and along the Rio Grande
    _their bones are bleaching in the sun_, and in the counties of Wire
    and Denton _their bodies are suspended by scores_ from black-jacks.”

    Such are the shameless butchers and hangmen that Slavery spawns!

Footnote 35:

    “Marriage,” says a Catholic Bishop of a Southern State, quoted in
    the Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph, “is scarcely known amongst them
    (the slaves); the masters _attach no importance to it_. In some
    States those who teach them (the slaves) to read _are punished with
    death_.”

Footnote 36:

  Our experience in South Carolina and Louisiana proves that there would
  be no danger, but, on the contrary, great good in instant
  emancipation.

Footnote 37:

    The writer has fully tested it in repeated instances; and there are
    probably several hundred thousand persons at this moment in the
    United States, to whom the same species of test is a _certainty_,
    not merely a _belief_.

Footnote 38:

    The parallel facts are too numerous and notorious to need
    specification.

Footnote 39:

    Captain Andre Cailloux, a negro, was a well-educated and
    accomplished gentleman. He belonged to the First Louisiana regiment,
    and perished nobly at Port Hudson, May 17, 1863, leading on his men
    in the thickest of the fight. His body was recovered the latter part
    of July, and interred with great ceremony at New Orleans.




                            CHAPTER XXXVIII.
                        THE LAWYER AND THE LADY.

“The Devil is an ass.”—_Old Proverb._


Peek’s apprehensions in regard to Ratcliff’s agent, Semmes, were not
imaginary. Semmes was of the school in politics and policy of old Mr.
Slidell. He did not believe in the vitality and absoluteness of right
and goodness. His life maxim was, while bowing and smirking to all the
world, to hold all the world as cheats. To his mind, slavery was right,
because it was profitable; and inwardly he pooh-poohed at every attempt
to vindicate or to condemn it from a moral or religious point of view.
He laid it down as an axiom, that slavery must exist just so long as it
paid.

“Worthy souls, sir, these philanthropists,—but they want the virile
element,—the practical element, sir! Like women and poets, they are led
by their emotions. If the world were in the hands of such softs, the old
machine would be smashed up in universal anarchy.”

Ah, thou blind guide! These tender souls thou scornest are they who
always prevail in the long run. They prevail, because God rules through
them, and because he does not withdraw himself utterly from human
affairs! They prevail because Christ’s doctrine of self-abnegation, and
of justice and love, is the very central principle of progress, whether
in the heavens or on the earth; because it is the keystone of the arch
by which all things are upheld and saved from chaos. Yes, Divine duty,
Charity! “Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,—and the most ancient
heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong!”

Benjamin Constant remarked of conservative Talleyrand, that had he been
present at the creation of all things, he would have exclaimed, “Good
God! chaos will be destroyed!” Beware of the conservatism that would
impede God’s work of justice and of love!

Ratcliff, in his last confidential interview with Semmes, had
communicated to the lawyer all the facts which he himself was in
possession of in regard to the White Slave. In the quiet of Ratcliff’s
library, Semmes now carefully revolved and weighed all these
particulars. The fact that Clara might be wrongfully held as a slave
made little impression upon him, his proper business being to conform to
his client’s wishes and to make his client’s claim as strong as
possible, without regard to any other considerations. What puzzled him
greatly was Madam Volney’s apparent interest in Clara; and as for Esha,
she was a perfect sphinx in her impenetrability. As he pondered the
question of her fidelity, the thought occurred to him, Why not learn
something of her antecedents from Mrs. Gentry? A good idea!

That very evening he knocked at the door of the “select establishment.”
A bright-faced black boy had run up the steps in advance of him, and
asked who it was he wanted to see. “Mrs. Gentry.” “Well, sir, she’s in.
Just give the bell a good pull.” And the officious boy disappeared. A
minute afterwards the lawyer was seated in the lady’s presence in her
little parlor.

“And have you heard from poor Mr. Ratcliff?” she asked.

“He is still in confinement, I believe, in Fort Lafayette.”

“Ah! is he, poor man?” returned the lady; and it was on her mind to add:
“I knew he would be come up with! I said he would be come up with!” But
she repressed the exulting exclamation, and simply added: “Those horrid
Yankees! Do you think, Mr. Semmes, we are in any danger from this
down-east general, known as Picayune Butler?”

“Don’t be under concern, Madam. He may be a sharp lawyer, but if he ever
comes to New Orleans, it will be as a prisoner.”

“And how is Miss Murray?”

“Never better, or handsomer. And by the way, I wish to make some
inquiries respecting the colored woman Esha, who, I believe, lived some
time in your family.”

“Yes, Esha lived with me fifteen years. A capital cook, and good washer
and ironer. I wouldn’t have parted with her if Mr. Ratcliff hadn’t been
so set on borrowing her. She was here some days ago about that
deposition business.”

“O yes,” said Semmes, thoroughly startled, yet concealing every sign of
surprise, and remarking: “By the way, how did you get through with that
business?”

“O, very well. Mr. Jasper and the other gentlemen were very polite and
considerate.”

Jasper! He was the counsel in the great case of Winslow _versus_
Burrows. Probably he was now Winslow’s confidential agent and adviser.
Semmes’s thin, wiry hands closed together, as if grasping a clew that
would lead him to hidden treasures.

“I hope,” said he, carefully trying his ground, “you weren’t incommoded
by the application.”

“Not at all. I only had to refer to my account-books, which gave me all
the necessary dates. And as for the child’s clothes, they were in an old
trunk in the garret, where they hadn’t been touched for fifteen years. I
had forgotten all about them till Mr. Jasper asked me whether I had any
such articles.”

Semmes was still in the dark.

“And was Esha’s testimony taken?”

“Yes, though I don’t see of what use it can be, seeing that she’s a
slave, and her deposition is worthless under our laws.”

“To what did Esha depose?”

“Haven’t you seen the depositions?”

“O yes! But not having read them carefully as yet, I should like the
benefit of your recollections.”

“O, Esha merely identified the girl’s clothes and the initials marked
upon them,—for she knows the alphabet. She also remembered seeing Mr.
Ratcliff lift the child out of the barouche the day he first called
here. All which was taken down.”

“Could you let me see the clothes and the account-books?”

“I gave them all up to Mr. Jasper. Didn’t he tell you so?”

“Perhaps. I may have forgotten.”

Semmes bade Mrs. Gentry good evening.

“Headed off by all that’s unfortunate!” muttered he, as he walked away.
“And by that smooth Churchman, Jasper! Why didn’t I think to
hermetically seal up this Mrs. Gentry’s clack, and take away all her
traps and books? And Esha,—if she weren’t playing false, she would have
reported all this to me at once. But I’ll let the old hag see that, deep
as she is, she isn’t beyond the reach of my plummet. That pretended
brother of hers, too! He must be looked after. I shouldn’t wonder if he
were a spy of Winslow’s. I must venture upon a _coup d’état_ at once, if
I would defeat their plottings. How shall I manage it?”

Semmes had on his books heavy charges against Ratcliff for professional
services, and did not care to jeopard their payment by any slackness in
attending to that gentleman’s parting injunctions. He saw he would be
justified in any act of precaution, however extreme, that was undertaken
in good faith towards his client. And so he resolved on two steps: one
was to arrest Esha’s pretended brother, and the other to withdraw Clara
from the surveillance of Esha and Madame Volney.

Peek had not been idle meanwhile. For several weeks he had employed a
boy to dog Semmes’s footsteps; and when that enterprising lad brought
word of the lawyer’s visit to Mrs. Gentry’s, Peek saw that his own
communications with the women at Ratcliff’s were cut off. He immediately
sent word of the fact to Esha, and told her to redouble her caution.

Semmes waited three days in the hope that Peek would make his
appearance; but at length growing impatient, took occasion to accost the
impracticable Esha.

“Esha, can that brother of yours drive a carriage?”

“O yes, massa, he can do eb’ry ting.”

“Well, Jim wants to go up to Baton Rouge to see his wife, and I’ve no
objection to hiring your brother awhile in his place.”

“Dar’s noting Jake would like quite so well, massa; but how unfortnit it
am!—Jake’s gone to Natchez.”

“Where does Jake live when he’s here?”

“Yah, yah! Dat’s a good joke. Whar does he lib? He lib all ’bout in
spots. Jake’s got more wives nor ole Brigham Young.”

Finding he could make nothing out of Esha, Semmes resolved on his second
precaution; for he felt that, with two plotting women against him, his
charge was likely any moment to be abstracted from under his eyes. He
had the letting of several vacant houses, some of them furnished. If he
could secretly transfer Clara to one of these, he could guard and hold
her there without being in momentary dread of her escape. He thought
long and anxiously, and finally nodded his head as if the right scheme
had been hit upon at last.

Clara was an early riser. Every morning, in company with Esha, she took
a promenade in the little garden in the rear of the house. One morning
as they were thus engaged, and Clara was noticing the indications of
spring among the early buds and blossoms (though it was yet March), a
woman, newly employed as a seamstress in the family, called out from the
kitchen window, “O Esha! Come quick! Black Susy is trying to catch
Minnie, to kill her for stealing cream.” Minnie was a favorite cat,
petted by Madame Volney.

“Don’t let her do it, Esha!” exclaimed Clara. “Run quick, and prevent
it!”

Esha ran. But no sooner had she disappeared over the threshold than
Clara, who stood admiring an almond-tree in full bloom, felt a hood
thrown over her face from behind, while both her hands were seized to
prevent resistance. The hood was so strongly saturated with chloroform,
that almost before she could utter a cry she was insensible.

When Clara returned to consciousness, she found herself lying on a bed
in a large and elegant apartment. The rich Parisian furniture, the
Turkish carpet, and the amber-colored silk curtains told of wealth and
sumptuous tastes. Her first movement was to feel for the little dagger
which she carried in a sheath in a hidden pocket. She found it was safe.
The windows were open, and the pleasant morning breeze came in soft and
cool.

As she raised herself on her elbow and looked about, a woman wearing the
white starched linen bonnet of a Sister of Charity rose from a chair and
stood before her. The face of this woman had a tender and serious
expression, but the head showed a deficiency in the intellectual
regions. Indeed, Sister Agatha was at once a saint and a simpleton;
credulous as a child, though pious as Ignatius himself. She was not in
truth a recognized member of the intelligent order whose garb she wore.
She had been rejected because of those very traits she now revealed; but
being regarded as harmless, she was suffered to play the Sister on her
own account, procuring alms from the charitable, and often using them
discreetly. Having called at Semmes’s office on a begging visit, he had
recognized in her a fitting tool, and had secured her confidence by a
liberal contribution and an affectation of rare piety.

“How do you feel now, my dear?” asked Agatha.

“What has happened?” said Clara, trying to recall the circumstances
which had led to her present position. “Who are you? Where’s Esha? Why
is not Josephine here?”

“There! don’t get excited,” said the sister. “Your poor brain has been
in a whirl,—that’s all.”

“Please tell me who you are, and why I am here, and what has happened.”

“I am Sister Agatha. I have been engaged by Mr. Semmes to take care of
you. What has happened is,—you have had one of your bad turns, that’s
all.”

Clara pondered the past silently for a full minute; then, turning to the
woman, said: “You would not knowingly do a bad act. I get that assurance
from your face. Have they told you I was insane?”

“There, dear, be quiet! Lie down, and don’t distress yourself,” said
Sister Agatha. “We’ll have some breakfast for you soon.”

“You speak of my having had a bad turn,” resumed Clara. “What sort of a
bad turn? A fit?”

“Yes, dear, a fit.”

“Come nearer to me, Sister Agatha. Don’t you perceive an odor of
chloroform on my clothes?”

“Why not? They gave it for your relief.”

“No; they gave it to render me powerless, that they might bring me
without a struggle to this place out of the reach of the two friends
with whom I have been living. Sister Agatha, don’t let them deceive you.
Do I talk or look like an insane person? Do not fear to answer me. I
shall not be offended.”

“Yes, child, you both talk and look as if you were not in your right
mind. So be a good girl and compose yourself.”

Clara stepped on the floor, walked to the window, and saw that she was
in the third story of a spacious house. She tried the doors. They were
all locked, with the exception of one which communicated by a little
entry, occupied by closets, with a corresponding room which looked out
on the street from the front.

“I am a prisoner within these rooms, am I?” asked Clara.

“Yes, there’s no way by which you can get out. But here is everything
comfortable, you see. In the front room you will find a piano and a case
of pious books. Here is a bathing-room, where you can have hot water or
cold. This door on my right leads to a billiard-table, where you can go
and play, if you are good. You need not lack for air or exercise.”

“When can I see Mr. Semmes?”

“He promised to be here by ten o’clock.”

“Do not fail to let me see him when he comes. Sister Agatha, is there
any way by which I can prove to you I am not insane?”

“No; because the more shrewd and sensible you are, the more I shall
think you are out of your head. Insane people are always cunning. You
have showed great cunning in all you have said and done.”

“Then if I turn simple, you will think I am recovering, eh?”

“No; I shall think you are feigning. Why, I once passed a whole day with
a crazy woman, and never one moment suspected she was crazy till I was
told so.”

“Who told you I am crazy?”

“The gentleman who engaged me to attend you,—Mr. Semmes.”

“Am I crazy only on one point or on many?”

“You ought to know best. I believe you are what they call a monomaniac.
You are crazy on the subject of freedom. You want to be free.”

“But, Sister Agatha, if you were shut up in a house against your will,
wouldn’t you desire to be free?”

“There it is! I knew you would put things cunningly. But I’m prepared
for it. You mustn’t think to deceive me, child, Why not be honest, and
confess your wits are wandering?”

The door of the communicating room was here unlocked.

“What’s that?” asked Clara.

“They are bringing in your breakfast,” said the sister. “I hope you have
an appetite.”

Though faint and sick at heart, Clara resolved to conceal her emotions.
So she sat down and made a show of eating.

“I will leave you awhile,” said the sister. “If you want anything, you
can ring.”

Left to herself, Clara rose and promenaded the apartment, her thoughts
intently turned inward to a survey of her position. Why had she been
removed to this new abode? Plainly because Semmes feared she would be
aided by her companions in baffling his vigilance and effecting her
escape. Clara knelt by the bedside and prayed for light and guidance;
and an inward voice seemed to say to her: “You talk of trusting God, and
yet you only half trust him.”

What could it mean? Clara meditated upon it long and anxiously. What had
been her motive in procuring the dagger! A mixed motive and vague.
Perhaps it was to take her own life, perhaps another’s. Had she not
reached that point of faith that she could believe God would save her
from both these alternatives? Yes; she would doubt no longer. Walking to
the back window she drew the dagger from its sheath and threw it far out
into a clump of rose-bushes that grew rank in the centre of the area.

The key turned in the door, and Sister Agatha appeared.

“Mr. Semmes is here. Can he come in?”

“Yes. I’ve been waiting for him.”

The sister withdrew and the gentleman entered.

“Sit down,” said Clara. “For what purpose am I confined here?”

“My dear young lady, you desire to be treated with frankness. You are
sensible,—you are well educated,—you are altogether charming; but you
are a slave.”

“Stop there, sir! How do you know I’m a slave?”

“Of course I am bound to take the testimony of my client, an honorable
gentleman, on that point.”

“Have you examined the record! Can Mr. Ratcliff produce any evidence
that the child he bought was white? Look at me. Look at this arm. Do you
believe my parentage is other than pure Saxon? If that doesn’t shake
your belief, let me tell you that I have proofs that I am the only
surviving child of that same Mr. and Mrs. Berwick who were lost more
than fourteen years ago in a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi.”

“Proofs? You have proofs? Impossible! What are they?”

“That I do not choose to tell you. Only I warn you that the proofs
exist, and that you are lending yourself to a fraud in helping your
client to hold me as a slave.”

“My dear young lady, don’t encourage such wild, romantic dreams. Some
one, for a wicked purpose, has put them into your head. The only child
of Mr. and Mrs. Berwick was lost with them, as was clearly proved on the
trial that grew out of the disaster, and their large property passed
into the possession of a distant connection.”

“But what if the story of the child’s loss was a lie,—what if she was
saved,—then kidnapped,—then sold as a slave? What if she now stands
before you?”

“As a lawyer I must say, I don’t see it. And even if it were all true,
what an incalculable advantage the man who has millions in possession
will have over any claimant who can’t offer a respectable fee in
advance! Who holds the purse-strings, wins. ’T is an invariable rule, my
child.”

“God will defend the right, Mr. Semmes; and I advise you to range
yourself on his side forthwith.”

“It wouldn’t do for me to desert my client. That would be grossly
unprofessional.”

“Even if satisfied your client was in the wrong?”

“My dear young lady, that’s just the predicament where a lawyer’s
services are most needed. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, for I’m not in the wrong. My cause is that of justice and
humanity. You cannot serve it.”

“In that remark you wound my _amour propre_. Now let me put the case for
my client: Accidentally attending an auction he buys an infant slave. He
brings her up tenderly and well. He spares no expense in her education.
No sooner does she reach a marriageable age, than, discarding all
gratitude for his kindness, she runs away. He discovers her, and she is
brought to his house. His wife dying, he proposes to marry and
emancipate this ungrateful young woman. Instead of being touched by his
generosity, she plots to baffle and disappoint him. Who could blame him
if he were to put her up at auction to-morrow and sell her to the
highest bidder?”

“If you speak in sincerity, sir, then you are, morally considered, blind
as an owl; if in raillery, then you are cruel as a wolf.”

“My dear young lady, you show in your every remark that you are a
cultivated person; that you are naturally clever, and that education has
added its polish. How charming it would be to see one so gifted and
accomplished placed in that position of wealth and rank which she would
so well adorn! There must never be unpleasant words between me and the
future Mrs. Ratcliff,—never!”

“Then, sir, you’re safe, however angrily I may speak.”

“Your pin-money alone, my dear young lady, will be enough to support
half a dozen ordinary families.”

Clara made no reply, and Semmes continued: “Think of it! First, the tour
of Europe in princely style; then a return to the most splendid
establishment in Louisiana!”

“Well, sir, if your eloquence is exhausted, you can do me a favor.”

“What is it, my dear young lady?”

“Leave the room.”

“Certainly. By the way, I expect Mr. Ratcliff any hour now.”

“I thought he was in Fort Lafayette!” replied Clara, trying to steady
her voice and conceal her agitation.

“No. He succeeded in escaping. His letter is dated Richmond.”

Clara made no reply, and the old lawyer passed out, muttering: “Poor
little simpleton. ’T is only a freak. No woman in her senses could
resist such an offer. She’ll thank me one of these days for my
anæsthetic practice.”




                             CHAPTER XXXIX.
                          SEEING IS BELIEVING.

“It is a very obvious principle, although often forgotten in the pride
of prejudice and of controversy, that what has been seen _by one pair of
human eyes_ is of force to countervail all that has been reasoned or
guessed at by a thousand human understandings.”—_Rev. Thomas Chalmers._


When, after some detention, Esha returned to the garden, and could not
see Clara, she ran up-stairs and sought her in all the rooms. Then
returning to the garden she looked in the summer-house, in the
grape-arbor, everywhere without avail. Suddenly she caught sight of a
small black girl, a sort of under-drudge in the kitchen, who was
standing with mouth distended, showing her white teeth, and grinning at
Esha’s discomfiture. It was the work of a moment for Esha to seize the
hussy, drag her into the wash-house, and by the aid of certain
squeezings, liberally applied to her cervical vertebræ, to compel her to
extrude the fact that Missie Clara had been forcibly carried off by two
men, and placed in a carriage, which had been driven fast away.

When Esha communicated this startling information to Madame Volney, the
wrath of the latter was terrible to behold. It was well for Lawyer
Semmes that his good stars kept him that moment from encountering the
quadroon lady, else a sudden stop might have been put to his
professional usefulness.

After she had recovered from her first shock of anger, she asked: “Why
hasn’t Peek been here these five days?”

“’Cause he ’cluded’t wan’t safe,” replied Esha. “He seed ole Semmes war
up ter su’thin, an’ so he keep dark.”

“Well, Esha, we must see Peek. You know where he lives?”

“Yes, Missis, but we mus’ be car’ful ’bout lettin’ anybody foller us.”

“We can look out for that. Come! Let us start at once.”

The two women sallied forth into the street, and proceeded some
distance, Esha looking frequently behind with a caution that proved to
be not ill-timed. Suddenly she darted across the street, and going up to
a negro-boy who stood looking with an air of profound interest at some
snuff-boxes and pipes in the window of a tobacconist, seized him by the
wool of his head and pulled him towards a carriage-stand, where she
accosted a colored driver of her acquaintance, and said: “Look har,
Jube, you jes put dis little debble ob a spy on de box wid yer, and gib
him a twenty minutes’ dribe, an’ den take him to Massa Ratcliff’s, open
de door, an’ pitch him in, an’ I’ll gib yer half a dollar ef yer’ll do
it right off an’ ahx no questions; an’ ef he dars ter make a noise you
jes put yer fingers har,—dy’e see,—and pinch his win’pipe tight. Doan
let him git away on no account whatsomebber.”

“Seein’ as how jobs air scarss, Esha, doan’ car ef I do; so hahnd him
up.”

Esha lifted the boy so that Jube could seize him by the slack of his
breeches and pull him howling on to the driver’s seat. Then promising a
faithful compliance with Esha’s orders, he received the half-dollar with
a grin, and drove off. Rejoining Madame Volney, Esha conducted her
through lanes and by-streets till they stopped before the house occupied
by Peek. He was at home, and asked them in.

“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” was his first inquiry. Esha replied
by narrating the summary proceedings she had taken to get rid of the
youth who had evidently been put as a spy on her track.

“That was well done, Esha,” said Peek. “Remember you’ve got the sharpest
kind of an old lawyer to deal with; and you must skin your eyes tight if
you ’spect to ’scape being tripped.”

“Wish I’d thowt ob dat dis mornin’, Peek; for ole Semmes has jes done
his wustest,—carried off dat darlin’ chile, Miss Clara.”

Peek could hardly suppress a groan at the news.

“Now what’s to be done?” said Madame Volney. “Think of something
quickly, or I shall go mad. That smooth-tongued Semmes,—O that I had the
old scoundrel here in my grip! Can’t you find out where he has taken
that dear child?”

“That will be difficult, I fear,” said Peek; “difficult for the reason
that Semmes will be on the alert to baffle us. He will of course
conclude that some of us will be on his track. He would turn any efforts
we might make to dog him directly against us, arresting us when we
thought ourselves most secure, just as the boy-detective was arrested by
Esha.”

“But what if Ratcliff should return?”

“That’s what disturbs me; for the papers say he has escaped.”

“Then he may be here any moment?”

“For that we must be prepared.”

“But that is horrible! I pledged my word—my very life—that the poor
child should be saved from his clutches. She _must_ be saved! Money can
do it,—can’t it?”

“Brains can do it better.”

“Let both be used. Is not this a case where some medium can help us? Why
not consult Bender?”

“There is, perhaps, one chance in a hundred that he might guide us
aright,” said Peek. “That chance I will try, but I have little hope he
will find her. During the years I have been searching for my wife I have
now and then sought information about her from clairvoyants; but always
without success. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. So with
these spiritual doings. Look for them, and you don’t find them. Don’t
look, and they come. I once knew a colored boy, a medium, who was lifted
to the ceiling before my eyes in the clear moonlight. A white man
offered him a hundred dollars if he would show him the same thing; but
it couldn’t be. No sooner had the white man gone than the boy was
lifted, while the rest of us were not expecting it, and carried backward
and forward through the air for a full minute. Seeing is believing.”

“But we’ve no time for talking, Peek. We must act. _How_ shall we act?”

“Can you give me any article of apparel which Miss Clara has recently
worn,—a glove, for instance?”

“Yes, that can easily be got.”

“Send it to me at once. Send also a glove which the lawyer has worn. Do
not let the two come in contact. And be careful your messenger is not
tracked.”

“Do you mean to take the gloves to a clairvoyant?”

“Not to a clear-see’er, but to a clear-smeller,—in short, to a
four-footed medium, a bloodhound of my acquaintance.”

“O, but what hound can keep the scent through our streets?”

“If any one can, Victor can.”

“Well, only do something, and that quickly, for I’m distracted,” said
Madame Volney, her tears flowing profusely. “Come, Esha, we’ll take a
carriage at the corner, and drive home.”

“Not at the corner!” interposed Peek. “Go to some more distant stand.
Move always as if a spy were at your heels.”

The two women passed into the street. Half an hour afterwards Esha
returned with the glove. There was a noise of firing.

“Dem guns am fur de great vict’ry down below,” said Esha. “De Yankees,
dey say, hab been beat off han’some at Fort Jackson; an’ ole Farragut
he’s backed out; fines he can’t come it. But, jes you wait, Peek. Dese
Yankees hab an awful way of holdin’ on. Dey doan know when dey air fair
beat. Dey crow loudest jes when dey owt ter shut up and gib in.”

Esha slipped out of the house, looking up and down the street to see if
she were watched, and Peek soon afterwards passed out and walked rapidly
in the direction of St. Genevieve Street. The great thoroughfares were
filled with crowds of excited people. The stars and bars, emblem of the
perpetuity of slavery, were flaunted in his face at every crossing. The
newspapers that morning had boasted how impregnable were the defences.
The hated enemy—the mean and cowardly Yankees—had received their most
humiliating rebuff. Forts Jackson and St. Philip and the Confederate ram
had proved too much for them.

Peek stopped at a small three-story brick house of rather shabby
exterior and rang the bell. The door was opened by an obese black woman
with a flaming red and yellow handkerchief on her head. In the entry-way
a penetrating odor of fried sausages rushed upward from the kitchen and
took him by the throat.

“Does Mr. Bender board here?”

“Yes, sar, go up two pair ob stairs, an’ knock at de fust door yer see,
an’ he’ll come.”

Peek did as he was directed. “_J. Bender, Consulting Medium_,” appeared
and asked him in. A young and not ill-looking man, in shabby-genteel
attire. Shirt dirty, but the bosom ornamented with gold studs. Vest of
silk worked with sprigs of flowers in all the colors of the rainbow. His
coat had been thrown off. His pantaloons were of the light-blue material
which the war was making fashionable. He was smoking a cigar, and his
breath exhaled a suspicion of whiskey.

“How is business, Mr. Bender?” asked Peek.

“Very slim just now,” said Bender. “This war fills people’s minds. Can I
do anything for you to-day?”

“Yes. You remember the young woman at the house I took you to the other
day,—the one whose name you said was Clara?”

“I remember. She paid me handsomely. Much obliged to you for taking me.
Will you have a sip of Bourbon?”

“No, thank you. I don’t believe in anything stronger than water. I want
to know if you can tell me where in the city that young lady now is.”

Bender put down his cigar, clasped his hands, laid them on the table,
and closed his eyes. In a minute his whole face seemed transfigured. A
certain sensual expression it had worn was displaced by one of rapt and
tender interest. The lids of the eyes hung loosely over the uprolled
balls. He looked five years younger. He sighed several times heavily,
moved his lips and throat as if laboring to speak, and then seemed
absorbed as if witnessing unspeakable things. He remained thus four or
five minutes, and then put out his hands and placed them on one of
Peek’s.

“Ah! this is a good hand,” said the young seer; “I like the feel of it.
I wish his would speak as well of him.”

“Of whom do you mean?”

“Of this one whose hands are on yours. Ah! he is weak and you are
strong. He knows the right, but he will not do the right. He knows there
is a heaven, and yet he walks hellward.”

“Can we not save him?” asked Peek.

“No. His own bitter experiences must be his tutor.”

“Why will he try to deceive,” asked Peek;—“to deceive sometimes even in
these manifestations of his wonderful gift?”

“You see it is the very condition of that gift that he should be
impressible to influences whether good or bad. He takes his color from
the society which encamps around him. Sometimes, as now, the good ones
come, and then so bitterly he bewails his faults! Sometimes the bad get
full possession of him, and he is what they will,—a drunkard, a liar, a
thief, a scoffer. Yes! I have known him to scoff at these great facts
which make spirit existence to him a certainty.”

“Can I help him in any way? Will money aid him to throw off the bad
influences?”

“No. Poor as he is, he has too much money. He doesn’t know the true uses
of it. He must learn them through suffering. Leave him to the discipline
of the earth-life. You know what that is. How much you have passed
through! How sad, and yet how brave and cheerful you have been! It all
comes to me as I press the palm of your hand. Ah! you have sought her so
long and earnestly! And you cannot find her! And you think she is
faithful to you still!”

“Yes, and neither mortal nor spirit could make me think otherwise. But
tell me where I shall look for her.”

The young man lifted the black hand to his white forehead and
pressed the palm there for a moment, and then, with a sigh, laid it
gently on the table, and said: “It is of no use. I get confused
impressions,—nothing clear and forcible. Why have you not consulted
me before about your wife?”

“Because, first, I wished to leave it to you to find out what I wanted;
and this you have done at last. Secondly, I did not think I could trust
you, or rather the intelligences that might speak through you. But you
have been more candid than I expected. You have not pretended, as you
often do, to more knowledge than you really possess.”

“The reason is, that I am now admitted into a state where I can look
down on myself as from a higher plane; so that I feel like a different
being from myself, and must distinguish between _me_, as I now _am_, and
_him_ as he usually _is_. Do you know what is truly the hell of
evil-doers? _It is to see themselves as they are, and God as he is._[40]
These tame preachers rave about hell-fire and lakes of sulphur. What
poor, feeble, halting imaginations they have. Better beds of brimstone
than a couch of down on which one lies seeing what he might have been,
but isn’t,—then seeing what he _is_! But pardon me; your mind is
preoccupied with the business on which you came. You are anxious and
impatient.”

“Can you tell me,” asked Peek, “what it is about?”

The clairvoyant folded his arms, and, bending down his head, seemed for
a minute lost in contemplation. Then looking up (if that can be said of
him while his external eyes were closed), he remarked: “The bloodhound
will put you through. Only persevere.”

“And is that all you can tell me?” inquired Peek.

“Yes. Why do you seem disappointed?”

“Because you merely give me the reflection of what is in my own mind.
You offer me no information which may not have come straight from your
own power of thought-reading. You show me no proof that your promise may
not be simply the product of my own sanguine calculations.”

“I cannot tell you how it is,” replied the clairvoyant; “I say what I am
impressed to say. I cannot argue the point with you, for I have no
reasons to give.”

“Then I must go. What shall I pay?”

“Pay him his usual fee, two dollars. Not a cent more.”

The clairvoyant sighed heavily, and leaning his elbows on the table,
covered his face with his hands. He remained in this posture for nearly
a minute. Suddenly he dropped his hands, shook himself, and started up.
His eyes were open. He stared wildly about, then seemed to slip back
into his old self. The former unctuous, villanous expression returned to
his face. He looked round for his half-smoked cigar, which he took up
and relighted.

Peek drew two dollars from a purse, and offered them to him.

“I reckon you can afford more than that,” said Mr. Bender.

“That’s your regular fee,” replied Peek. “I haven’t been here half an
hour.”

“O well, we won’t dispute about it,” said the medium, thrusting the rags
into a pocket of his vest.

Peek left the house, the dinner-bell sounding as he passed out, and
another whiff from the breath of the sausage-fiend that presided over
that household pursuing him into the street.

The course he now took was through stately streets occupied by large and
showy houses. He stopped before one, on the door-plate of which was the
name, Lovell. Here his friend Lafour lived as coachman. For two weeks
they had not met. Peek was about to pass round and ring at the servant’s
door on the basement story of the side, when an orange was thrown from
an upper window and fell near his feet. He looked up. An old black woman
was gesticulating to him to go away. Peek was quick to take a hint. He
strolled away as far as he could get without losing sight of the house.
Soon he saw the old woman hobble out and approach him. He slipped into
an arched passage-way, and she joined him.

“What’s the matter, mother?”

“Matter enough. De debble’s own time, and all troo you, Peek. I’se been
watchin’ fur yer all de time dese five days.”

“Explain yourself. How have I brought trouble on Antoine?”

“Dat night you borrid de ole man’s carriage,—dat was de mischief.
Policeman come las’ week, an’ take Antoine off ter de calaboose. Tree
times dey lash him ter make him tell whar dey can find you; but he tell
’em, so help him God, he dun know noting ’bout yer.”

Peek reflected for a moment, and then recalled the fact that Myers, the
detective, had got sight of the coat-of-arms on the carriage. Yes! the
clew was slight, but it was sufficient.

“My poor Antoine!” said Peek. “Must he, then, suffer for me? Tell me,
mother, what has become of Victor, his dog?”

“Goramity! dat dog know more’n half de niggers. He wouldn’t stay in dat
house ahfer Antoine lef; couldn’t make him do it, no how.”

“Where shall I be likely to find the dog?”

“’Bout de streets somewhar, huntin’ fur Antoine. Ef dat dumb critter
could talk, he’d ’stonish us all.”

“Well, mother, thank you for all your trouble. Here’s a dollar to buy a
pair of shoes with. Good by.”

The old woman’s eyes snapped as she clutched the money, and with a
“Bress yer, Peek!” hobbled away.

The rest of that day Peek devoted to a search for Victor. He sought him
near the stable,—in the blacksmith’s shop,—in the market,—at the few
houses which Antoine frequented; but no Victor could be found. At last,
late at night, weary and desponding, Peek retraced his steps homeward;
and as he took out the door-key to enter the house, the dog he had been
looking for rose from the upper step, and came down wagging his tail,
and uttering a low squealing note of satisfaction.

“Why, Victor, is this you? I’ve been looking for you all day.”

The dog, as if he fully understood the remark, wagged his tail with
increased vigor, and then checked himself in a bark which tapered off
into a confidential whine, as if he were afraid of being heard by some
detective.

Victor was a cross between a Scotch terrier and a thorough-bread Cuba
bloodhound, imported for hunting runaway slaves. He combined the good
traits of both breeds. He had the accurate scent, the large size and
black color of the hound, the wiry hair, the tenacity, and the
affectionate nature of the terrier. In the delicate action of his
expressive nose, you saw keenness of scent in its most subtle
inquisitions.

Late as was the hour, Peek (who, in the event of being stopped, had the
mayor’s pass for his protection) determined on an instant trial of the
dog’s powers, for the exercise of which perhaps the night would in this
instance be the most favorable time. He took him to Semmes’s office, and
making him scent the lawyer’s glove, indicated a wish to have him find
out his trail. Victor either would not or could not understand what was
wanted. He threw up his nose as if in contempt, and turned away from the
glove as if he desired to have nothing to do with it. Then he would run
away a short distance, and come back, and rise with his fore feet on
Peek’s breast. He repeated this several times, and at last Peek said:
“Well, have your own way. Go ahead, old fellow.”

Victor thanked him in another low whine, uttered as if addressed
exclusively to his private ears, and then trotted off, assured that Peek
was following. In half an hour’s time, he stopped before a square
whitewashed building with iron-grated windows.

“Confound you, Victor!” muttered Peek. “You’ve told me nothing new,
bringing me here. I was already aware your master was in jail. I can do
nothing for him. Can’t you do better than that? Come along!”

Returning to Semmes’s office, Peek tried once more to interest the dog
in the glove; but Victor tossed his nose away as if in a pet. He would
have nothing to do with it.

“Come along, then, you rascal,” said Peek. “We can do nothing further
to-night. Come and share my room with me.”

He reached home as the clock struck one. Victor followed him into the
house, and eagerly disposed of a supper of bones and milk. Peek then
went up to bed and threw down a mat by the open window, upon which the
dog stretched himself as if he were quite as tired as his human
companion.

-----

Footnote 40:

  The actual definition given by E. A., one of the Rev. Chauncy Hare
  Townshend’s mesmerized subjects.




                              CHAPTER XL.
                    THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND.

             “Let me have men about me that are fat;
             Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:
             Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look.”
                                             _Shakespeare._


Yes, Ratcliff had escaped. His temper had not been sweetened by his
forced visit to the North. In Fort Lafayette he had for a while given
way to the sulks. Then he changed his tactics. Finding that Surgeon
Mooney, though a Northern man, had conservative notions on the subject
of the “nigger,” he addressed himself to the work of befooling that
functionary. Inasmuch as Nature had already half done it to his hands,
he did not find the task a difficult one.

In his imprisonment Ratcliff had ample time for indulging in day-dreams.
He grew almost maudlin over that photograph of Clara. Yes! By his
splendid generosity he would bind to him forever that beautiful young
girl.

He must transmit his proud name to legitimate children. He must be the
founder of a noble house; for the Confederacy, when triumphant, would
undoubtedly have its orders of nobility. A few years in Europe with such
a wife would suit him admirably. Slidell and Mason, having been released
from Fort Warren in Boston harbor, would be proud to take him by the
hand and introduce him and his to the best society.

These visions came to soften his chagrin and mitigate the tediousness of
imprisonment. But he now grew impatient for the fulfilment of his
schemes. Delay had its dangers. True, he confided much in the vigilance
of Semmes, but Semmes was an old man, and might drop off any day. A
beautiful white slave was a very hazardous piece of property.

It was not difficult for Ratcliff to persuade Surgeon Mooney that his
health required greater liberty of movement. At a time when, under the
Davis _régime_, sick and wounded United States soldiers, imprisoned at
Richmond in filthy tobacco-warehouses, were, in repeated instances,
brutally and against all civilized usages shot dead for going to the
windows to inhale a little fresh air, the National authorities were
tender to a degree, almost ludicrous in contrast, of the health and
rights of Rebel prisoners. If any of these were troubled with a bowel
complaint or a touch of lumbago, the “central despotism at Washington”
was denounced, by journals hostile to the war, as responsible for the
affliction, and the people were called on to rescue violated Freedom
from the clutches of an insidious tyrant, even from plain, scrupulous
“old Abe,” son of a poor Kentuckian who could show no pedigree, like
Colonel Delancy Hyde and Jefferson Davis.

A pathetic paragraph appeared in one of the newspapers, giving a piteous
story of a “loyal citizen of New Orleans,” who, for no namable offence,
was made to pine in a foul dungeon to satisfy the personal pique of Mr.
Secretary Stanton. Soon afterwards a remonstrance in behalf of this
victim of oppression was signed by Surgeon Mooney. Ratcliff, whom the
public sympathy had been led to picture as in the last stage of a mortal
malady, was forthwith admitted to extraordinary privileges. He was
enabled to communicate clandestinely with friends in New York. He soon
managed to get on board a Nova Scotia coasting schooner. A week
afterwards, he succeeded in running the blockade, and in disembarking
safely at Wilmington, N. C.

Anxious as he was to get home, he must first go to Richmond to pay his
respects to “President” Davis, of whom everybody at the South used to
say to Mr. W. H. Russell of the London Times, “Don’t you think our
President is a remarkable man?” Ratcliff was not unknown to Davis, and
sent up his card. It drew forth an immediate “Show him in.” The
“remarkable man” sat in his library at a small table strewn with letters
and manuscripts. A thin, Cassius-like, care-burdened figure, slightly
above the middle height. What some persons called dignity in his manner
was in truth merely ungracious stiffness; while his _hauteur_ was the
unquiet arrogance that fears it shall not get its due. His face was not
that of a man who could prudently afford to sneer (as he had publicly
done) at Abraham Lincoln’s homeliness. But before him lay letters on
which the postage-stamp was an absurdly flattered likeness of
himself,—as like him as the starved apothecary is like Jupiter Tonans.

In the original the cheeks were shrunken and sallow, leaving the bones
high and salient. The jaws were thin and hollow; the forehead wrinkled
and out of all proportion with the lower part of the face; the eyes
deep-set, and one of them dulled by a severe neuralgic affection. The
lips were too thin, and there was no sweetness in the mouth. The whole
expression was that of one whose besetting characteristic is an intense
self-consciousness.

This man could not be betrayed into the ease and _abandon_ of one of
nature’s noblemen, for he was never thinking so much of others as of
himself. The absence in him of all geniality of manner was not the
reserve of a gentleman, but the frigidity of an unsympathetic and
unassured heart. There was little in him of the Southern type of
manhood. It is not to be wondered that bluff General Taylor could not
overcome his repugnance to him as a son-in-law.

Although at the head of the Rebellion, this man had no vital faith in
it; no enthusiasm that could magnetize others by a noble contagion. He
was not a fanatic, like Stonewall Jackson. And yet, just previously to
Ratcliff’s call, he had been exercised in mind about joining the
church,—a step he finally took.

He had few of the qualities of a statesman. His petty malignities
overcame all sense of the proprieties becoming his station; for he would
give way, even in his public official addresses, to scurrilities which
had the meanness without the virility of the slang of George Sanderson,
and which showed a lack of the primary elements of a heroic nature.

A man greatly overrated as to abilities. A repudiator of the sacred
obligations assumed by his State, it was his added infelicity to be
defended by John Slidell. Never respected for truthfulness by those who
knew him best. Future historians will contrast him with President
Lincoln, and will show that, while the latter surpassed him immeasurably
in high moral attributes, he was also his superior in intellectual pith.

The interview between Ratcliff and Davis began with an interchange of
views on the subject of New Orleans. Each cheered the other with
assurances of the impracticability of the Federal attack. After public
affairs had been discussed, the so-called President said: “Excuse me for
not having asked after Mrs. Ratcliff. Is she well?”

“She died some time since,” replied Ratcliff.

“Indeed! In these times of general bereavement we find it impossible to
keep account of our friends.”

“It is my purpose, Mr. President, to marry soon again. You have yourself
set the example of second nuptials, and I believe the experiment has
been a happy one.”

“Yes; may yours be as fortunate! Who is the lady?”

“A young person not known in society, but highly respectable and well
educated. I shall have the pleasure to present her to you here in
Richmond in the course of the summer.”

“Mrs. Davis will be charmed to make her acquaintance. Come and help us
celebrate Lee’s next great victory.”

“Thank you. If I can get my affairs into position, I may wish to pass
the next year in Europe with my new wife. It would not be difficult, I
suppose, for you to give me some diplomatic stamp that would make me
pass current.”

“The government will be disposed, no doubt, to meet your views. We are
likely to want some accredited agent in Spain. A post that would enable
you to fluctuate between Madrid and Paris would be not an unpleasant
one.”

“It would suit me entirely, Mr. President.”

“You may rely on my friendly consideration.”

“Thank you. How about foreign recognition?”

“Slidell writes favorably as to the Emperor’s predispositions. In
England, the aristocracy and gentry, with most of the trading classes,
undoubtedly favor our cause. They desire to see the Union permanently
broken up, and will help us all they can. But they must do this
_indirectly_, seeing that the mass of the English people, the rabble
rout, even the artisans, thrown out of employment by this war,
sympathize with the plebeians of the North rather than with us, the true
master race of this continent, the patricians of the South.”

“I’m glad to see, Mr. President, you characterize the Northern scum as
they deserve,—descendants of the refuse sent over by Cromwell.”

“Yes, Mr. Ratcliff, you and I who are gentlemen by birth and
education,—and whose ancestors, further back than the Norman Conquest,
were all gentlemen,[41]—can poorly disguise our disgust at any
association with Yankees.”

“Gladstone says you’ve created a nation, Mr. President.”

“Yes; Gladstone is a high-toned gentleman. His ancestors made their
fortunes in the Liverpool slave-trade.”

“Have you any assurances yet from Mason?”

“Nothing decisive. But the eagerness of the Ministry to humble the North
in the Trent affair shows the real _animus_ of the ruling classes in
England. Lord John disappoints me occasionally. Bad blood there. But the
rest are all right.”

“A pity they couldn’t put their peasantry into the condition of our
slaves!”

“A thousand pities! But the new Confederacy must be a Missionary to the
Nations,[42] to teach the ruling classes throughout the world, that
slavery is the normal _status_ for the mechanic and the laborer.
Meanwhile the friends of monarchy in Europe must foresee that such a
triumph as republicanism would have in the restoration of the old Union,
with slavery no longer a power in the land, and with an army and navy
the first in the world, would be an appalling spectacle.”

“What do you hear from Washington, Mr. President?”

“The last I heard of the gorilla, he was investigating the so-called
spiritual phenomena. The letter-writers tell of a _medium_ having been
entertained at the White House.”

Here Mr. Memminger came in to talk over the state of the Rebel
exchequer,—a subject which Mr. Davis generally disposed of by ignoring;
his old experience in repudiation teaching him that the best mode of
fancy financiering was,—if we may descend to the vernacular,—to “go it
blind.”

“I’ll intrude no longer on your precious time,” said Ratcliff. “I go
home to send you word that the renegade Tennessean, Farragut, and that
peddling lawyer from Lowell, Picayune Butler, have been spued out of the
mouths of the Mississippi.”

The “President” rose, pressed Ratcliff’s proffered hand, and, with a
stiff, angular bow, parted from him at the door.

-----

Footnote 41:

  Mr. Davis’s father was a “cavalier.” He dealt in horses.

Footnote 42:

  “Reverently, we feel that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to
  the nations, with great truths to preach.”—_Richmond Enquirer._




                              CHAPTER XLI.
                            HOPES AND FEARS.

             “In the same brook none ever bathed him twice:
             To the same life none ever twice awoke.”
                                              _Young._


Three days after his interview with the “remarkable man,” Ratcliff was
at Montgomery, Ala. There he telegraphed to Semmes, and received these
words in reply: “All safe. On your arrival, go first to my office for
directions.” Ratcliff obeyed, and found a letter telling him not to go
home, but to meet Semmes immediately at the house to which the latter
had transferred the white slave. Half an hour did not elapse before
lawyer and client sat in the curtained drawing-room of this house,
discussing their affairs.

“I cannot believe,” said Ratcliff, “that Josephine intended to have the
girl escape. She was the first to plan this marriage.”

“I did not act on light grounds of suspicion,” replied Semmes. “I had
myself overheard remarks which convinced me that Madame was playing a
double game. Either she or some one else has put it into the girl’s head
that she is not lawfully a slave, but the kidnapped child of respectable
parents.”

As he spoke these words Semmes looked narrowly at Ratcliff, who blenched
as if at an unexpected thrust. Following up his advantage, Semmes
continued: “And, by the way, there is one awkward circumstance which, if
known, might make trouble. I see by examining the notary’s books, that,
in the record of your proprietorship, you speak of the child as a
_quadroon_. Now plainly she has no sign of African blood in her veins.”

Ratcliff gnawed his lips a moment, and then remarked: “The fact that the
record speaks of the child as a quadroon does not amount to much. She
may have been born of a quadroon mother, and may have been tanned while
an infant so as to appear herself like a quadroon; and subsequently her
skin may have turned fair. All that will be of little account. Half of
the white slaves in the city would not be suspected of having African
blood in their veins, but for the record. Who would think of disputing
my claim to a slave,—one, too, that had been held by me for some fifteen
years?”

Well might Ratcliff ask the question. It is true that the laws of
Louisiana had some ameliorated features that seemed to throw a sort of
protection round the slave; and one of these was the law preventing the
separation of young children from their mothers under the hammer; and
making ownership in slaves transferable, not by a mere bill of sale,
like a bale of goods, but by deed formally recorded by a notary. But it
is none the less true that such are the necessities of slavery that the
law was often a dead letter. There was always large room for evasion and
injustice; and the man who should look too curiously into transactions,
involving simply the rights of the slave, would be pretty sure to have
his usefulness cut short by being denounced as an Abolitionist.

The ignominious expulsion of Mr. Hoar who went to South Carolina, not to
look after the rights of slaves, but of colored freemen, was a standing
warning against any philanthropy that had in view the enforcement or
testing of laws friendly to the blacks.

“I should not be surprised,” remarked Semmes, “if this young woman
either has, or believes she has, some proofs invalidating your claim to
hold her as a chattel.”

“Bah! I’ve no fear of that. Who, in the name of all the fairies, does
the little woman imagine she is?”

“She cherishes the notion that she is the daughter of that same Henry
Berwick who was lost in the Pontiac. Should that be so, the house you
live in is hers. That would be odd, wouldn’t it? You seem surprised. Is
there any probability in the tale?”

“None whatever!” exclaimed Ratcliff, affecting to laugh, but evidently
preoccupied in mind, and intent on following out some vague
reminiscence.

He remembered that the infant he had bought as a slave and taken into
his barouche wore a chemise on which were initial letters marked in
silk. He was struck at the time by the fineness of the work and of the
fabric. He now tried to recall those initial letters. By their mnemonic
association with a certain word, he had fixed them in his mind. He
strove to recall that word. Suddenly he started up. The word had come
back to him. It was _cab_. The initials were C. A. B. Semmes detected
his emotion, and drew his own inferences accordingly.

“By the way,” said he, “having a little leisure last night, I looked
back through an old file of the Bee newspaper, and there hit upon a
letter from the pen of a passenger, written a few days after the
explosion of the Pontiac.”

“Indeed! One would think, judging from the trouble you take about it,
you attached some degree of credence to this fanciful story.”

“No. ’T is quite incredible. But a lawyer, you know, ought to be
prepared on all points, however trivial, affecting his client’s
interests.”

“Did you find anything to repay you for your search?”

“I will read you a passage from the letter; which letter, by the way,
bears the initials A. L., undoubtedly, as I infer from the context,
those of Arthur Laborie, whose authority no one in New Orleans will
question. Here is the passage. The letter is in French. I will translate
as I read:—

  “‘Among the mortally wounded was a Mr. Berwick of New York, a
  gentleman of large wealth. They had pointed him out to me the day
  before, as, with a wife and infant child, the latter in the arms of a
  nurse, a colored woman, he stood on the hurricane-deck. The wife was
  killed, probably by the inhalation of steam. I saw and identified the
  body. The child, they said, was drowned; if so, the body was not
  recovered. A colored boy reported, that the day after the accident he
  had seen a white child and a mulatto woman, probably from the wreck,
  in the care of two white men; that the men told him the woman was
  crazy, and that the child belonged to a friend of theirs who had been
  drowned. I give this report, in the hope it may reach the eyes of some
  friend of the Berwicks, though it did not seem to make much impression
  on the officials who conducted the investigation. Probably they had
  good reason for dismissing the testimony; for Mr. Berwick died in the
  full belief that his wife and child had already passed away.’”

“I don’t see anything in all that,” said Ratcliff, impatiently.

“Perhaps not,” replied Semmes; “but an interested lawyer would see a
good deal to set him thinking and inquiring. The letter, having been
published in French, may not have met the eyes of any one to whom the
information would have been suggestive.”

“Really, Semmes, you seem to be trying to make out a case.”

“The force of habit. ’T is second nature for a lawyer to revolve such
questions. Many big cases are built on narrower foundations.”

“Psha! The incident might do very well in a romance, but ’t is not one
of a kind known to actual life.”

“Pardon me. Incidents resembling it are not infrequent. There was the
famous Burrows case, where a child stolen by Indians was recovered and
identified in time to prevent the diversion of a large property. There
was the case of Aubert, where a quadroon concubine managed to substitute
her own child in the place of the legitimate heir. Indeed, I could
mention quite a number of cases, not at all dissimilar, and some of them
having much more of the quality of romance.”

“Damn it, Semmes, what are you driving at? Do you want to take a chance
in that lottery?”

“Have I ever deserted a client? We must not shrink—we lawyers—from
looking a case square in the face.”

“Nonsense! The art how _not_ to see is that which the prudent lawyer is
most solicitous to learn. It is not by looking a case square in the
face, but by looking only at _his_ side of it, that he wins.”

“On the contrary, the man of nerve looks boldly at the danger, and fends
off accordingly. Should you marry this young lady, it may be a very
pleasant thing to know that she’s the true heir to a million.”

“Curse me, but I didn’t think of that!” cried Ratcliff, rubbing his
hands, and then patting the lawyer on the shoulder. “Go on with your
investigations, Semmes! Hunt up more information about the Pontiac. Go
and see Laborie. Question Ripper, the auctioneer. I left him in
Montgomery, but he will be at the St. Charles to-morrow. Find out who
Quattles was; and who the Colonel was who acted as Quattles’s friend,
but whose name I forget. ’T is barely possible there _may_ have been
some little irregularities practised; and if so, so much the better for
me! What fat pickings for you, Semmes, if we could make it out that this
little girl is the rightful heir! All this New Orleans property can be
saved from Confederate confiscation. And then, as soon as the war is
ended, we can go and establish her rights in New York.”

Semmes took a pinch of snuff, and replied: “You remember Mrs. Glass’s
well-worn receipt for cooking a hare: ‘First, catch your hare.’ So I
say, first make sure that the young girl will say _yes_ to your
proposition.”

“What! do you entertain a doubt? A slave? One I could send to the
auction-block to-morrow? Do you imagine she will decline an alliance
with Carberry Ratcliff? Look you, Semmes! I’ve set my heart on this
marriage more than I ever did on any other scheme in my whole life. The
chance—for ’t is only a remote chance—that she is of gentle
blood,-well-born, the rightful heir to a million,—this enhances the
prize, and gives new piquancy to an acquisition already sufficiently
tempting to my eyes. There must be no such word as _fail_ in this
business, Mr. Lawyer. You must help me to bring it to a prosperous
conclusion instantly.”

“No: do not say _instantly_. Beware being precipitate. Remember what the
poet says,—‘A woman’s _No_ is but a crooked path unto a woman’s _Yes_.’
Do not mind a first rebuff. Do not play the master. Be distant and
respectful. Attempt no liberties. You will only shock and exasperate. By
a gentle, insinuating course, you may win.”

“_May_ win? I _must_ win, Semmes! There must be no _if_ about it.”

“I want to see you win, Ratcliff; but show her you assume there’s no
_if_ in the case, and you repel and alienate her.”

“I don’t know that. Most women like a man the better for being truly, as
well as nominally, the lord and master. The more imperious he is, the
more readily and tenaciously they cling to him. I don’t believe in
letting a woman suppose that she can seize the reins when she pleases.”

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, then replied: “The tyrant is hated by
every person of sense, whether man or woman. I grant you there are many
women who haven’t much sense. But this little lady of yours is the last
in the world on whom you can safely try the experiment of compulsion.
Take my word for it, the true course is to let her suppose she is free
to act. You must rule her by not seeming to rule.”

“Well, let me see the girl, and I can judge better then as to the fit
policy. I’ve encountered women before in my day. You don’t speak to a
novice in woman-taming. I never met but one yet who ventured to hold out
against me,—and she got the worst of it, I reckon.” And a grim smile
passed over Ratcliff’s face as he thought of Estelle.

“You will find the young lady in the room corresponding with this, on
the third story,” said the lawyer. “The door is locked, but the key is
on the outside. Please consider that my supervision ends here. I leave
the servants in the house subject to your command. The Sister Agatha in
immediate attendance is a pious fool, who believes her charge is insane.
She will obey you implicitly. Sam will attend to the marketing. My own
affairs now claim my attention. I’ve suffered largely from their neglect
during your absence. Be careful not to be seen coming in or going out of
this house. I have used extreme precautions, and have thus far baffled
those who would help the young woman to escape.”

“I shall not be less vigilant,” replied Ratcliff. “I accept the keys and
the responsibility. Good by. I go to let the young woman know that her
master has returned.”

Ratcliff seized his hat and passed out of the room up-stairs as fast as
his somewhat pursy habit of body would allow.

“There goes a man who puts his hat on the head of a fool,” muttered the
old lawyer. “Confound him! If he weren’t so deep in my books, I would
leave him to his own destruction, and join the enemy. I’m not sure this
wouldn’t be the best policy as it is.”

Thus venting his anger in soliloquy Mr. Semmes quitted the house, and
walked in meditative mood to his office.

                               ----------

Ratcliff paused at the uppermost stair on the third story. From the room
came the sound of a piano-forte, with a vocal accompaniment. Clara was
singing “While Thee I seek, protecting Power,”—a hymn which, though
written by Helen Maria Williams when she thought herself a deist, is
used by thousands of Christian congregations to interpret their highest
mood of devout trust and pious resignation. As the clear, out-swelling
notes fell on Ratcliff’s ears, he drew back as if a flaming sword had
been waved menacingly before his face.

He walked down into the room below and waited till the music was over;
then he boldly proceeded up-stairs again, knocked at the door, unlocked
it, and entered. Clara looked round from turning the leaves of a
music-book, rose, and bent upon her visitor a penetrating glance as if
she would fathom the full depth of his intents. Ratcliff advanced and
put out his hand. She did not take it, but courtesied and motioned him
to a seat.

She was dressed in a flowing gauze-like robe of azure over white,
appropriate to the warmth of the season. Her hair was combed back from
her forehead and temples, showing the full symmetry of her head. Her
lips, of a delicate coral, parted just enough to show the white
perfection of her teeth. Rarely had she looked so dangerously beautiful.
Ratcliff was swift to notice all these points.

Assuming that a compliment on her personal appearance could never come
amiss to a woman, young or old, he said: “Upon my word, you are growing
more beautiful every day, Miss Murray. I had thought there was no room
for improvement. I find my mistake.”

Ratcliff looked narrowly to see if there were any expression of pleasure
on her face, but it did not relax from its impenetrability.

“Will you not be seated?” he asked.

She sat down, and he followed her example. There was silence for a
moment. The master felt almost embarrassed before the young girl he had
so long regarded as a slave. Something like a genuine emotion began to
stir in his heart as he said: “Miss Murray, you are well aware that I am
the only person to whom you are entitled to look for protection and
support. From an infant you have been under my charge, and I hope you
will admit that I have not been ungenerous in providing for you.”

“One word, sir, at the outset, on that point,” interposed Clara. “All
the expense you have been at for me shall be repaid and overpaid at once
with interest. You are aware I have the means to reimburse you fully.”

“Excuse me, Miss Murray; without meaning to taunt you,—simply to set you
right in your notions,—let me remark, that, being my slave, you can hold
no property independent of me. All you have is legally mine.”

“How can that be, sir, when what I have is entirely out of your power;
safely deposited in the vaults of Northern banks, where your claim not
only is not recognized, but where you could not go to enforce it without
being liable to be arrested as a traitor?”

A dark, savage expression flitted over Ratcliff’s face as he thought of
the turn which his wife, aided by Winslow, had served him; but he
checked the ire which was rising to his lips, and replied: “Let me beg
you not to cherish an unprofitable delusion, my dear Miss Murray. When
this war terminates, as it inevitably will, in the triumph of the South,
one of the conditions of peace which we shall impose on the North will
be, that all claims resulting out of slavery, either through the
abduction of slaves or the transfer of property held as theirs, shall be
settled by the fullest indemnification to masters. In that event your
little property, which Mr. Winslow thinks he has hid safely away beyond
my recovery, will be surely reached and returned to me, the lawful
owner.”

“Well, sir,” replied Clara, forcing a calmness at which she herself was
surprised, “supposing, what I do not regard as probable, that the South
will have its own way in this war, and that my title to all property
will be set aside as superseded by yours, let me inform you that I have
a friend who will come to my aid, and make you the fullest compensation
for all the expense you have been at on my account.”

“Indeed! Is there any objection to my knowing to what friend you
allude?”

“None at all, sir. Madame Volney is that friend.”

“Well, we will not discuss that point now,” said Ratcliff, smiling
incredulously as he thought how speedily a few blandishments from him
would overcome any resolution which the lady referred to might form. “My
plans for you, Miss Murray, are all honorable, and such as neither you
nor the world can regard as other than generous. Consider what I might
do if I were so disposed! I could put you up at auction to-morrow and
sell you to some brute of a fellow who would degrade and misuse you.
Instead of that, what do I propose? First let me speak a few words of
myself. I am, it is true, considerably your senior, but not old, and not
ill-looking, if I may believe my glass. My property, already large, will
be enormous the moment the war is over. I have bought within the last
six months, at prices almost nominal, over a thousand slaves, whose
value will be increased twenty-fold with the return of peace. My
position in the new Confederacy will be among the foremost. Already
President Davis has assured me that whatever I may ask in the way of a
new foreign mission I can have. Thus the lady who may link her fate with
mine will be a welcome guest at all the courts of Europe. If she is
beautiful, her beauty will be admired by princes, kings, and emperors.
If she is intellectual, all the wits and great men of London and Paris
will be ambitious to make her acquaintance. Now what do you think I
propose for you?”

“Let me not disguise my knowledge,” replied Clara, looking him in the
face till he dropped his eyelids. “You propose that I should be your
wife.”

“Ah! Josephine has told you, then, has she? And what did you say to it?”

“I said I could never say _yes_ to such a proposition from a man who
claimed me as a slave.”

“But what if I forego my claim, and give you free papers?”

“Try it,” said Clara, sternly.

“Can you then give me any encouragement?”

The idea was so hideous to her, and so strong her disinclination to
deceive, or to allow him to deceive himself, that she could not restrain
the outburst of a hearty and emphatic “_No!_”

Ratcliff’s eyes swam a moment with their old glitter that meant
mischief; but the recollection of his lawyer’s warning restored him to
good humor. He resolved to bear with her waywardness at that first
interview, and to let her say _no_ as much as she pleased.

“You say _no_ now, but by and by you will say _yes_,” he replied.

Clara had risen and was pacing the floor. Suddenly she stopped and said:
“My desire is to disabuse you wholly of any expectation, even the most
remote, that I can ever change my mind on this point. Under no
conceivable circumstances could I depart from my determination.”

“Tell me one thing,” replied Ratcliff. “Do you speak thus because your
affections are pre-engaged?”

“I do not,” said Clara; “and for that reason I can make my refusal all
the more final and irrevocable; for it is not biased by passion. I beg
you seriously to dismiss all expectation of ever being able to change my
purpose; and I propose you should receive for my release such a sum as
may be a complete compensation for what you have expended on me.”

Ratcliff had it in his heart to reply, “Slave! do your master’s
bidding”; but he discreetly curbed his choler, and said, “Can you give
me any good reason for your refusal?”

“Yes,” answered Clara, “the best of reasons: one which no gentleman
would wish to contend against: my inclinations will not let me accept
your proposal.”

“Inclinations may change,” suggested Ratcliff.

“In this case mine can only grow more and more adverse,” replied Clara.

Ratcliff found it difficult to restrain himself from assuming the tone
that chimes so well with the snap of the plantation scourge; and so he
resolved to withdraw from the field for the present. He rose and said:
“As we grow better acquainted, my dear, I am persuaded your feelings
will change. I have no wish to force your affections. That would be
unchivalrous towards one I propose to place in the relation of a
_wife_.”

He laid a significant emphasis on this last word, _wife_; and Clara
started as at some hideous object in her path. Was there, then, another
relation in which he might seek to place her, if she persisted in her
course? And then she recollected Estelle; and the flush of an angry
disgust mounted to her brow. But she made no reply; and Ratcliff, with
his hateful gaze devouring her beauties to the last, passed out of the
room.

On the whole he felicitated himself on the interview. He thought he had
kept his temper remarkably well, and had not allowed this privileged
beauty to irritate him beyond the prudent point. He believed she could
not resist so much suavity and generosity on his part. She had confessed
she was heart-free: surely that was in his favor. It was rather
provoking to have a slave put on such airs; but then, by Jove, she was
worth enduring a little humiliation for. Possibly, too, it might be high
blood that told in her. Possibly she might be that last scion of the
Berwick stock which an untoward fate had swept far from all signs of
parentage.

These considerations, while they disposed Ratcliff to leniency in
judging of her waywardness, did but aggravate the importunity of his
desires for the proposed alliance. Although hitherto his tastes had led
him to admire the coarser types of feminine beauty, there was that in
the very difference of Clara from all other women with whom he had been
intimate, which gave novelty and freshness and an absorbing fascination
to his present pursuit. The possession of her now was the prime
necessity of his nature. That prize hung uppermost. Even Confederate
victories were secondary. Politics were forgotten. He did not ask to see
the newspapers; he did not seek to go abroad to confer with his
political associates, and tell them all that he had seen and heard at
Richmond. Semmes’s caution in regard to the danger of his being tracked
had something to do with keeping him in the house; but apart from this
motive, the mere wish to be under the same roof with Clara, till he had
secured her his beyond all hazard, would have been sufficient to keep
him within doors.

                               ----------

Ratcliff went down into the dining-room. The table was set for one. He
thought it time to inquire into the arrangements of the household. He
rang the bell, and it was answered by a slim, delicate looking mulatto
man, having on the white apron of a waiter.

“What’s your name, and whose boy are you?” asked Ratcliff.

“My name is Sam, sir, and I belong to lawyer Semmes,” replied the man,
smoothing the table-cloth, and removing a pitcher from the sideboard.

“What directions did he leave for you?”

“He told me to stay and wait upon you, sir, just as I had upon him, till
you saw fit to dismiss me.”

“What other servants are there in the house?”

“One colored woman, sir, and one, a negro; Manda the cook, and Agnes the
chambermaid.”

“Any other persons?”

“Only the young woman that’s crazy, and the Sister of Charity that
attends her. They are on the third floor.”

Ratcliff looked sharply at the mulatto, but could detect in his face no
sign that he mistrusted the story of the insane woman.

“Send up the chambermaid,” said Ratcliff.

“Yes, sir. When will you have your dinner, sir?”

“In half an hour. Have you any wines in the house?”

“Yes, sir; Sherry, Madeira, Port, Burgundy, Hock, Champagne.”

“Put on Port and Champagne.”

Sam’s departure was followed by the chamber-maid’s appearance.

“Are my rooms all ready, Agnes?”

“Yes, massa. Front room, second story, all ready. Sheets fresh and
aired. Floor swept dis mornin’. All clean an’ sweet, massa.”

There was something in the forward and assured air of this negro woman
that was satisfactory to Ratcliff. Some little coquetries of dress
suggested that she had a weakness through which she might be won to be
his unquestioning ally in any designs he might adopt. He threw out a
compliment on her good looks, and this time he found his compliment was
not thrown away. He gave her money, telling her to buy a new dress with
it, and promised her a silk shawl if she would be a good girl. To all of
which she replied with simpers of delight.

“Now, Agnes,” said he, “tell me what you think of the little crazy lady
up-stairs?”

“I’se of ’pinion, sar, dat gal am no more crazy nor I’m crazy.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so, for I intend to make her my wife; and want
you to help me all you can in bringing it about.”

“Shouldn’t tink massa would need no help, wid all his money. Wheugh!
What’s de matter? Am she offish?”

“A little obstinate, that’s all. But she’ll come round in good time.
Only you stand by me close, Agnes, and you shall have a hundred dollars
the day I’m married.”

“I nebber ’fuse a good offer, massa. You may count on dis chile, sure!”

“Now go and send up dinner,” said Ratcliff, confident he had secured one
confederate who would not stick at trifles.

The dinner was brought up hot and carefully served.

“Curse me but this does credit to old Semmes,” soliloquized Ratcliff, as
course after course came on. “The wines, too, are not to be impeached. I
wonder if his Burgundy is equal to his Champagne.”

Ratcliff pressed his foot on the brass mushroom under the table and rang
the bell.

“A bottle of Burgundy, Sam.”

The mulatto brought on a bottle, and drew the cork gently and skilfully,
so as not to shake the precious contents.

“Ah! this will do,” said Ratcliff; “it must be of the famous vintage of
eighteen hundred and—confound the date! Sam, you sly nigger, try a glass
of this.”

“Thank you, sir, I never drink.”

“Nigger, you lie! Hand me that goblet.”

Sam did as he was bid. Ratcliff filled the glass with the dark ruby
liquid, and said, “Now toss it off, you rascal. Don’t pretend you don’t
like it.”

Sam meekly obeyed, and put down the emptied goblet. Ratcliff skirmished
feebly among the bottles a few minutes longer, then rose, and made his
way unsteadily to the sofa.

“Sam, you solemn nigger, what’s o’clock?” said he.

“The clock is just striking ten, sir.”

“Possible? Have I been three—hiccup—hours at the table? Sam, see me
up-stairs and put me to bed.”

Half an hour afterwards Ratcliff lay in the heavy, stertorous slumber
which wine, more than fatigue, had engendered.

He was habitually a late sleeper. It wanted but a few minutes to eleven
o’clock the next morning when Sam started to answer his bell. Ratcliff
called for soda-water. Sam had taken the precaution to put a couple of
bottles under his arm, foreseeing that it would be needed.

It took a full hour for Ratcliff to accomplish the duties of his toilet.
Then he went down to breakfast. And still the one thought that pursued
him was how best to extort compliance from that beautiful maiden
up-stairs.

A brilliant idea occurred to him. He would go and exert his powers of
fascination. Without importunately urging his suit, he would deal out
his treasure of small-talk: he would read poetry to her; he would try
all the most approved means of making love.

Again he knocked at her door. It was opened by Sister Agatha, who at a
sign from him withdrew into the adjoining room. Clara was busy with her
needle.

“Have you any objection to playing a tune for me?” he asked, with the
timid air of a Corydon.

Clara seated herself at the piano and began playing Beethoven’s Sonatas,
commencing with the first. Ratcliff was horribly bored. After he had
listened for what seemed to him an intolerable period, he interrupted
the performance by saying, “All that is very fine, but I fear it is
fatiguing to you.”

“Not at all. I can go through the whole book without fatigue.”

“Don’t think of it! What have you here? ‘Willis’s Poems.’ Are you fond
of poetry, Miss Murray?”

“I _am_ fond of poetry; but my name is not Murray.”

“Indeed! What may it then be?”

“My name is Berwick. I am no slave, though kidnapped and sold as such
while an infant. You bought me. But you would not lend yourself to a
fraud, would you? I must be free. You shall be paid with interest for
all your outlays in my behalf. Is not that fair?”

“I am too much interested in your welfare, my dear young lady, to
consent to giving you up. You will find it impossible to prove this
fanciful story which some unfriendly person has put into your head. Even
if it were true, you could never recover your rights. But it is all
chimerical. Don’t indulge so illusory a hope. What I offer, on the other
hand, is substantial, solid, certain. As my wife you would be lifted at
once to a position second to that of no lady in the land.”

Clara inadvertently gave way to a shudder of dislike. Ratcliff noticed
it, and rising, drew nearer to her and asked, “Have I ever given you any
cause for aversion?”

“Yes,” she replied, starting up from the music-chair,—“the cause which
the master must always give the slave.”

“But if I were to remove that objection, could you not like me?”

“Impossible!”

“Have I ever done anything to prevent it?”

“Yes, much.”

“Surely not toward you; and if not toward you, toward whom?”

“Toward Estelle!” said Clara, roused to an intrepid scorn, which carried
her beyond the bounds at once of prudence and of fear.

Had Ratcliff seen Estelle rise bodily before him, he could not have been
struck more to the heart with an emotion partaking at once of awe and of
rage. The habitually florid hue of his cheeks faded to a pale purple. He
swung his arms awkwardly, as if at a loss what to do with them. He paced
the floor wildly, and finally gasping forth, “Young woman, you shall—you
shall repent this,” left the room.

He did not make his appearance in Clara’s parlor again that day. It was
already late in the afternoon. Dinner was nearly ready. The
consideration that such serious excitement would be bad for his appetite
gradually calmed him down; and by the time he was called to the table he
had thrown off the effects of the shock which a single word had given
him. The dinner was a repetition of that of the day before, varied by
the production of new dishes and wines. Sam was evidently doing his best
as a caterer. Again Ratcliff sat late, and again Sam saw him safe
up-stairs and helped him to undress. And again the slave-lord slept late
into the hours of the forenoon.

After breakfast on the third day of his return he paced the back piazza
for some two hours, smoking cigars. He had no thought but for the one
scheme before him. To be baffled in that was to lose all. Public affairs
sank into insignificance. Sam handed him a newspaper, but without
glancing at it he threw it over the balustrade into the area. “She’s but
a wayward girl, after all! I must be patient with her,” thought he, one
moment. And the next his mood varied, and he muttered to himself: “A
slave! Damnation! To be treated so by a slave,—one I could force to
drudge instead of letting her play the lady!”

Suddenly he went up-stairs and paid her a third visit. His manner and
speech were abrupt.

“I wish to deal with you gently and generously,” said he; “and I beseech
you not to compel me to resort to harshness. You are legally my slave,
whatever fancies you may entertain as to your origin or as to a flaw in
my title. You can prove nothing, or if you could, it would avail you
nothing, against the power which I can exert in this community. I tell
you I could this very day, in the mere exercise of my legal rights,
consign you to the ownership of those who would look upon your delicate
nurture, your assured manners, and your airs of a lady, merely as so
many baits enhancing the wages of your infamy; who would subject you to
gross companionship with the brutal and the merciless; who would scourge
you into compliance with any base uses to which they might choose to put
you. Fair-faced slaves are forced to such things every day. Instead of
surrendering yourself to liabilities like these, you have it in your
power to take the honorable position of my wife,—a position where you
could dispense good to others while having every luxury that heart could
covet for yourself. Now decide, and decide quickly; for I can no longer
endure this torturing suspense in which you have kept me. Will you
accede to my wishes, or will you not?”

“I will not!” said Clara, in a firm and steady tone.

“Then remember,” replied Ratcliff, “it is your own hands that have made
the foul bed in which you prefer to lie.”

And with these terrible words he quitted the room.

Frightened at her own temerity, Clara at once sank upon her knees, and
called with earnest supplication on the Supreme Father for protection.
Blending with her own words those immortal formulas which the inspired
David wrote down for the help and refreshing of devout souls throughout
all time, she exclaimed: “Thou art my hiding-place and my shield: I hope
in thy word. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous
judgments. Wonderfully hast thou led me heretofore: forsake me not in
this extreme. Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord; _send now prosperity_!
Let thine hand help me. Deliver my soul from death, mine eyes from
tears, and my feet from falling. Out of the depth I cry unto thee. O
Lord, hear my voice, and be attentive unto my supplications.”

As she remained with head bent and arms crossed upon her bosom,
motionless as some sculptured saint, she suddenly felt the touch of a
hand on her head, and started up. It was Sister Agatha, who had come to
bid her good by.

“But you’re not going to leave me!” cried Clara.

“Yes; I’ve been told to go.”

“By whom have you been told to go?”

“By the gentleman who now takes charge of you,—Mr. Ratcliff.”

“But he’s a bad man! Look at him, study him, and you’ll be convinced.”

“O no! he has given me fifty dollars to distribute among the poor. If
you were in your senses, my child, you would not call him bad. He is
your best earthly friend. You must heed all he says. Agnes will remain
to wait on you.”

“Agnes? I’ve no faith in that girl. I fear she is corrupt; that money
could tempt her to much that is wrong.”

“What fancies! Poor child! But this is one of the signs of your
disease,—this disposition to see enemies in those around you. There! you
must let me go. The Lord help and cure you! Farewell!”

Sister Agatha withdrew herself from Clara’s despairing grasp and eager
pleadings, and, passing into the sleeping-room, opened the farther door
which led into the billiard-room, of the door of which, communicating
with the entry, she had the key.

For the moment Hope seemed to vanish from Clara’s heart with the
departing form of the Sister; for, simple as she was, she was still a
protection against outrage. No shame could come while Sister Agatha was
present.

Suddenly the idea occurred to Clara that she had not tested all the
possibilities of escape. She ran and tried the doors. They were all
locked. We have seen that she had the range of a suite of three large
rooms: a front room serving as a parlor and connected by a corridor,
having closets and doors at either end, with the sleeping-room looking
out on the garden in the rear. This sleeping-room, as you looked from
the windows, communicated with the billiard-room on the left, and had
one door, also on the left, communicating with the entry on which you
came from the stairs. This door was locked on the outside. The parlor
also communicated with this entry or hall by a door on the left, locked
on the outside. The house was built very much after the style of most
modern city houses, so that it is not difficult to form a clear idea of
Clara’s position.

Finding the doors were secure against any effort of hers to force them,
it occurred to her to throw into the street a letter containing an
appeal for succor to the person who might pick it up. She hastily wrote
a few lines describing her situation, the room where she was confined,
the fraud by which she was held a slave, and giving the name of the
street, the number of the house, &c. This she signed _Clara A. Berwick_.
Then rolling it up in a handkerchief with a paper-weight she threw it
out of the window far into the street. Ah! It went beyond the opposite
sidewalk, over the fence, and into the tall grass of the little
ornamented park in front of the house!

She could have wept at the disappointment. Should she write another
letter and try again? While she was considering the matter, she saw a
well-dressed lady and gentleman promenading. She cried out “Help!” But
before she could repeat the cry a hand was put upon her mouth, and the
window was shut down.

“No, Missis, can’t ’low dat,” said the chuckling voice of Agnes.

Clara took the girl by the hand, made her sit down, and then, with all
the persuasiveness she could summon, tried to reach her better nature,
and induce her to aid in her escape. Failing in the effort to move the
girl’s heart, Clara appealed to her acquisitiveness, promising a large
reward in money for such help as she could give. But the girl had been
pre-persuaded by Ratcliff that Clara’s promises were not to be relied
upon; and so, disbelieving them utterly, she simply shook her head and
simpered. How could Agnes, a slave, presume to disobey a great man like
Massa Ratcliff? Besides, he meant the young missis no harm. He only
wanted to make her his wife. Why should she be so obstinate about it?
Agnes couldn’t see the sense of it.

During the rest of the day, Clara felt for the first time that her every
movement was watched. If she went to the window, Agnes was by her side.
If she took up a bodkin, Agnes seemed ready to spring upon her and
snatch it from her hand.

Terrible reflections brought their gloom. Clara recalled the case of a
slave-girl which she had heard only the day before her last walk with
Esha. It was the case of a girl quite white belonging to a Madame
Coutreil, residing just below the city. This girl, for attempting to run
away, had been placed in a filthy dungeon, and a thick, heavy iron ring
or yoke, surmounted by three prongs, fastened about her neck.[43] If a
_mistress_ could do such things, what barbarity might not a _master_
like Ratcliff attempt?

                               ----------

And where was Ratcliff all this while?

Still keeping in the house, brooding on the one scheme on which he had
set his heart. He smoked cigars, stretched himself on sofas, cursed the
perversity of the sex, and theorized as to the efficacy of extreme
measures in taming certain feminine tempers. Was not a woman, after all,
something like a horse? Had he not seen Rarey tame the most furious mare
by a simple process which did not involve beating or cruelty? The
consideration was curious,—a matter for philosophy to ruminate.

Ratcliff dined late that day. It was almost dark enough for the gas to
be lighted when he sat down to the table. The viands were the choicest
of the season, but he hardly did them justice. All the best wines were
on the sideboard. Sam filled three glasses with hock, champagne, and
burgundy; but, to his surprise and secret disappointment, Ratcliff did
not empty one of them. “Mr. Semmes used to praise this Rudesheimer very
highly,” said Sam, insinuatingly. Ratcliff simply raised his hand
imperiously with a gesture imposing silence. He sipped half a glass of
the red wine, then drank a cup of coffee, then lit a cigar, and resumed
his walk on the piazza.

It was now nine o’clock in the evening. Without taking off any of her
clothes, Clara had lain down on the bed. Agnes sat sewing at a table
near by. The room was brilliantly illuminated by two gas-burners. Light
also came through the corridor from a burner in the parlor. Every few
minutes the chambermaid would look round searchingly, as if to see
whether the young “missis” were asleep. In order to learn what effect it
would have, Clara shut her eyes and breathed as if lost in slumber.
Agnes put down her work, moved stealthily to the bed, and gently felt
around the maiden’s waist and bosom, as if to satisfy herself there was
no weapon concealed about her person.

While the negro woman was thus engaged, there was a sound as if a key
had dropped on the billiard-room floor, which was of oak and uncarpeted.
Agnes stopped and listened as if puzzled. There was then a sound as if
the outer door of the billiard-room communicating with the entry were
unlocked and opened. Agnes went up to the mantel-piece and looked at the
clock, and then listened again intently.

There was now a low knock from the billiard-room at the chamber-door,
which was locked on the inside, and the key of which was left in while
Agnes was present, but which she was accustomed to take out and leave on
the billiard-room side when she quitted the apartments to go
down-stairs.

Before unlocking the door on this occasion she asked in a whisper,
“Who’s dar?”

The reply came, “Sam.”

“What’s de matter?”

“I want to speak with you a minute. Open the door.”

“Can’t do it, Sam. It’s agin orders.”

“Well, no matter. I only thought you’d like to tell me what sort of a
shawl to get.”

“What?—what’s dat you say ’bout a shawl?”

“The Massa has given me ten dollars to buy a silk shawl for you. What
color do you want?”

Clara heard every word of this little dialogue. It was followed by the
chambermaid’s unlocking the door, taking out the key and entering the
billiard-room. Clara started from the bed, and went and listened. The
only words she could distinguish were, “I’ll jes run up-stairs an’ git a
pattern fur yer.” Clara tried the door, but found it locked. She
listened yet more intently. There was no further sound. She waited five
minutes, then went back to the bed and sat down.

A sense of something incommunicable and mysterious weighed upon her
brain and agitated her thoughts. It was as if she were enclosed by an
atmosphere impenetrable to intelligences that were trying to reach her
brain. For a week she had seen no newspaper. What had happened during
that time? Great events were impending. What shape had they taken? The
terror of the Vague and the Unknown dilated her eyes and thrilled her
heart.

As she sat there breathless, she heard through the window, open at the
top, the distant beat of music. The tune was distinguishable rather by
the vibrations of the air than by audible notes. But it seemed to Clara
as if a full band were playing the Star-Spangled Banner. What could it
mean? Nothing. The tune was claimed both by Rebels and Loyalists.

Hark! It had changed. What was it now? Surely that must be the air of
“Hail Columbia.” Never before, since the breaking out of the Rebellion,
had she heard that tune. As the wind now and then capriciously favored
the music, it came more distinct to her ears. There could be no mistake.

And now the motion of the sounds was brisk, rapid, and lively. Could it
be? Yes! These rash serenaders, whoever they were, had actually ventured
to play “Yankee Doodle.” Was it possible the authorities allowed such
outrages on Rebel sensibilities?

And now the sounds ceased, but only for a moment. A slower, a grand and
majestic strain, succeeded. It arrested her closest attention. What was
it? What? She had heard it before, but where? When? What association,
strange yet tender, did it have for her? Why did it thrill and rouse her
as none of the other tunes had done? Suddenly she remembered it was that
fearful “John Brown Hallelujah Chorus,” which Vance had played and sung
for her the first evening of their acquaintance.

The music ceased; and she listened vainly for its renewal. All at once a
harsh sound, that chilled her heart, and seemed to concentrate all her
senses in one, smote on her ears. The key of the parlor door was slowly
turned. There was a step, and it seemed to be the step of a man.

Clara started up and pressed both bands on her bosom, to keep down the
flutterings of her heart, which beat till a sense of suffocation came
over her.

The awe and suspense of that moment seemed to protract it into a whole
hour of suffering. “God help me!” was all she could murmur. Her terror
grew insupportable. The steps came over the carpet,—they fell on the
tessellated marble of the little closet-passage,—they drew near the
half-open door which now alone intervened.

Then there was a knock on the wood-work. She wanted to say, “Who’s
there?” but her tongue refused its office. The strength seemed ebbing
from every limb. Horror at the thought of her helplessness came over
her. Then a form—the form of a man—stood before her. She uttered one
cry,—a simple “Oh!”—and sinking at his feet, put her arms about his
knees and pressed against them her head.

There are times when a brief, hardly articulate utterance,—a simple
intonation,—seems to carry in it whole volumes of meaning. That single
_Oh!_—how much of heart-history it conveyed! In its expression of
transition from mortal terror to entire trustfulness and delight, it was
almost childlike. It spoke of unexpected relief,—of a joyful
surprise,—of a gratitude without bounds,—of an awful sense of angelic
guardianship,—of an inward faith vindicated and fulfilled against a
tumultuous crowd of selfish external fears and misgivings.

The man whose appearance had called forth this intensified utterance
wore the military cap and insignia of a Colonel in the United States
service. His figure seemed made for endurance, though remarkable for
neatness and symmetry. His face was that of one past the middle
stage,—one to whom life had not been one unvaried holiday. The cheeks
were bronzed; the eyes mobile and penetrating, the mouth singularly
sweet and firm. Clara knew the face. It was that of Vance.

He lifted her flaccid form from the posture in which she had thrown
herself,—lifted and supported it against his breast as if to give her
the full assurance of safety and protection. She opened her eyes upon
him as thus they stood,—eyes now beaming with reverential gratitude and
transport. He looked at them closely.

“Yes,” said he, “there they are! the blue and the gray! Why did I not
notice them before?”

“Ah!” she cried. “Here is my dream fulfilled. You have at last taken
from them that letter which lay there.”

There was the sound of footsteps on the landing in the upper hall. Clara
instinctively threw an arm over Vance’s shoulder. The key of the
chamber-door was turned, and Ratcliff entered.

He had been pacing the piazza and smoking uncounted cigars. The distant
music, which to Clara’s aroused senses had been so audible, had not been
heard by him. He had not dreamed of any interruption of his plans. Was
he not dealing with a slave in a house occupied by slaves? What possible
service was there he could not claim of a slave? Were not slaves made
every day to scourge slaves, even their own wives and children, till the
backs of the sufferers were seamed and bloody? Besides, he had fortified
the fidelity of one of them—of Agnes—by presents and by flatteries. Even
the revolver he usually carried with him was laid aside in one of the
drawers of his dressing-room as not likely to be wanted.

On entering the chamber, Ratcliff, before perceiving that there was an
unexpected occupant, turned and relocked the door on the inside.

Was it some vision, the product of an incantation, that now rose before
his eyes? For there stood the maiden on whose compliance he had so
wreaked all the energy of his tyrannical will,—his own purchased slave
and thrall,—creature bound to serve either his brute desires or his most
menial exactions,—there she stood, in the attitude of entire trust and
affection, folded in the arms of a man!

Instantly Ratcliff reflected that he was unarmed, and he turned and
unlocked the door to rush down-stairs after his revolver. But Vance was
too swift for him. Placing Clara in a chair, quick as the tiger-cat
springs on his prey, he darted upon Ratcliff, and before the latter
could pass out on to the landing, relocked the door and took the key.
Then dragging him into the middle of the room, he held him by a terrible
grip on the shoulders at arm’s length, face to face.

“Now look at me well,” said Vance. “You have seen me before. Do you
recognize me now?”

Wild with a rage to which all other experiences of wrath were as a
zephyr to a tornado, Ratcliff yet had the curiosity to look, and that
look brought in a new emotion which made even his wrath subordinate. For
the first time in more than twenty years he recognized the man who had
once offended him at the theatre,—who had once knocked him down on board
a steamboat in the eyes of neighbors and vassals,—who had robbed him of
one beautiful slave girl, and was now robbing him of another. Yes, it
never once occurred to Ratcliff that he, a South Carolinian, a man born
to command, was not the aggrieved and injured party!

Vance stood with a look like that of St. George spearing the dragon. The
past, with all its horrors, surged up on his recollection. He thought of
that day of Estelle’s abduction,—of the escape and recapture,—of that
scene at the whipping-post,—of the celestial smile she bent on him
through her agony,—of the scourging he himself underwent, the scars of
which he yet bore,—of those dreadful hours when he clung to the loosened
raft in the river,—of the death scene, the euthanasia of Estelle, of his
own despair and madness.

And here, before him, within his grasp, was the author of all these
barbarities and indignities! Here was the man who had ordered and
superintended the scourging of one in whom all the goodness and grace
that ever made womanhood lovely and adorable had met! Here was the
haughty scoundrel who had thought to bind her in marriage with one of
his own slaves! Here was the insolent ruffian! Here the dastard
murderer! What punishment could be equal to his crimes? Death? His life
so worthless for hers so precious beyond all reckoning? Oh! that would
go but a small way toward paying the enormous debt!

Vance carried in a secret pocket a pistol, and wore a small sword at his
side. This last weapon Ratcliff tried to grasp, but failed. Vance looked
inquiringly about the room. Ratcliff felt his danger, and struggled with
the energy of despair. Vance, with the easy knack of an adroit wrestler,
threw him on the floor, then dragging him toward the closet, pulled from
a nail a thick leather strap which hung there, having been detached from
a trunk. Then hurling Ratcliff into the middle of the room, he collared
him before he could rise, and brought down the blows, sharp, quick,
vigorous, on face, back, shoulders, till a shriek of “murder” was wrung
from the proud lips of the humbled adversary.

Suddenly, in the midst of these inflictions, Vance felt his arm arrested
by a firm grasp. He disengaged himself with a start that was feline in
its instant evasiveness, turned, and before him stood Peek, interposing
between him and the prostrate Ratcliff.

“Stand aside, Peek,” said Vance; “I have hardly begun yet. You are the
last man to intercede for this wretch.”

“Not one more blow, Mr. Vance.”

“Stand aside, I say! Come not between me and my mortal foe. Have I not
for long years looked forward to this hour? Have I not toiled for it,
dreamed of it, hungered for it?”

“No, Mr. Vance, I’ll not think so poorly of you as to believe you’ve
done any such thing. It was to right a great wrong that you have
toiled,—not to wreak a poor revenge on flesh and blood.”

“No preaching, Peek! Stand out of the way! I’d sooner forego my hope of
heaven than be balked now. Away!”

“Have I ever done that which entitles me to ask a favor of you, Mr.
Vance?”

“Yes; for that reason I will requite the scars you yourself bear. The
scourger shall be scourged.”

“Would you not do _her_ bidding, could you hear it; and can you doubt
that she would say, Forgive?”

Vance recoiled for a moment, then replied: “You have used the last
appeal; but ’ will not serve. _My_ wrongs I can forgive. _Yours_ I can
forgive. But _hers_, never! Once more I say, Stand aside!”

“You _shall_ not give him another blow,” said Peek.

“Shall not?”

And before he could offer any resistance Peek had been thrown to the
other side of the room so as to fall backward on his hands.

Then, in a moment, Vance seemed to regret the act. He jumped forward,
helped the negro up, begged his pardon, saying: “Forgive me, my dear,
dear Peek! Have your own way. Do with this man as you like. Haven’t you
the right? Didn’t you once save my life? Are you hurt? Do you forgive
me?” And the tears sprang to Vance’s eyes.

“No harm done, Mr. Vance! But you are quick as lightning.”

“Look at me, Peek. Let me see from your face that I’m forgiven.”

And Peek turned on him such an expression, at once tender and benignant,
that Vance, seeing they understood each other, was reassured.

Clara had sat all this time intently watching every movement, but too
weak from agitation to interfere, even if she had been so disposed.

Ratcliff, recovering from the confusion of brain produced by the rapid
blows he had endured, looked to see to whom he had been indebted for
help. In all the whims of Fate, could it be there was one like this in
reserve? Yes! that negro was the same he, Ratcliff, had once caused to
be scourged till three men were wearied out in the labor of lashing. The
fellow’s back must be all furrowed and criss-crossed with the marks got
from him, Ratcliff. Yet here was the nigger, coming to the succor of his
old master! The instinct of servility was stronger in him even than
revenge. Who would deny, after this, what he, Ratcliff, had often
asserted, “Niggers will be niggers?”

And so, instead of recognizing a godlike generosity in the act, the
slave-driver saw in it only the habit of a base spirit, and the
wholesome effect, upon an inferior, of that imposing quality in his,
Ratcliff’s, own nature and bearing, which showed he was of the master
race, and justified all his assumptions.

                               ----------

Watching his opportunity Ratcliff crawled toward the billiard-room door,
and, suddenly starting up, pulled it open, thinking to escape. To his
dismay he encountered a large black dog of the bloodhound species, who
growled and showed his teeth so viciously that Ratcliff sprang back.
Following the dog appeared a young soldier, who, casting round his eyes,
saw Clara, and darting to her side, seized and warmly pressed her
extended hand. Overcome with amazement, Ratcliff reeled backward and
sank into an arm-chair, for in the soldier he recognized Captain Onslow.

Voices were now heard on the stairs, and two men appeared. One of them
was of a compact, well-built figure, and apparently about fifty years
old. He was clad in a military dress, and his aspect spoke courage and
decision. The individual at his side, and who seemed to be paying court
to him, was a tall, gaunt figure, in the coarse uniform of the prison.
He carried his cap in his hand, showing that half of his head was
entirely bald, while the other half was covered with a matted mass of
reddish-gray hair.

This last man, as he mounted the stairs and stood on the landing, might
have been heard to say: “Kunnle Blake, you’re a high-tone gemmleman, ef
you air a Yankee. You see in me, Kunnle, a victim of the damdest
ongratitood. These Noo-Orleenz ’ristocrats couldn’t huv treated a nigger
or an abolitioner wuss nor they’ve treated _me_. I told ’em I wuz
Virginia-born; told ’em what I’d done fur thar damned Confed’racy; told
’em what a blasted good friend I’d been to the institootion; but—will
you believe it?—they tuk me up on a low charge of ’propriatin’ to
private use the money they giv me ter raise a company with;—they hahd me
up afore a committee of close-fisted old fogies, an’ may I be shot ef
they didn’t order me to be jugged, an’ half of my head to be shaved! An’
’t was did. Damned ef it warnt! But I’ll be even with ’em, damn ’em! Ef
I don’t, may I be kept ter work in a rice-swamp the rest of my days.
I’ll let ’em see what it is to treat one of the Hyde blood in this ’ere
way, as if he war a low-lived corn-cracker. I’ll let ’em see what thar
rotten institootion’s wuth. Ef they kn afford ter make out of a born
gemmleman a scarecrow like I am now, with my half-shaved scalp, jes fur
’propriatin’ a few of thar damned rags, well and good. They’ll hahv ter
look round lively afore they kn find sich another friend as Delancey
Hyde has been ter King Cotton,—damn him! They shall find Delancy Hyde kn
unmake as well as make.”

To these wrathful words, Blake replied: “Perhaps you don’t remember me,
Colonel Hyde.”

“Cuss me ef I do. Ef ever I seed you afore, ’ was so long ago that it’s
clean gone out of my head.”

“Don’t you remember the policeman who made you give up the fugitive
slave, Peek, that day in the lawyer’s office in New York?”

“I don’t remember nobody else!” exclaimed Hyde, jubilant at the thought
of claiming one respectable man as an old acquaintance, and quite
forgetting the fact that they had parted as foes. “Kunnle Blake, we must
liquor together the fust chance we kn git. As for Peek, I don’t want to
see a higher-toned gemmleman than Peek is, though he _is_ blacker than
my boot. Will you believe it, Kunnle? That ar nigger, findin’ as how I
wuz out of money, arter Kunnle Vance had tuk me out of jail, what does
he do but give me twenty dollars! In good greenbacks, too! None of your
sham Confed’rate trash! Ef that ain’t bein’ a high-tone gemmleman, what
is? He done it too in the most-er delicate manner,—off-hand, like a born
prince.”

By this time the interlocutors had entered the billiard-room. After them
came a colored man and a negro. One of these was Sam, the house-servant,
the other Antoine, the owner of the dog. Immediately after them came
Esha and Madame Josephine. They passed Ratcliff without noticing him,
and went to Clara, and almost devoured her with their kisses.

No sooner had these two moved away in this terrible procession than an
oldish lady, hanging coquettishly on the arm of a man somewhat younger
than herself, of a rather red face, and highly dressed, entered the
room, and, apparently too much absorbed in each other to notice
Ratcliff, walked on until the lady, encountering Clara, rushed at her
hysterically, and shrieking, “My own precious child!” fell into her arms
in the most approved melodramatic style. This lady was Mrs. Gentry, who
had recently retired from school-keeping with “something handsome,”
which the Vigilance Committee had been trying to get hold of for
Confederate wants, but which she had managed to withhold from their
grasp, until that “blessed Butler” coming, relieved her fears, and
secured her in her own. The gentleman attending her was Mr. Ripper,
ex-auctioneer, who, in his mellow days, finding that Jordan was a hard
road to travel, had concluded to sign the temperance pledge, reform, and
take care of himself. With this view, what could he do better than find
some staid, respectable woman, with “a little something of her own,”
with whom he could join hands on the downhill of life? As luck would
have it, he was introduced to Mrs. Gentry that very evening, and he was
now paying his first devoirs.

After the appearance of this couple, steps heavy and slow were heard
ascending the stairs into the billiard-room; and the next moment Mr.
Winslow appeared, followed by Lawyer Semmes. And, bringing up the rear
of the party, and presenting in himself a fitting climax to these
stunning surprises, came a large and powerful negro in military rig,
bearing a musket with bayonet fixed, and displaying a small United
States flag. This man was Decazes, an escaped slave belonging to
Ratcliff, and for whom he had offered a reward of five hundred dollars.

Ratcliff had half-risen from his chair, holding on to the arms with both
hands for support. His countenance, laced by the leathern blows he had
received, his left eye blue and swollen, every feature distorted with
consternation, rage, and astonishment, he presented such a picture of
baffled tyranny as photography alone could do justice to. Was it
delirium,—was it some harrowing dream,—under which he was suffering?
That flag! What did it mean?

“Semmes!” he exclaimed, “what has happened? Where do these Yankees come
from?”

“Possible? Haven’t you heard the news?” returned the lawyer. “Farragut
and Butler have possession of New Orleans. What have you been doing with
yourself the last three days?”

“Butler?” exclaimed Ratcliff, astounded and incredulous,—“Picayune
Butler?—the contemptible swell-head,—the pettifogging—”

Semmes walked away, as if choosing not to be implicated in any
treasonable talk.

Suddenly recognizing Winslow, Ratcliff impotently shook his fists and
darted at him an expression of malignant and vindictive hate.

Could it be? New Orleans in the hands of the Vandals,—the “miserable
miscreants,”—the “hyenas,” as President Davis and Robert Toombs were
wont to stigmatize the whole people of the North? Where was the great
ram that was to work such wonders? Where were the Confederate gunboats?
Were not Forts Jackson and St. Philip impregnable? Could not the
Chalamette batteries sink any Yankee fleet that floated? Had not the
fire-eaters,—the last-ditch men,—resolved that New Orleans should be
laid in ashes before the detested flag, emblematic of Yankee rule,
should wave from the public buildings? And here was a black rascal in
uniform, flaunting that flag in the very face of one of the foremost of
the chivalry! Let the universe slide after this! Let chaos return!

The company drifted in groups of two and three through the suite of
rooms. Sam disappeared suddenly. The women were in the front room.
Ratcliff, supposing that he was unnoticed, rose to escape. But Victor
the hound, was on hand. He had been lying partly under the bed, with his
muzzle out and resting on his fore paws, affecting to be asleep, but
really watching the man whom his subtle instincts had told him was the
game for which he was responsible; and now the beast darted up with an
imperious bark, and Ratcliff, furious, but helpless, sank back on his
seat.

Colonel Delancy Hyde approached, with the view of making himself
agreeable.

“Squire Ratcliff,” said he, “you seem to be in a dam bad way. Kin I do
anything fur yer? Any niggers you want kotched, Squire? Niggers is
mighty onsartin property jes now, Squire. Gen’ral Butler swars he’ll
have a black regiment all uniformed afore the Fourth of July comes
round. Wouldn’t give much fer yer Red River gangs jes now, Squire!
Reckon they’ll be findin’ thar way to Gen’ral Butler’s head-quarters,
sure.”

Ratcliff cowered and groaned in spirit as he thought of the immense sums
which, in his confidence in the success of the Rebellion, he had been
investing in slaves. Unless he could run his gangs off to Texas, he
would be ruined.

“Look at me, Squire,” continued the Colonel; “I’m Kunnle Delancy
Hyde,—Virginia born, be Gawd; but, fur all that, I might jest as well
been born in hell, fur any gratitude you cust ’ristocrats would show me.
Yes, you’re one on ’em. Here I’ve been drudgin’ the last thirty years in
the nigger-ketchin’ business, and see my reward,—a half-shaved scalp,
an’ be damned to yer! But my time’s comin’. Now Kunnle Delancy Hyde
tries a new tack. Instead of ketchin’ niggers, he’s goin’ to free ’em;
and whar he kotched one he’ll free a thousand. Lou’siana’s bound to be a
free State. All Cotton-dom’s bound to be free. Uncle Sam shall have
black regiments afore Sumter soon. Only the freedom of every nigger in
the land kn wipe out the wrongs of Delancy Hyde,—kn avenge his
half-shaved scalp!”

Here the appearance of Sam, the house-servant, with a large salver
containing a pitcher, a sugar-bowl, a decanter, tumblers, and several
bottles, put a stop to the Colonel’s eloquence, and drew him away as the
loadstone draws the needle.

Onslow came near to Ratcliff, looked him in the face contemptuously, and
turned away without acknowledging the acquaintance. After him reappeared
Ripper and Mrs. Gentry, arm-in-arm, the lady with her hands clasped
girlishly, and her shoulder pressed closely up against that of the
auctioneer. It was evident she was going, going, if not already gone.
Ripper put up his eye-glass, and, carelessly nodding, remarked, “Such is
life, Ratcliff!” (Ratcliff! The beggar presumed to call him Ratcliff!)
The couple passed on, the lady exclaiming so that the observation should
not be lost on the ears for which it was intended,—“I always said he
would be come up with!”

Semmes now happening to pass by, Ratcliff, deeply agitated, but
affecting equanimity, said: “How is it, Semmes? Are you going to help me
out of this miserable scrape?”

“Our relations must end here, Mr. Ratcliff,” replied the lawyer.

“So much the better,” said Ratcliff; “it will spare my standing the
swindle you call professional charges on your books.”

“Don’t be under a misapprehension, my poor friend,” returned Semmes. “I
have laid an attachment on your deposits in the Lafayette Bank. They
will just satisfy my claim.”

And taking a pinch of snuff the lawyer walked unconcernedly away. “O
that I had my revolver here!” thought Ratcliff, with an inward groan.

But here was Madame Josephine. Here was at least _one_ friend left to
him. Of her attachment, under any change of fortune, he felt assured.
Her own means, not insignificant, might now suffice for the
rehabilitation of his affairs. She drew near, her face radiant with the
satisfaction she had felt in the recovery of Clara. She drew near, and
Ratcliff caught her eye, and rising and putting out his hands, as if for
an embrace, murmured, in a confidential whisper, “Josephine, dearest,
come to me!”

She frowned indignantly, threw back her arm with one scornful and
repelling sweep, and simply ejaculating, “No more!” moved away from him,
and took the proffered arm of the trustee of her funds, the venerable
Winslow.

The party now passed away from Ratcliff, and out of the two rooms; most
of them going down-stairs to the carriages that waited in the street to
bear them to the St. Charles Hotel, over whose cupola the Stars and
Stripes were gloriously fluttering in the starlight.

Ratcliff found himself alone with the ever-watchful bloodhound. Suddenly
a whistle was heard, and Victor started up and trotted down-stairs.
Ratcliff rose to quit the apartment. All at once the stalwart negro,
lately his slave, in uniform, and bearing a musket, with the old flag,
stood before him.

“Follow me,” said the man, with the dignity of a true soldier.

“Where to?”

“To the lock-up, to wait General Butler’s orders.”

On a pallet of straw that night Ratcliff had an opportunity of revolving
in solitude the events of the day. In the miscarriage of his schemes, in
the downfall of his hopes, and in the humbling of his pride, he
experienced a hell worse than the imagination of the theologian ever
conceived. What pangs can equal those of the merciless tyrant when he
tumbles into the place of his victims and has to endure, in unstinted
measure, the stripes and indignities he has been wont to inflict so
unsparingly on others!

-----

Footnote 43:

  This yoke was on exhibition several months at Williams and Everett’s,
  Washington Street, Boston, it having been sent by Governor Andrew with
  a letter, the original of which we have before us while we write. It
  bears date September 10th, 1863. It says of this yoke (which we have
  held in our hands), that it “was cut from the neck of a slave girl”
  who had worn it “for three weary months. An officer of Massachusetts
  Volunteers, whose letter I enclose to you, sent me this memento,” &c.
  That officer’s original letter, signed S. Tyler Read, Captain Third
  Massachusetts Cavalry, is also before us. He writes to the Governor of
  Massachusetts, that, having been sent with a detachment of troops down
  the river to search suspected premises on the plantation of Madame
  Coutreil, his attention was attracted by a small house, closed
  tightly, and about nine or ten feet square. “I demanded,” writes
  Captain Read, “the keys, and after unlocking double doors found myself
  in the entrance of a dark and loathsome dungeon. ‘In Heaven’s name,
  what have you here?’ I exclaimed to the slave mistress. ‘O, only a
  little girly—_she runned away!_’ I peered into the darkness, and was
  able to discover, sitting at one end of the room upon a low stool, a
  girl about eighteen years of age. _She had this iron torture riveted
  about her neck, where it had rusted through the skin, and lay
  corroding apparently upon the flesh._ Her head was bowed upon her
  hands, and she was almost insensible from emaciation and immersion in
  the foul air of her dungeon. She was quite white.... I had the girl
  taken to the city, where this torture was removed from her neck by a
  blacksmith, who cut the rivet, and she was subsequently made free by
  military authority.”

  See in the Atlantic Monthly (July, 1863) a paper entitled “Our
  General,” from the pen of one who served as Deputy Provost Marshal in
  New Orleans. His facts are corroborated both by General Butler and
  Governor Shepley, who took pains to authenticate them. A girl, “a
  perfect blonde, her hair of a very pretty, light shade of brown, and
  perfectly straight,” had been publicly whipped by her master (who was
  also her father), and then “forced to marry a colored man.” We spare
  our readers the mention of the most loathsome fact in the narrative.

  Another case is stated by the same writer. A mulatto girl, the slave
  of one Landry, was brought to General Butler. She had been brutally
  scourged by her master. He confessed to the castigation, but pleaded
  that she had tried to get her freedom. The poor girl’s back had been
  flayed “until the quivering flesh resembled a fresh beefsteak scorched
  on a gridiron.” It was declared by influential citizens, who
  interceded for him, that Landry was (we quote the recorded words) “not
  only a _high-toned gentleman_, but a person of unusual amiability of
  character.” General Butler freed the girl, and compelled the
  high-toned Landry to pay over to her the sum of five hundred dollars.




                             CHAPTER XLII.
                            HOW IT WAS DONE.

        “From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,
        His high endeavor and his glad success,
        His strength to suffer and his will to serve:
        But O, thou bounteous Giver of all good,
        Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown!
        Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor,
        And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away!”—_Cowper._


All the efforts of Peculiar to induce the bloodhound, Victor, to take
the scent of either of the gloves, had proved unavailing. At every trial
Victor persisted in going straight to the jail where his master,
Antoine, was confined. Peek began to despair of discovering any trace of
the abducted maiden.

Were dumb animals ever guided by spirit influence? There were many
curious facts showing that birds were sometimes used to convey
impressions, apparently from higher intelligences. At sea, not long ago,
a bird had flown repeatedly in the helmsman’s face, till the latter was
induced to change his course. The consequence was, his encounter with a
ship’s crew in a boat, who must have perished that night in the storm,
had they not been picked up. There were also instances in which dogs
would seem to have been the mere instruments of a super and supercanine
sagacity. But Victor plainly was not thus impressible. His instincts led
him to his master, but beyond that point they would not or could not be
made to exert themselves.

Had not Peek’s faith in the triumph of the right been large, he would
have despaired of any help from the coming of the United States forces.
For weeks the newspapers had teemed with paragraphs, some scientific and
some rhetorical, showing that New Orleans must not and could not be
taken. They all overflowed with bitterness toward the always “cowardly
and base-born” Yankees. The Mayor of the city wrote, in the true
magniloquent and grandiose style affected by the Rebel leaders: “As for
hoisting any flag not of our own adoption, the man lives not in our
midst whose hand and heart _would not be paralyzed at the mere thought
of such an act_!”

A well-known physician, who had simply expressed the opinion that
possibly the city might have to surrender, had been waited on by a
Vigilance Committee and warned. Taking the hint, the man of rhubarb
forthwith handed over a contribution of five hundred dollars, in
expiation of his offence.

All at once the confident heart of Rebeldom was stunned by the news that
two of the Yankee steamers had passed Forts Jackson and St. Philip. The
great ram had been powerless to prevent it. Then followed the
announcement that seven,—then thirteen,—then twenty,—then the whole of
Farragut’s fleet, excepting the Varuna, were coming. Yes, the Hartford
and the Brooklyn and the Mississippi and the Pensacola and the Richmond,
and the Lord knew how many more, were on their way up the great river.
They would soon be at English Bend; nay, they would soon be at the
Levee, and have the haughty city entirely at their mercy!

No sooner was the terrible news confirmed than the Rebel authorities
ordered the destruction of all the cotton-bales stored on the Levee. The
rage, the bitterness, the anguish of the pro-slavery chiefs was
indescribable. Several attempts were made to fire the city, and they
would probably have succeeded, but for a timely fall of rain. On the
landing of the United States forces, the frenzy of the Secessionists
passed all bounds; and one poor fellow, a physician, was hung by them
for simply telling a United States officer where to find the British
Consulate.

But if some hearts were sick and crushed at the spectacle, there were
many thousands in that great metropolis to whom the sight of the old
flag carried a joy and exultation transcending the power of words to
express; and one of these hearts beat under the black skin of Peek.
Followed by Victor, he ran to the Levee where United States troops were
landing, and there—O joy unspeakable!—standing on the upper deck of one
of the smaller steamers, and almost one of the first persons he saw, was
Mr. Vance.

Peek shouted his name, and Vance, leaping on shore, threw his arms
impulsively round the brawny negro, and pressed him to his breast. Brief
the time for explanations. In a few clear words, Peek made Vance
comprehend the precise state of affairs, and in five minutes the latter,
at the head of a couple of hundred soldiers, and with Peek walking at
his side, was on his way to the jail. Victor, the bloodhound, evidently
understood it all. He saw, at length, that he was going to carry his
point.

Arrived at the jail, a large, square, whitewashed building, with barred
windows, they encountered at the outer door three men smoking cigars.
The foremost of them, a stern-looking, middle-aged man, with fierce, red
whiskers, and who was in his shirt-sleeves, came forward, evidently
boiling over with a wrath he was vainly trying to conceal, and asked
what was wanted.

“There is a black man, Antoine Lafour, confined here. Produce him at
once.”

“But, sir,” said the deputy, “this is altogether against civilized
usage. This is a place for—”

“I can’t stop to parley with you. Produce the man instantly.”

“I shall do no such thing.”

Vance turned to an orderly, and said, “Arrest this man.” At once the
deputy was seized on either side by two soldiers. “Now, sir,” said
Vance, cocking his pistol and taking out his watch, “Produce Antoine
Lafour in five minutes, or I will shoot you dead.”

The bloodhound, who had been scenting with curious nose the man’s
person, now seconded the menace by a savage growl, which seemed to have
more effect even than the pistol, for the deputy, turning to one of the
men in attendance, said sulkily, “Bring out the nigger, and be quick
about it.”

In three minutes Antoine appeared, and the dog leaped bodily into his
arms, the negro talking to him much as he would to a human being. “I
knowed you’d do it, ole feller! Thar! Down! Down, I say, ole Vic! It
takes you,—don’t it? Down! Behave yourself afore folk. Why, Peek, is
this you?”

“Yes, Antoine, and this is Mr. Vance, and here’s the old flag, and
you’re no longer a slave.”

“What? I no longer a— No! Say them words agin, Peek! Free? Owner of my
own flesh an’ blood? Dis arm mine? Dis head mine? Bress de Lord, Peek!
Bress him for all his mercies! Amen! Hallelujah!”

The released negro could not forego a few wild antics expressive of his
rapture. Peek checked him, and bade him remember the company he was in;
and Antoine bowed to Vance and said: “’Scuze me, Kunnle. I don’t perfess
to be sich a high-tone gemmleman as Peek here, but—”

“Stop!” cried Peek; “where did you get those last words?”

“What words?” asked Antoine, showing the whites of his eyes with an
expression of concern at Peek’s suddenly serious manner.

“Those words,—‘high-tone gemmleman.’ Whom did you ever hear use them?”

“Yah, yah! Wall, Peek, those words I got from Kunnle Delancy Hyde.”

“Where,—where and when did you get them?”

“Bress yer, Peek, jes now,—not two minutes ago,—dar in the gallery whar
the Kunnle’s walkin’ up and down.”

Peek smiled significantly at Vance, and the latter, approaching the
deputy who had not yet been released from custody, remarked: “You have a
man named Hyde confined there.”

“Yes, Delancy Hyde. The scoundrel stole the funds given to him to pay
recruiting expenses.”

“For which I desire to thank him. Bring him out.”

“But, sir, you wouldn’t—”

“Five minutes, Mr. Deputy, I give you, a second time, in which to obey
my orders. If Mr. Delancy Hyde isn’t forthcoming before this second-hand
goes round five times, one of your friends here shall have the
opportunity of succeeding you in office, and you shall be deposited
where the wicked cease from troubling.”

The deputy was far from being agreeably struck at the prospect of
quitting the company of the wicked. But for them his vocation would be
wanting. And so he nodded to a subordinate, and in three minutes out
stalked the astonishing figure of Colonel Delancy Hyde, wearing a dirty
woollen Scotch cap, and attired in the coarsest costume of the jail.

Ignorant of the great event of the day, not perceiving the old flag, and
supposing that he had been called out to be shot, Hyde walked up to
Vance, and said: “Kunnle, you look like a high-tone gemmleman, and afore
I’m shot I want ter make a confidential request.”

“Well, sir, what is it?” said Vance, shading his face with his cap so as
not to be recognized. “Speak quick. I can’t spare you three minutes.”

“Wall, Kunnle, it’s jes this: I’ve a sister, yer see, in Alabamy, jest
out of Montgomery; her name’s Dorothy Rusk. She’s a widder with six
childern; one on ’em an idiot, one a cripple, and the eldest gal in a
consumption. Dorothy has had a cruel hard time on it, as you may reckon,
an’ I’ve ollerz paid her rent and a leetle over till this cussed war
broke out, since when I’ve been so hard up I’ve had ter scratch gravel
thunderin’ lively to git my own grub. Them Confed’rate rags that I
’propriated, I meant to send to Dorothy; but the fogies, they war too
quick for me. Wall, ter come ter the pint: I want you ter write a letter
ter Dorothy, jes tellin’ her that the reason why Delancy can’t remit is
that Delancy has been shot; and tellin’ her he sent his love and all
that—whar you can’t come it too strong, Kunnle, for yer see Dorothy an’
I, we was ’bout the same age, and used ter make mud-pies together, and
sail our boats together down thar in the old duck-pond, when we was
childern; an’ so yer see—”

Vance looked into his face. Yes, the battered old reprobate was trying
to gulp down his agitation, and there were tears rolling down his
cheeks. Vance was touched.

“Hyde, don’t you know me?” he said.

“What! Mr. Vance? Mr. Vance!”

“Nobody else, Hyde. He comes here a United States officer, you see. New
Orleans has surrendered to Uncle Sam. Look at that flag. Instead of
being shot, you are set at liberty. Here’s your old friend, Peek.”

The knees of Colonel Delancy Hyde smote each other, and his florid face
grew pale. Flesh and blood he could encounter well as any man, but a
ghost was a piling on of something he hadn’t bargained for. Yet there
palpably before him stood Peek, the identical Peek he believed to have
been drowned in the Mississippi some fifteen years back.

“Wall, how in creation—”

“It’s all right, Hyde,” interrupted Vance. “And now if you want that
sister of yours provided for, you just keep as close to my shadow as you
can.”

Hyde was too confounded and stupefied to make any reply. These
revelations coming upon him like successive shocks from a
galvanic-battery, were too much for his equanimity. Awestruck and
stunned, he stared stupidly, first at Vance, then at the flag, and
finally at Peek.

The roll of the drum, accompanied by Vance’s orders to the soldiers,
roused him, and then attaching himself to Peek, he marched on with the
rest, Peek beguiling the way with much useful and enlightening
information.

They had not marched farther than the next carriage-stand when Vance,
leaving Captain Onslow in command, with orders to bivouac in Canal
Street, slipped out of the ranks, and beckoning to Peek and his
companions, they all, including Antoine and Hyde, entered a vehicle
which drove off with the faithful Victor running at its side.

Behold them now in Vance’s old room at the St. Charles. The immediate
matter of concern was, how to find Clara? How was the search to be
commenced?

Antoine, a bright, well-formed negro of cheerful aspect, after
scratching his wool thoughtfully for a moment, said: “Peek, you jes gib
me them two glubs you say you’ve got.”

Antoine then took the gloves, and, throwing them on the floor, called
Victor’s attention to them, and said: “Now, Vic, I want yer to show
these gemmen your broughten up. Ob dem two glubs, you jes bring me de
one dat you tink you kn fine de owner ob right off straight, widout any
mistake. Now, be car’ful.”

Victor snuffed at the large glove, and instantly kicked it aside with
contempt. Then, after a thoughtful scenting of the small glove, he took
it up in his mouth and carried it to Antoine.

“Berry well,” said Antoine. “Dat’s your choice, is it? Now tell me, Vic,
hab yer had yer dinner?”

The dog barked affirmatively.

“Berry well. Now take a good drink.” And, filling a washbowl with water,
Antoine gave it to the dog, who lapped from it greedily.

“Hab yer had enough?” asked Antoine.

Victor uttered an affirmative bark.

“Wall, now,” said Antoine, “you jes take dis ere glub, an’ don’t yer
come back till you fine out su’thin’ ’bout de owner ob it. Understan’?”

The dog again barked assent, and Antoine, escorting him down-stairs and
out-of-doors, gave him the glove. Victor at once seized it between his
teeth and trotted off at “double-quick,” up St. Charles Street.

During the interval of waiting for Victor’s return, “Tell me now, Peek,”
said Vance, “of your own affairs. Have you been able to get any clew
from Amos Slink to guide you in your search for your wife?”

“All that he could do,” replied Peek, “was merely to confirm what I
already suspected as to Charlton’s agency in luring her back into the
clutch of Slavery.”

“I must make the acquaintance of that Charlton,” said Vance. “And by the
way, Hyde, you must know something of the man.”

“I know more nor I wish I did,” replied Hyde. “I could scar’ up some old
letters of his’n, I’m thinkin’, ef I was ter sarch in an old trunk in
the house of the Widder Rusk (her as is my sister) in Montgomery.”

“Those letters we must have, Hyde,” said Vance. “You must lay your plans
to get them. ’T would be hardly safe for you to trust yourself among the
Rebels. They’ve an awkward fashion of hanging up without ceremony all
who profane the sanctity of Confederate scrip. But you might send for
the letters.”

“That’s a fak, Kunnle Vance. I’m gittin’ over my taste for low society.
I want nothin’ more ter do with the Rebels. But I’ve a nephew at
Montgomery,—Delancy Hyde Rusk,—who can smuggle them letters through the
Rebel lines easy as a snake kn cahrry a toad through a stump-fence.
He’ll go his death for his Uncle Delancy. He’s got the raal Hyde blood
in him,—he has,—an’ no mistake.”

“Can he read and write?”

“I’m proud to say he kin, Kunnle. I towt his mother, and she towt him
and the rest of the childern.”

“Well, Hyde, go into the next room and write a letter to your nephew,
telling him to start at once for New York city, and report himself to
Mr. William C. Vance, Astor House. I’ll give you a couple of hundred
dollars to enclose for him to pay his expenses, and a couple of hundred
more for your sister.”

Four hundred dollars! What an epoch would it be in their domestic
history, when that stupendous sum should fall into the hands of Mrs.
Rusk! Colonel Hyde moved with alacrity to comply with Vance’s bidding.

Mr. Winslow and Captain Onslow now entered, followed by Colonel Blake,
between whom and Vance a friendship had sprung up during the voyage from
New York. Suddenly Peek, who had been looking from the window,
exclaimed: “There goes the man who could tell us, if he would, what we
want.”

“Who is it?” cried Vance.

“Ratcliff’s lawyer, Semmes. See him crossing the street!”

“Captain Onslow,” said Vance, “arrest the man at once.”

Five minutes did not elapse before Semmes, bland and suave, and
accompanied by Peek and Onslow, entered the room.

“Ha! my dear friend Winslow!” cried the old lawyer, putting out his
hand, “I’m delighted to see you. Make me acquainted with your friends.”

Winslow introduced him to all, not omitting Peek, to whom Semmes bowed
graciously, as if they had never met before, and as if the negro were
the whitest of Anglo-Saxons.

“Sit down, Mr. Semmes,” said Vance; “I have a few questions to put to
you. Please answer them categorically. Are you acquainted with a young
lady, claimed by Mr. Carberry Ratcliff as a slave, educated by him at
Mrs. Gentry’s school, and recently abducted by parties unknown from his
house near Lafayette Square?”

“I do know such a young person,” replied Semmes; “I had her in my charge
after Mr. Ratcliff’s compulsory departure from the city.”

“Well. And do you know where she now is?”

“I certainly do not.”

“Have you seen her since she left Ratcliff’s house?”

Happily for Semmes, before he could perjure himself irretrievably, there
was a knock at the door, and Antoine entered, followed by the
bloodhound, bearing something tied in a white handkerchief, in his
mouth.

A general sensation and uprising! For all except the lawyer had been
made acquainted with the nature of the dog’s search. Semmes glanced at
the bloodhound,—then at the negroes,—and then at the other persons
present, with their looks of absorbed attention. Surely, there was a
_dénouement_ expected; and might it not be fatal to him, if he left it
to be supposed that he was colluding with Ratcliff in what would be
stigmatized as rascality by low, cowardly, base-born Yankees, though,
after all, it was only the act of a slave-owner enforcing his legal
rights in a legitimate way?

Darting forward, just as Vance received from Antoine the little bundle
the dog had been carrying, the lawyer exclaimed: “Colonel Vance, I do
not _know_, but I can _conjecture_ where the girl is. Seek her at Number
21 Camelia Place.”

Vance paused, and looked the old lawyer straight in the eyes till the
latter withdrew his glance, and resorted to his snuff-box to cover his
discomfiture. Deep as he was, he saw that he had been fathomed. But
Vance bowed politely, and said: “We will see, sir, if your information
agrees with that of the dog.”

He untied the handkerchief, took out the paper-weight, and underneath it
found Clara’s note, which he opened and read. Then turning to the
lawyer, he said: “I congratulate you, Mr. Semmes. You _were_ right in
your _conjecture_.”

None but Semmes and Peek noticed the slightly sarcastic stress which
Vance put on this last word from his lips.

Vance now knelt on one knee, and resting on the other the fore-legs of
the bloodhound, patted his head and praised him in a manner which
Victor, by his low, gratified whine, seemed fully to comprehend and
appreciate.

Peek, who had been restless ever since the words “21 Camelia Place” had
fallen on his ears, here said: “Lend me your revolver, Mr. Vance, and
don’t leave till I come back. I promise not to rob you of your share in
this work.”

“I will trust you with the preliminary reconnoissance, Peek,” said
Vance, giving up the weapon. “Be quick about it.”

Peek beckoned to Antoine, and the two went out, followed by the
bloodhound.

Mr. Semmes, now realizing that by some display of zeal, even if it were
superserviceable, he might get rid of the ill odor which would follow
from lending himself to Ratcliff’s schemes, approached Vance and said:
“Colonel, it was only quite recently that I heard of the suspicions that
were entertained of foul play in the case of that little girl claimed by
Ratcliff as a slave. Immediately I looked into the notary’s record, and
I there found that the slave-child is set down as a quadroon; a
misstatement which clearly invalidates the title. I have also discovered
a letter, written in French, and published in L’Abeille, in which some
important facts relative to the loss of the Pontiac are given. The
writer, Monsieur Laboulie, is now in the city. Finally, I have to inform
you that Mr. Ripper, the auctioneer who sold the child, is now in this
house. I would suggest that both he and the Mrs. Gentry, who brought her
up, should be secured this very evening, as witnesses.”

“I like your suggestion, Mr. Semmes,” said Vance, in a tone which quite
reassured the lawyer; “go on and make all the investigations in your
power bearing on this case. Get the proper affidavit from Monsieur
Laboulie. Secure the parties you recommend as witnesses. I employ you
professionally.”

In his rapid and penetrating judgments of men, Vance rarely went astray;
and when Semmes, who was thinking of a little private business of his
own with the President of the Lafayette Bank, remarked, “If you can
dismiss me now, Colonel, I will meet you an hour hence at any place you
name,” Vance knew the old lawyer would keep his promise, and replied:
“Certainly, Mr. Semmes. You will find me at 21 Camelia Place.”

Peek and Antoine, taking a carriage, drove at full speed to the house
designated. Here they found to their surprise in the mulatto Sam, a
member of a secret society of men of African descent, bound together by
faith in the speedy advent of the United States forces, and by the
resolve to demand emancipation. Peek at once satisfied himself that
Clara was in no immediate danger. He found that Sam had withdrawn the
bullets from Ratcliff’s revolver, and was himself well armed, having
determined to shoot down Ratcliff, if necessary, in liberating Clara. In
pursuance of his plan he had lured the negrowoman, Agnes, up-stairs,
under the pretence already mentioned. Here he had gagged, bound, and
confined her securely. Hardly had he finished this job, when, looking
out of the window, he had seen Peek and Antoine get out of a carriage
and reconnoitre the house. Instantly he had run down-stairs, opened the
front door, and made himself known.

It was arranged that Antoine and Sam, well armed, and supported by the
bloodhound, should remain and look after Ratcliff, not precipitating
action, however, and not communicating with Clara, whose relief Peek had
generously resolved should first come from the hands of Vance.

Then jumping into the carriage, Peek drove to Lafayette Square, and
taking in Madame Josephine and Esha, returned to the St. Charles Hotel.
Here he told Vance all he had done, and introduced the two women,—Vance
greeting Esha with much emotion, as he recognized in her that attendant
at his wife’s death-bed for whom he had often sought.

Four carriages were now drawn up on Gravier Street. Into one stepped
Winslow, Hyde, and Vance; into another Semmes, Blake, Onslow, and
Blake’s trusty servant, Sergeant Decazes, the escaped slave. Into the
third carriage stepped Madame Josephine, Esha, and Peek; and into the
fourth, Mrs. Gentry and Mr. Ripper.

This last vehicle must be regarded as the centre of interest, for over
it the Loves and Graces languishingly hovered.

In introducing Ripper to Mrs. Gentry, Semmes had remarked, in an aside
to the former: “A retired schoolma’am: some money there!” Here was a
shaft that went straight to the auctioneer’s heart. In three minutes he
drew from the lady the fact that, ten days before, she had received a
visit from a Vigilance Committee, who had warned her, if she did not pay
over to them five thousand dollars within a week, her house would be
confiscated, sold, and the proceeds paid over to the Confederate
treasury. “Five thousand dollars indeed!” said the lady, in relating the
interview; “a whole year’s income! O, haven’t they been nicely come up
with!”

The Confederate highwaymen had done what Satan recommended the Lord to
do in the case of Job: they had tried Mrs. Gentry in her substance, and
she had not stood the test. It had wrought a very sudden and radical
change in her political notions. Even slavery was no longer the august
and unapproachable thing which she had hitherto imagined; and she threw
out a sentiment which savored so much of the abolition heresy, that
Ripper, thinking to advance himself in her good opinion, avowed himself
boldly an emancipationist, and declared that slavery was “played out.”
These words, strange to say, did not make him less charming in Mrs.
Gentry’s eyes.

The drive in the carriage soon offered an opportunity for tenderer
topics, and before they reached Camelia Street, the enterprising
auctioneer had declared that he really believed he had at last, after a
life-long search, found his “affinity.” And from that he ventured to
glide an arm round the lady’s waist,—a familiarity at which her
indignation was so feebly simulated, that it only added new fuel to
hope.

But Camelia Place was now reached, and the carriages stopped. The whole
party were noiselessly introduced into the house. Vance darted up to the
room where Clara’s note had instructed him he could find her. Seeing the
key on the outside, he turned it, opened the door, and presented himself
to Clara in the manner already related. The unsuspecting Ratcliff soon
followed, and then followed the scenes upon which the curtain has
already been raised.

As Vance left the house, with Clara on his arm, several of Ratcliff’s
slaves gathered round them. To all these Vance promised immediate
freedom and help. An old black hostler, named Juba, or Jube, who was
also a theologian and a strenuous preacher, was spokesman for the
freedmen. He proposed “tree chares for Massa Vance.” They were given
with a will.

“An’ now, Massa Vance,” said the Reverend Jube, “may de Lord bress yer
fur comin’ down har from de Norf ter free an’ help we. De Lord bress yer
an’ de young Missis likewise. An’ when yer labors am all ended, an’
yer’v chewed all de hard bones, an’ swollerd de bitter pill, may yer go
ober Jordan wid a tight hold on de Lord, an’ not leeb go till yer git
clar inter de city ob Zion.”[44]

-----

Footnote 44:

  Actual words of a negro preacher, taken down on the spot by a hearer.




                             CHAPTER XLIII.
                         MAKING THE BEST OF IT.

            “O, blest with temper whose unclouded ray
            Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!”—_Pope._


A sound of the prompter’s whistle, sharp and stridulous.

The scenes move,—they dispart. The Crescent City, with its squares and
gardens filled with verdure, its stately steeples, and its streets lying
lower than the river, and protected only by the great Levee from being
converted into a bed for fishes,—the Crescent City, under the swift
touch of our fairy scene-shifters, divides, slides, and disappears.

A new scene simultaneously takes its place. It represents a street in
New York. Not one of the clean, broad, well-kept avenues, lined on
either side with mansions, beautiful and spacious. It is a trans-Bowery
Street, narrow and noisome, dirty and dismal. There the market-man stops
his cart and haggles for the price of a cabbage with the care-worn
housewife, who has a baby in her arms and a two-year-old child tugging
at her gown. Poor woman! She tries to cover her bosom as the wayfarer,
redolent of bad tobacco, passes by with a grin at her shyness. There the
milkman rouses you at daylight by his fiendish yell, nuisance not yet
abated in the more barbarous parts of the city. There the soap-man and
the fish-man and the rag-man stop their carts, presenting in their
visits the chief incidents that vary the monotony of life in Lavinia
Street, if we except an occasional dog-fight.

One of the tenements is a small, two-story brick house, with a basement
beneath the street-level, and a dormer window in the attic. A family
moved in only the day before yesterday. They have hardly yet got
settled. Nevertheless, let us avail ourselves of the author’s privilege
(universal “dead-head” that he is!) and enter.

We stand in a little hall, the customary flight of stairs being in
front, while a door leads into the front sitting-room or parlor on the
left. Entering this room, the first figure we notice is an apparently
young man, rather stout, with black whiskers and hair, and dressed in a
loose sack and pantaloons, in the size and cut of which the liberal
fashion of the day is somewhat exaggerated. He stands in low-cut shoes
and flesh-colored silk stockings. About his neck he wears a choker of
the most advanced style, and tied with a narrow lustring ribbon, gay
with red and purple. As his back is partly turned to us, we cannot yet
see who he is.

A woman, in age perhaps not far from fifty, with a pleasant,
well-rounded face, and attired in a white cambric wrapper, richly
embroidered, her hair prudently hidden under a brown chenille net,
stands holding a framed picture, waiting for it to be hung. It is
Marshall’s new engraving of Washington. The lady is Mrs. Pompilard,
_born_ Aylesford; and the youth on the chair is her husband, the old,
yet vernal, the venerable yet blooming, Albert himself. It is more than
ten years since he celebrated his seventieth birthday.

Having hung the picture, Pompilard stepped down, and said: “There! Show
me the place in the whole city where that picture would show to more
advantage than just there in that one spot. The color of the wall, the
light from the window are just what they ought to be to bring out all
the beauties. Let us not envy Belmont and Roberts and Stewart and
Aspinwall their picture-galleries,—let us be guilty of no such folly,
Mrs. Pompilard,—while we can show an effect like that!”

“Who spoke of envying them, Albert? Not I, I’m sure! The house will do
famously for our temporary use. Yet it puzzles me a little to know where
I am to stow these two children of Melissa’s.”

“Pooh! That can be easily managed. Leonora can have a mattress put down
for her in the upper entry; and as for the five-year-old, Albert, my
namesake, he can throw himself down anywhere,—in the wood-shed, if need
be. Indeed, his mother tells me she found him, the other night, sleeping
on the boards of the piazza, in order, as he said, to harden himself to
be a soldier. How is poor Purling this morning?”

“His wound seems to be healing, but he’s deplorably low-spirited; so
Melissa tells me.”

“Low-spirited? But we mustn’t allow it! The man who could fight as he
did at Fair Oaks ought to be jolly for the rest of his life, even though
he had to leave an arm behind him on the battle-field.”

“It isn’t his wound, I suspect, that troubles him, but the state of his
affairs. The truth is, Purling is fearfully poor, and he’s too honest to
run in debt. His castles in the air have all tumbled in ruins. Nobody
will buy his books, and his publishers have all failed.”

“But he can’t help that. The poor fellow has done his best, and I
maintain that he has talents of a certain sort.”

“Perhaps so, but his forte is not imaginative writing.”

“Then let him try history.”

“But I repeat it, my dear Albert, imaginative writing is not his forte.”

“Ah! true. You are getting satirical, Mrs. Pompilard. Our historians,
you think, are prone to exercise the novelist’s privilege. Let us go up
and see the Major.”

They mounted one flight of stairs to the door of the front chamber, and
knocked. It was opened by Mrs. Purling, once the sentimental Melissa,
now a very matronly figure, but still training a few flaxen, maiden-like
curls over her temples, and shedding an air of youth and summer from her
sky-blue calico robe, with its straw-colored facings. She inherited much
of the paternal temperament; and, were it not that her husband’s
desponding state of mind had clouded her spirits, she would have shown
her customary aspect of cheerful serenity.

“Is the Major awake?”

“O yes! Walk in.”

“Ah! Cecil, my hearty,” exclaimed Pompilard, “how are you getting on?”

“Pretty well, sir. The wound’s healing, I believe. I’m afraid we’re
inconveniencing you shockingly, coming here, all of us, bag and
baggage.”

“Don’t speak of it, Major. Even if we _are_ inconvenienced (which I
deny), what then? Oughtn’t _we_, too, to do something for our country?
If _you_ can afford to contribute an arm, oughtn’t we to contribute a
few trifling conveniences? For my part, I never see a maimed or crippled
soldier in the street, that I don’t take off my hat to him; and if he is
poor, I give him what I can afford. Was he not wounded fighting for the
great idea of national honor, integrity, freedom,—fighting for me and my
children? The cold-blooded indifference with which people who stay
snugly and safely at home pass by these noble relics from the
battle-field, and pursue their selfish amusements and occupations while
thousands of their countrymen are periling life and health in their
behalf, is to me inexplicable. If we can’t give anything else, let us at
least give our sympathy and respect, our little word of cheer and of
honor, to those who have sacrificed so much in order that we might be
undisturbed in our comforts!”

“I’m afraid, sir,” continued the Major, “that your good feelings blind
you to the gravity, in a domestic point of view, of this incursion into
your household of the whole Purling race. But the truth is, I expected a
remittance, about this time, from my Philadelphia publisher. It doesn’t
come. I wonder what can be the matter?”

Yes! The insatiable Purling, having exhausted New York, had gone to
Philadelphia with his literary wares, and had found another victim whose
organ of marvellousness was larger than his bump of caution.

“Don’t bother yourself about remittances, Major,” said Pompilard. “Don’t
be under any concern. You mustn’t suppose that because, in an eccentric
freak, Mrs. Pompilard has chosen to occupy this little out-of-the-way
establishment, the exchequer is therefore exhausted. Some persons might
complain of the air of this neighborhood. True, the piny odors of the
forest are more agreeable than the exhalations one gets from the
desiccating gutters under our noses. True, the song of the thrush is
more entrancing than the barbaric yell of that lazy milkman who sits in
his cart and shrieks till some one shall come with a pitcher. But in all
probability we sha’n’ occupy these quarters longer than the summer
months. Why it was that Mrs. Pompilard should select them, more
especially for the _summer_ months, has mystified me a little; but the
ladies know best. Am sorry we couldn’t welcome you at Redcliff or
Thrushwood, or some other of our old country-seats; but—the fact is,
we’ve disposed of them all. To what we have, my dear Cecil, consider
yourself as welcome as votes to a candidate or a contract to an
alderman. So don’t let me hear you utter the word _remittances_ again.”

“Ah! my dear father, we men can make light of these household
inconveniences, but they fall heavy on the women.”

“Not on my wife, bless her silly heart! Why, she’ll be going round
bragging that she has a wounded Major in her house. She’s proud of you,
my hero of ten battles! Didn’t I hear her just now boasting to the
water-rate collector, that she had a son in the house who had lost an
arm at Fair Oaks? A son, Major! Ha, ha, ha! Wasn’t it laughable? She’s
trying to make people think you’re her _son_! I tell you, Cecil, while
Albert Pompilard has a crust to eat or a kennel to creep into, the brave
volunteer, wounded in his country’s cause, shall not want for food or
shelter.”

The Major looked wistfully at Mrs. Pompilard, and said: “He doesn’t make
allowance for a housekeeper’s troubles,—does he, mother? So long as the
burden doesn’t fall on _him_, he doesn’t realize what a bore it is to
have an extra family on one’s hands when one barely has accommodations
for one’s own.”

“What _he_ says, _I_ say, Cecil!” replied Madame, kissing the invalid’s
pale forehead. “You’re a thousand times welcome, my dear boy,—you and
Melissa and the children; and where will you find two better children,
or who give less trouble? No fear but we can accommodate you all. And if
you’ve any wounded companion who wants to be taken care of, just send
him on. For your sake, Cecil, and for the sake of the old flag, we’ll
take him in, and do our best by him.”

“Hear her! Hear the darling little woman!” exclaimed Pompilard, lifting
her in his arms, and kissing her with a genuine admiration. “Bravo,
wife! Give me the woman whose house is like a Bowery omnibus, always
ready for one more. While this war lasts, every true lady in the land
ought to be willing to give up her best room, if wanted, for a
hospital.”

The hero of Fair Oaks was suddenly found to be snivelling. He made a
movement with his right shoulder as if to get a handkerchief, but
remembering that his arm was gone, he used his left hand to wipe away
his tears. “You’re responsible, between you, for this break-down,” said
the lachrymose Major. “I’m sure I thank you. You’ve given me two good
starts in life already, father, and both times I’ve gone under. With
such advantages as I’ve had, I ought to be a rich man, and here I am a
pauper. Poor Melissa and the children are bound to be dependent on their
friends. I’m afraid I’m an incompetent, a ne’er-do-well.”

Pompilard flourished a large white silk handkerchief, and, blowing his
nose sonorously, replied: “Bah! ’T was no fault of yours, Cecil, that
your operations out West proved a failure. ’T was the fortune of war. I
despise the man who never made a blunder. How the deuce could you know
that a great financial revulsion was coming on, just after you had
bought? Let the spilt milk sink into the sand. Don’t fret about it.
We’ll have you hearty as a buck in a week or two. You shall rejoin your
regiment in time for the next great fight.”

The Major smiled faintly, and, shaking his head incredulously, replied:
“The fact is, what makes me so low is, that, at the time I went into
that last fight, I was just recovering from a fever got in the swamps of
the Chickahominy.”

“I know all about it, my brave boy! I’ve just got a letter, Mrs.
Pompilard, from his surgeon. He writes me, he forbade Cecil’s moving
from his bed; told him ’ would be at the risk of his life. Like a
gallant soldier, Cecil rose up, pale and wasted as he was, and went into
the thick of the frolic. A Minie bullet in the right arm at last checked
his activity. Faint from exhaustion and loss of blood, he sank
insensible on the damp field, and there lay twenty-four hours without
succor, without food, the cold night-dews aggravating his disease.”

“Well, father,” said the Major, “between you and me, superadded to the
fever I got a rheumatic affection, which I’m afraid will prevent my
doing service very soon again in the field.”

“So much the better!” returned Pompilard. “Then, my boy, we can keep you
at home,—have you with us all the time. You can sit in your library and
write books, while Molasses sits by and works slippers for _old
blow-hard_, as the boys here in Lavinia Street have begun to call me.”

“My books don’t sell, sir,” sighed the ex-author, with another
incredulous shake of the head. “Either there’s a conspiracy among the
critics to keep me down, or else I’m grossly mistaken in my vocation.
Besides, I’ve lost my right arm, and can’t write. Do you know,” he
continued, wiping away a tear,—“do you know what one of the newspapers
said on receiving the news of my wound? Well, it said, ‘This will be a
happy dispensation for publishers and the public, if it shall have the
effect of keeping the Major from again using the pen!’”

“The unclean reptile!” exclaimed Pompilard, grinding his heel on the
floor as if he would crush something. “Don’t mind such ribaldry, Major.”

“I wouldn’t, if I weren’t afraid there’s some truth in it,” sighed the
unsuccessful author.

“It’s an entire lie!” exclaimed Pompilard; “your books are good
books,—excellent books,—and people will find it out some of these days.
You shall write another. You don’t need an arm, do you, to help you do
brain-work? Didn’t Sir Walter employ an amanuensis? Why can’t Major
Purling do the same? Why can’t he dictate his _magnum opus_,—the
crowning achievement of his literary life,—his history of the Great
Rebellion,—why can’t he dictate it as well without as with an arm?”

The Major’s lips began to work and his eyes to brighten. Ominous of
disaster to the race of publishers, the old spirit began to be roused in
him, bringing animation and high resolve. The passion of authorship,
long repressed, was threatening to rekindle in that bosom. He tried to
rub his forehead with his right hand, but finding it gone, he resorted
to his left. His hair (just beginning to get crisp and grayish over his
ears) he pushed carelessly away from his brow. He jerked himself up from
his pillow, and exclaimed: “Upon my word, father-in-law, that’s not a
bad idea of yours,—that idea of tackling myself to a history of the war.
Let me see. How large a work ought it to be? Could it be compressed into
six volumes of the size of Irving’s Washington? I think it might. At any
rate, I could try. ‘A History of the Great Rebellion: its Rise and Fall.
By Cecil Purling, late Major of Volunteers.’ Motto: ‘All which I saw and
part of which I was.’ Come, now! That wouldn’t sound badly.”

“It would be a trump card for any publisher,” said Pompilard, growing to
be sincerely sanguine. “Get up the right kind of a Prospectus, and
publish the work by subscription. I could procure a thousand subscribers
myself. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t get twenty thousand. We might
all make our fortunes by it.”

“So we might!” exclaimed the excited Major, forgetting that there were
ladies present, and that he had on only his drawers, and leaping out of
bed, then suddenly leaping back again, and begging everybody’s pardon.
“It can be easily calculated,” continued he. “Just hand me a slip of
paper and a pencil, Melissa. Thank you. Look now, father-in-law; twenty
thousand copies at two dollars a volume for six volumes would give a
hundred and forty thousand dollars clear. Throw off fifty per cent of
that for expenses, commissions, printing, binding, et cetera, and we
have left for our profit _seventy thousand dollars_!”

“Nothing can be plainer,” said Pompilard.

“But the publisher would want the lion’s share of that,” interposed
Melissa.

“Pooh! What do _you_ know about it?” retorted Pompilard. “If we get up
the work by subscription, we can take an office and do our own
publishing.”

“To be sure we can!” exclaimed the Major, reassured.

Here Pompilard’s eldest daughter, Angelica Ireton, long a widow, and old
enough to be a grandmother, entered the room with a newspaper.

“What is it, Jelly?” asked the paternal voice.

“News of the surrender of Memphis! And, only think of it! Frederick is
highly complimented in the despatch.”

“Good for Fred!” said Pompilard. “Make a note of it, Major, for the new
history.”

A knock at the door now introduced the once elfish and imitative Netty,
or Antoinette, grown up into a dignified young lady of striking
appearance, who, if not handsome, had a face beaming with intelligence
and the cheerfulness of an earnest purpose. She wore, not a Bloomer, but
a sort of blouse, which looked well on her erect and slender figure; and
her hair, as if to be put out of harm’s way in working hours, was combed
back into a careless though graceful knot.

“Walk in, Netty!” said the wounded man.

“Here’s our great _artiste_,—our American Rosa Bonheur!” cried
Pompilard, patting her on the head.

“Why, father, I never painted a horse or a cow in my life,” expostulated
Netty. “Remember, I’m a marine painter. I deal in ships, shipwrecks,
calms, squalls, and sea-washed rocks; not in cattle.”

“Yes, Cecil, she’s engaged on a bit of beach scenery, which will make a
sensation when ’t is hung in the Academy. Better sea-water hasn’t been
painted since Vernet; and she beats Vernet in rigging her ships.”

“Hear him,” said the artistic Netty. “All his geese are swans. What a
ridiculous papa it is!”

“Go back to your easel, girl,” exclaimed Pompilard. “Cecil and I are
talking business.”

“And that reminds me,” said Netty, “I came to say that Mr. Maloney is in
the parlor, and wants to see you.”

“Has the rascal found me out so soon?” muttered Pompilard. “I supposed I
had dodged him.”

“Dodged Mr. Maloney, dear? What harm has he ever committed?” asked Mrs.
Pompilard, in surprise.

“No harm, perhaps; but he’s the most persistent of duns.”

“Is he dunning you now, my love?”

“Yes, all the time.”

“Do you owe him much?”

“Not a cent, confound him!”

“Then what is he dunning you for?”

“O, he’s dunning me to get me to borrow money of him, and I know he
can’t afford to lend it.”

“Go and see him, my dear, and treat him civilly at least.”

Pompilard turned to the Major, who was now deep in his Prospectus, and
fired with the thought of a grand success that should make amends for
all his past failures in authorship. Seeing that the invalid was
thoroughly cured of his attack of the blues, Pompilard remarked, “Strike
while the iron’s hot, Major,” and passed out to meet the visitor who was
waiting for him below.

Pat Maloney was pacing the parlor in a great rage; and he exploded in
these words, as Pompilard presented himself: “Arn’t ye ashamed to look
an honest man in the face, yer desateful ould sinner?”

“What’s the bother now, Pat? Whose mare’s dead?” said Pompilard.

“Whose mare’s dead, yer wicked ould man? Is that the kind o’ triflin’ ye
think is goin’ down wid Pat Maloney? Look at that wall.”

“Well, what of it?”

“What of it? See the cracks of it, bedad, and the dirt of it, and the
damp of it, and hearken to the rats of it, yer wicked ould man! What of
it? See that baste of a cockroach comin’ out as confidint as ye plaze,
and straddlin’ across the floor. Smell that smell up there in the
corner. Dead rats, by jabbers! And this is the entertainment, is it, ye
bring a dacent family to, that wasn’t born to stenches and filthiness!
Typhus and small-pox in every plank under the feet of ye! And a sick
sodger ye’ve got in the house too; and because he wasn’t quite kilt down
in them swamps on the Chickahominy, ye think ye’ll stink him to death in
this hole of all the nastiness!”

“Mr. Maloney, this is my house, sir, such as it is, and I must request
you either to walk out of it or to keep a civil tongue in your head.”

“Hoo! Ye think to come the dignified over me, do ye, yer silly ould man!
I’m not to be scaret by any such airs. I tell ye it’s bastely to bring
dacent women and children inter sich a cesspool as this. By jabbers, I
shall have to stop at Barker’s, as I go back, and take a bath.”

“Maloney, leave the house.”

“Lave the house, is it? Not till I’m ready, will I lave the house on the
biddin’ of the likes of a man who hasn’t more regard for the mother that
bore him nor to do what you’ve been doin’, yer ould barbarryan.”

“Quit the house, I say! If you think I’m going to borrow money of a
beggarly Irish tailor, you’ll find yourself mistaken, Mr. Pat Maloney!”

“O, it’s that game yez thinkin’ to come on me, is it? Ha! By jabbers,
I’m ready for yer there too. He’s a beggarly Irish tailor, is he? Then
why did ye have the likes o’ him at all yer grand parties at Redcliff?
Why did ye have him and his at all yer little family hops? Why couldn’t
ye git through a forenoon, yer ould hyppercrit, widout the beggarly
Irish tailor, to play billiards wid yer, or go a fishin’ wid yer, or a
sailin’ wid yer?”

“I don’t choose to keep up the acquaintance, Mr. Maloney, now that you
are poor.”

“That’s the biggest lie ye iver tould in yer life, yer ould chate!”

“Do you tell me I lie? Out of my house! Pay your own debts, you
blackguard Paddy, before you come playing flush of your money to a
gentleman like me.”

“A jintleman! Ye call yerself a jintleman, do ye,—ye onnateral ould
simpleton? Ye bring born ladies inter a foul, unreputable house like
this is, in a foul, unreputable street, wid a house of ill-fame on both
sides of yer, and another oppersit, and then ye call yerself a
jintleman. A jintleman, bedad! Ha, ha!”

“You lie, Pat Maloney. My next-door neighbors are decent folks,—much
decenter than you are, you foul-mouthed Paddy.”

“And thin ye tell me to pay my debts, do yer? Find the debt of Pat
Maloney’s that’s unpaid, and he’ll pay it double, yer unprincipled ould
calumniator. If ’ warrent for yer eighty yares, I’d larrup yer on the
spot.”

“I claim no privilege of age, you cowardly tailor. That’s a dodge of
yours that won’t serve. Come on, you ninth part of a man, if you have
even that much of a man left in you. Come on, or I’ll pound your head
against the wall.”

“Ye’d knock the house down, bedad, if ye tried it. I’d like no better
sport nor to polish ye off wid these two fists of mine, yer aggrawatin’
superannuated ould haythen.”

“You shall find what my eighty years can do, you ranting Paddy. Since
you won’t go quietly out of the house, I’ll put you out.”

And Pompilard began pulling up his sleeves, as if for action. Maloney
was not behind him in his pugilistic demonstrations.

“If ye want to have the wind knocked out of yer,” said he, “jist try it,
yer quarrelsome ould bully,—gittin’ up a disturbance like this at your
time of life!”

Here Angelica, who had been listening at the door, burst into the room,
and interposed between the disputants. By the aid of some mysterious
signs and winks addressed to Maloney, she succeeded in pacifying him so
far that he took up his hat, and shaking his head indignantly at
Pompilard, followed her out of the room. The front door was heard to
open and close. Then there was a slight creaking on the basement stairs,
followed by a coughing from Angelica, and a minute afterwards she
re-entered the parlor.

She found her father with his fists doubled, and his breast thrown back,
knocking down an imaginary Irishman in dumb show.

“Has that brute left the house?” he asked.

“Yes, father. What did he want?”

“He has been dunning me to borrow a couple of thousand dollars of
him,—the improvident old fool. He needs every cent of his money in his
business. He knows it. He merely wants to put me under an obligation,
knowing I may never pay him back. He can’t dupe me.”

“If ’ would gratify poor Maloney, why not humor him?” said Angelica. “He
feels eternally grateful to you for having made a man of him. You helped
him to a fortune. He has often said he owed it to you that he wasn’t a
sot about the streets.”

“If I helped him to a fortune, I showed him how to lose it, Jelly. So
there we’re just even. I tell you I won’t get in debt again, if I can
help it. You, Jelly, are the only one I’ve borrowed from since the last
great crash.”

“And in borrowing from me, you merely take back your own,” interposed
Angelica.

“I’ve paid everything in the way of a debt, principal and interest,”
said Pompilard. “And I don’t want to break the charm again at my time of
life. Debt is the Devil’s own snare. I know it from sad experience. I’ve
two good schemes on foot for retrieving my affairs, without having to
risk much money in the operation. If you can let me have five hundred
dollars, I think ’ will be the only nest-egg I shall need.”

“Certainly, father,” said Angelica; and going down-stairs into the
basement, she found the persevering Maloney waiting her coming.

“Mr. Maloney,” said she, “let me propose a compromise. My father wants
five hundred dollars of me. I haven’t it to give him. But if you’ll lend
it on my receipt, I’ll take it and be very thankful.”

“Make it a thousand, and I’ll say yes,” said Pat.

“Well, I’ll not haggle with you, Mr. Maloney,” replied Angelica.

Maloney handed her the money, and, refusing to take a receipt, seized
his hat, and quitted the house by the back area, looking round
suspiciously, and snuffing contemptuously at the surroundings, as he
emerged into the alley-way which conducted him to one of the streets
leading into the Bowery.

Angelica put five hundred dollars in her port-monnaie, and handed the
like amount to her sire. He thrust it into his vest-pocket, brushed his
hat, and arranged his choker. Mrs. Pompilard came down with the
Prospectus that was to be the etymon of a new fortune. He took it,
kissed wife and daughter, and issued from the house.

As he passed up Lavinia Street, many a curious eye from behind curtains
and blinds looked out admiringly on the imposing figure. One boy on the
sidewalk remarked to another: “I say, Ike, who is that old swell as has
come into our street? I’ve a mind to shy this dead kitten at him.”

“Don’t do it, Peter Craig!” exclaimed Ike; “father says that man’s a
detective,—a feller as sees you when you think he ain’t looking. We’d
better mind how we call arter him again, ‘Old blow-hard!’”




                             CHAPTER XLIV.
                       A DOMESTIC RECONNOISSANCE.

               “O Spirit of the Summer time!
                 Bring back the roses to the dells;
               The swallow from her distant clime,
                 The honey-bee from drowsy cells.
               Bring back the singing and the scent
                 Of meadow-lands at dewy prime;—
               O, bring again my heart’s content,
                 Thou Spirit of the Summer time!”
                                         _W. Allingham._


The following Wednesday, Pompilard returned rather earlier than usual
from his diurnal visit to Wall Street. He brought home a printed copy of
the Prospectus, and sent it up-stairs to the wounded author. Then taking
from the bookcase a yellow-covered pamphlet, he composed himself in an
arm-chair, and, resting his legs on an ottoman, began reading that most
thrilling production of the season, “The Guerilla’s Bride, or the
Temptation and the Triumph, by Carrie Cameron.”

Mrs. Pompilard glided into the room, and, putting her hands over his
eyes from behind, said, “What’s the matter, my love?”

“Matter? Nothing, wife! Leave me to my novel.”

“Always of late,” she replied, “when I see you with one of these
sensation novels, I know that something has gone wrong with you.”

“Nonsense, you silly woman! I know what you want. It’s a kiss. There!
Take it and go.”

“You’ve lost money!” said Madam, receiving the kiss, then shaking her
finger at him, and returning to her household tasks.

She was right in her surmise. Pompilard, hopeful of Union victories on
the Peninsula of Virginia, had been selling gold in expectation of a
fall. There had been a large rise, and his five hundred dollars had been
swallowed up in the great maw of Wall Street like a straw in Niagara. He
passed the rest of that day in the house, reading his novel, or playing
backgammon with the Major.

The next morning, putting the Prospectus and his pride with it in his
pocket, he issued forth, resolved to see what could be done in
furtherance of the grand literary scheme which was to immortalize and
enrich his son-in-law. Entering Broadway he walked up to Union Park,
then along Fourteenth Street to the Fifth Avenue. And now, every square
or two, he would pass door-plates that displayed some familiar name.
Frequently he would be tempted to stop, but he passed on and on, until
he came to one which bore in large black walnut letters the name
CHARLTON.

With this gentleman he had not had any intercourse since the termination
of that great lawsuit in which they had been opposed. Charlton, having
put the greater part of his property into gold just before the war, had
made enormous sums by the rise in the precious metal. It was noticed in
Wall Street, that he was growing fat; that he had lost his anxious,
eager look. War was not such a bad thing after all. Surely he would be
glad of the opportunity of subscribing for five or ten copies of the
wounded Purling’s great work.

These considerations encouraged the credulous Pompilard to call. A
respectable private carriage stood before the house, and in it sat a
young lady, probably Miss Charlton, playing with a pet spaniel.
Pompilard rang the door-bell, and a dapper footman in white gloves
ushered him up-stairs into the library. Here Charlton sat computing his
profits on the rates of exchange as given in that day’s report.

He rose on Pompilard’s entrance, and with a profuse politeness that
contrasted somewhat with his manner on previous occasions, shook hands
with him, and placed him in a seat. Excessive prosperity had at last
taught Charlton to temper his refusals with gracious speech. It was so
much cheaper to give smooth words than solid coin!

“Am delighted to see you, Mr. Pompilard!” quoth he. “How fresh and young
you’re looking! Your family are all well, I trust.”

“All save my son-in-law, Major Purling. He, having been thrown on his
back by a bad wound and by sickness got in camp, now proposes to occupy
himself with preparing a history of the war. Here is his Prospectus, and
we want your name to head the subscription.”

“A most laudable project! Excellent! I don’t doubt the Major’s ability
to produce a most authentic and admirable work. I shall take great
pleasure in commending it to my friends.”

Here Charlton, who had received one of the papers from Pompilard, and
glanced at it, handed it back to the old man.

“I want your autograph, Mr. Charlton. The work, you perceive, will be in
six volumes at only two dollars a volume. For how many copies will you
put down your name?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Pompilard, but the demands on my purse for objects,
public and private, are so incessant just now, that I must decline
subscribing. Probably when the work is published I shall desire to
procure a copy for my library. I have heard of Major Purling as a
gallant officer and a distinguished writer. I can’t doubt he will
succeed splendidly. Make my compliments to your estimable family.”

Here a lady elegantly dressed, as if for a promenade, entered the room,
and asked for the morning paper. She looked searchingly at Pompilard,
and then went up to him, and putting out her hand, said, “Have you
forgotten Charlotte Dykvelt?”

“Impossible! Who could have believed it? And you are now Mrs. Charlton!”

The lady’s lip curled a little, as if no gracious emotion came with the
reminder. Then taking from the old man’s hand the printed sheet which
Charlton had returned to him, she exclaimed: “What have we here? A
Prospectus! Is not Major Purling your son-in-law? To be sure he is! A
brave officer! He must be encouraged in his project. And how is your
daughter, Mrs. Ireton? I see,” continued Mrs. Charlton, laying down the
Prospectus and pulling away nervously at her gloves,—“I see that your
grandson, Captain Ireton, has been highly complimented for gallant
behavior on the Mississippi.”

“Yes, he’s a good boy, is Fred. Do you know he was a great admirer of
yours?”

The lady was suddenly absorbed in looking for a certain advertisement of
a Soldier’s Relief Meeting. Pompilard took up his Prospectus, began
folding it, and rose from his chair as if to go.

“Let me look at that Prospectus a moment,” said Mrs. Charlton, taking up
a pen.

“Certainly,” he replied, handing her the paper. While she read it, he
examined what appeared a bronze vase that stood on one side of the
table. He undertook to lift it, and drew out from a socket, which
extended beneath the surface of the wood, a polished steel tube.

“Take care, Mr. Pompilard!” said Charlton; “’t is loaded. No one would
suppose ’ was a revolver, eh? I got it the day after old Van Wyck was
robbed, sitting in his library. Please don’t mention the fact that I
have such a weapon within my reach.”

“I have put down my name for thirty copies,” said Mrs. Charlton,
returning to Pompilard his Prospectus.

“But this is munificent, Madam!” exclaimed the old man.

Charlton gnawed his lips in helpless anger.

Madam had played her cards so well, that it was a stipulation she and
her daughter should have each a large allowance, in the spending of
which they were to be independent. Drawing forth her purse, she took
from it three one hundred dollar bills, a fifty, and a ten, and handed
them to Pompilard.

“Do you wish to pay in advance, Madam?” he asked.

“I wish that money to be paid directly to the author, to aid him in his
patriotic labors,” she replied. “There need be no receipt, and there
need be no delivery of books.”

Pompilard took the bills and looked her in the face. He felt that words
would be impertinent in conveying his thanks. She gave him one sad,
sweet smile of acknowledgment of his silent gratitude. “Major Purling,”
said he, in a tone that trembled a little, “will be greatly encouraged
by your liberality. I will bid you good morning, Madam. Good morning,
Mr. Charlton!”

Husband and wife were left alone.

“That’s the way you fool away my money, is it, Mrs. Charlton? Three
hundred and sixty dollars disposed of already! A nice morning’s work!”

“You speak of the money as yours, sir. You forget. By contract it is
mine. I shall spend it as I choose. Does not our agreement say that my
allowance and my daughter’s shall be absolutely at our disposal?”

“Those allowances, Mrs. Charlton, must be cut down to meet the state of
the times. I can’t afford them any longer.”

“Sir, you say what you know to be untrue. Your profits from the rise in
exchange alone, since the war began, have already been two hundred
thousand dollars. The rise in your securities generally has been
enormous. And yet you talk of not _affording_ the miserable pittance you
allow me and my daughter!”

“A miserable pittance! O yes! Ten thousand a year for pin-money is a
very miserable pittance.”

“So it is, when one lays by five times that amount of superfluous
income. Thank me that I don’t force you to double the allowance. Do you
think to juggle _me_ with your groans about family expenses and the hard
times? Am I so easily duped, think you, as not to see through the
miserly sham?”

“This is the woman that promised to love, honor, and obey!”

“Do you twit me with that? Go back, Charlton, to that first day you
pressed me to be your wife. I frankly told you I could not love
you,—that I loved another. You made light of all that. You enlisted the
influence of my parents against me. You drove me into the toils. No
sooner was I married than I found that you, with all your wealth, had
chosen me merely because you thought I was rich. What a satisfaction it
was to me when I heard of my father’s failure! What was your
disappointment,—your rage! But there was no help for it. And so we
settled down to a loveless life, in which we have thus far been
thoroughly consistent. You go your way, and I mine. You find your
rapture in your coupons and dividends; I seek such distraction as I can
in my little charities, my Sanitary Aid Societies, and my Seaman’s
Relief. If you think to cut me off from these resources, the worst will
probably be your own.”

Charlton was cowed and nonplussed, as usual in these altercations.
“There, go!” said he. “Go and make ducks and drakes of your money in
your own way. That old Pomposity has left his damned Prospectus here on
the table.”

Mrs. Charlton passed out and down-stairs. On a slab in the hall was a
bouquet which a neighboring greenhouse man she had befriended had just
left. She stooped to smell of it. What was there in the odors which
brought back associations that made her bow her head while the tears
gushed forth? Conspicuous among the flowers was a bunch of English
violets,—just such a little bunch as Frederick Ireton used to bring her
in those far-off days, when the present and the future seemed so flooded
with rose-hues.

“Miss Lucy wants to know if you’re ever coming?” said a servant.

“Yes!” replied Mrs. Charlton. “’T is too bad to keep her waiting so!”
And the next moment she joined her daughter in the carriage.

Meanwhile Charlton, as his wife left him, had groaned out, in soliloquy,
“What a devil of a woman! How different from my first wife!” Then he
sought consolation in the quotations of stock. While he read and
chuckled, there was a knock. It was only Pompilard returned for his
Prospectus. As the old man was folding it up, the white-gloved footman
laid a card before Charlton. “Vance!” exclaimed the latter: “I’m
acquainted with no such person. Show him up.”

Vance had donned his citizen’s dress. He wore a blue frock, fastened by
a single black silk button at the top, a buff vest, white pantaloons,
and summer shoes. Without a shoulder-strap, he looked at once the
soldier and the gentleman. Rapidly and keenly he took Charlton’s
physiognomical measure, then glanced at Pompilard. The latter having
folded up his Prospectus, was turning to quit the room. As he bowed on
departing, Charlton remarked, “Good day to you, Mr. Pompilard.”

“Did I hear the name Pompilard?” inquired Vance.

“That is my name, sir,” replied the old man.

“Is it he whose wife was a Miss Aylesford?”

“The same, sir.”

“Mr. Pompilard, I have been trying to find you. My carriage is at the
door. Will you do me the favor to wait in it five minutes for me till I
come down?”

“Certainly, sir.” And Pompilard went out.

“Now, Mr. Charlton,” said Vance, “what I have to say is, that I am
called Colonel Vance; that I am recently from New Orleans; that while
there it became a part of my official duty to look at certain property
held in your name, but claimed by another party.”

“Claimed by a rebel and a traitor, Colonel Vance. I’m delighted to see
you, sir. Will you be seated?”

“No, thank you. Let me propose to you, that, as preliminary to other
proceedings, I introduce to you to-night certain parties who came with
me from New Orleans, and whose testimony may be at once interesting and
useful.”

“I shall be obliged to you for the interview, Colonel Vance.”

“It would be proper that your confidential lawyer should be present; for
it may be well to cross-question some of the witnesses.”

“Thank you for the suggestion, Colonel Vance. I shall avail myself of
it.”

“As there will be ladies in the party, I hope your wife and daughter
will be present.”

“I will give them your message.”

“Tell them we have a young officer with us who was shot through the
lungs in battle not long since. Shall we make the hour half-past
eight;—place, the Astor House?”

“That would suit me precisely, Colonel Vance.”

“Then I will bid you good day, sir, for the present.”

Charlton put out his hand, but Vance bowed without seeming to notice it,
and passed out of the house into the carriage.

“Mr. Pompilard,” said he, as the carriage moved on, “are you willing to
take me on trust, say for the next hour, as a gentleman, and comply with
my reasonable requests without compelling me to explain myself further?
Call me, if you please, Mr. Vance.”

“Truly, Mr. Vance,” replied Pompilard, “I do not see how I risk much in
acceding to your proposition. If you were an impostor, you would hardly
think of fleecing _me_, for I am shorn close already. Besides, you carry
the right signet on your front. Yes, I _will_ trust you, Mr. Vance.”

“Thank you, sir. Your wife is living?”

“I left her alive and well some two hours ago.”

“Has she any children of her own?”

“One,—a daughter, Antoinette. We call her Netty. A most extraordinary
creature! An artist, sir! Paints sea-pieces better than Lane, Bradford,
or Church himself. A girl of decided genius.”

“Well, Mr. Pompilard, if your house is not far from here, I wish to
drive to it at once, and have your wife and daughter do us the honor to
take seats in this carriage.”

“That we can do, Mr. Vance. Driver, 27 Lavinia Street! The day is
pleasant. They will enjoy a drive. I must make you acquainted with my
son-in-law, Major Purling. A noble fellow, sir! Had an arm shot off at
Fair Oaks. Used up, too, by fever. Brave as Julius Cæsar! And, like
Julius Cæsar, writes as well as he fights. He proposes getting up a
history of the war. Here’s his Prospectus.”

Vance looked at it. “I mustn’t be outdone,” said he, “by a lady. Put me
down also for thirty copies. Put down Mr. Winslow and Madame Volney each
for as many more.”

“But that is astounding, sir!” cried Pompilard. “A hundred and twenty
copies disposed of already! The Major will jump out of his bed at the
news!”

As the carriage crossed the Bowery and bowled into Lavinia Street,
Pompilard remarked: “There are some advantages, Mr. Vance, in being on
the East River side. We get a purer sea air in summer, sir.”

At that moment an unfortunate stench of decayed vegetables was blown in
upon them, by way of comment, and Pompilard added: “You see, sir, we are
very particular about removing all noxious rubbish. Health, sir, is our
first consideration. We have the dirt-carts busy all the time.”

Here the carriage stopped. “A modest little place we have taken for the
summer, Mr. Vance. Small, but convenient and retired. Most worthy and
quiet people, our neighbors. Walk in, sir.”

They entered the parlor. “Take a seat, Mr. Vance. If you’ve a taste for
art, let me commend to your examination that fine engraving between the
windows. Here’s a new book, if you are literary,—Miss Carrie Cameron’s
famous novel. Amuse yourself.”

And having handed him “The Guerilla’s Bride,” Pompilard rushed
up-stairs. Instantly a great tumult was heard in the room over Vance’s
head. It was accompanied with poundings, jumpings, and exultant shouts.
Three hundred and sixty dollars had been placed on the coverlid beneath
which lay the wounded Purling. It was the first money his literary
efforts had ever brought him. The spell was broken. Thenceforth the
thousands would pour in upon him in an uninterrupted flood. Can it be
wondered that there was much jubilation over the news?

Vance was of course introduced to all the inmates, and made a partaker
in their good spirits. At last Mrs. Pompilard and Netty were dressed and
ready. Vance handed them into the carriage. He and Pompilard took the
back seat. As they drove off they encountered a crowd before an
adjoining door. It was composed of some of those “most worthy and quiet
neighbors” of whom Pompilard had recently spoken. They were gathering,
amid a Babel of voices, round a cart where an ancient virago, Milesian
by birth, was berating a butcher whom she charged with having sold her a
stale leg of mutton the week before.

“One misses these bustling little scenes in the rural districts,” quoth
Pompilard. “They serve to give color and movement, life and sparkle, to
our modest neighborhood.”

“Mrs. Pompilard,” said Vance, “we are on our way to the Astor House,
where I propose to introduce to you a young lady. I wish you and your
daughter to scrutinize her closely, and to tell me if you see in her a
likeness to any one you have ever known.”




                              CHAPTER XLV.
                  ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS.

“Those flashes of marvellous light point to the existence of dormant
faculties, which, unless God can be supposed to have _over-furnished_
the soul for its appointed field of action, seem only to be awaiting
more favorable circumstances, to awaken and disclose themselves.”—_John
James Tayler._


While the carriage is rolling on, and the occupants are getting better
acquainted, let us hurry forward and clear the way by a few
explanations.

Vance and his party had now been several days in New York, occupying
contiguous suites of rooms at the Astor House. The ladies consisted of
Clara, Madam Volney, and Mrs. Ripper (late Mrs. Gentry). Esha was, of
course, of the party. She had found her long-lost daughter in Hattie, or
Mrs. Davy, now a widow, whose testimony came in to fortify the proofs
that seemed accumulating to place Clara’s identity beyond dispute.
Hattie joyfully resumed her place as Clara’s _femme de chambre_, though
the post was also claimed by the unyielding Esha.

The gentlemen of the party included Mr. Winslow, Mr. Semmes, Mr. Ripper,
Captain Onslow, Colonel Delancy Hyde, and a youth not yet introduced.

Never had Vance showed his influence in so marked a degree as in the
change he had wrought in Hyde. Detecting in the rascal’s affection for a
widowed sister the one available spot in his character, Vance, like a
great moral engineer, had mounted on that vantage-ground the guns which
were to batter down the citadels of ignorance, profligacy, and pride, in
which all the regenerative capabilities of Hyde’s nature had been
imprisoned so long. The idea of having that poor toiling sister—her who
had “fust taught him to make dirt-pies, down thar by the old
duck-pond”—rescued with her children from poverty and suffering, placed
in a situation of comfort and respectability, was so overpowering to the
Colonel, that it enabled Vance to lead him like a child even to the
abjuring of strong drink and profanity. Cut off from bragging of his
Virginia birth and his descent from the Cavaliers,—made to see the false
and senseless nature of the slang which he had been taught to
expectorate against the “Yankees,”—Hyde might have lost his identity in
the mental metamorphosis he was undergoing, were it not that a most
timely substitute presented itself as a subject for the expenditure of
his surplus gas.

Vance had collected and arranged a body of proofs for the establishment
of Clara’s identification as the daughter of Henry Berwick; but, if
Colonel Hyde’s memory did not mislead him, there was collateral evidence
of the highest importance in those old letters from Charlton, which
might be found in a certain trunk in the keeping of the Widow Rusk in
Alabama. With deep anxiety, therefore, did they await the coming of that
youthful representative of the Hyde family, Master Delancy Hyde Rusk.

The Colonel stood on the steps of the Astor House from early morn till
dewy eve, day after day, scrutinizing every boy who came along. Clad in
a respectable suit of broadcloth, and concealing the shorn state of his
scalp under a brown wig, he did no discredit to the character of Mr.
Stetson’s guests. His patience was at length rewarded. A boy,
travel-soiled and dusty, apparently fifteen years old, dressed in a
butternut-colored suit, wearing a small military cap marked C. S. A.,
and bearing a knapsack on his back, suddenly accosted Colonel Hyde with
the inquiry, “Does Mr. William C. Vance live here?” In figure, face, and
even the hue of his eyebrows, the youth was a miniature repetition of
the Colonel himself; but the latter, in his wig and his new suit, was
not recognized till the exclamation, “Delancy!” broke in astonishment
from his lips.

“What, uncle? Uncle Delancy?” cried the boy; and the two forgot the
proprieties, and embraced in the very eyes of Broadway. Then the Colonel
led the way to his room.

“Is this ’ere room yourn, Uncle D’lancy? An’ is this ’ere trunk yourn?
And this ’ere umbrel? Crikee! What a fine trunk! And do you and the
damned Yankees bet now on the same pile, Uncle D’lancy?”

“Delancy Hyde Rusk,” said the Colonel solemnly, “stahnd up thar afore
me. So! That’ll do! Now look me straight in the face, and mind what I
say.”

“Yes, uncle,” said Delancy junior, deeply impressed.

“Fust, have yer got them air letters?”

“Yes, uncle, they’re sewed inter my side-pocket, right here.”

“Wal an’ good. Now tell me how’s yer mother an’ all the family.”

“Mother’s middlin’ bright now; but Malviny, she died in a fit last
March, and Tom, the innocent, he died too; and Charlotte Ann, she was
buried the week afore your letter cum; and mother, she had about gi’n
up; for we hadn’t a shinplaster left after payin’ for the buryin’, and
we thowt as how we should have ter starve, sure; and lame Andrew Jackson
and the two young ’uns, they wahr lookin’ pretty considerable peakid, I
kn tell yer, when all at wunst your letter cum with four hunderd dollars
in it. Crikee! Didn’t the old woman scream for joy? Didn’t she hug the
childern, and cry, and laugh, and take on, till we all thowt she was
crazy-like? And didn’t she jounce down on her knees, and pray, jest like
a minister does?”

“Did she? Did she, Delancy? Tell it over to me again. Did she raally
pray?”

“I reckon she didn’t do nothin’ else.”

“Try ter think what she said, Delancy. Try ter think. It’s important.”

“Wal, ’ was all about the Lord Jesus, and Brother D’lancy, and not
forsakin’ the righteous, and bless the Lord, O my soul, and the dear
angels that was took away, and then about Brother D’lancy again, and
might the Lord put his everlastin’ arms about him, and might the Lord
save his soul alive, and all that wild sort of talk, yer know. Why,
uncle! Uncle D’lancy! What’s the matter with yer?”

Yes! the old sinner had boo-hooed outright; and then, covering his face
with his hands, he wept as if he were making up for a long period of
drought in the lachrymal line.

We have spoken of the influence which Vance had applied to this stony
nature. We should have spoken of other influences, perhaps more potent
still, that had reached it through Peek. Before the exodus from New
Orleans, Peek had introduced him to certain phenomena which had shaken
the Colonel’s very soul, by the proofs they gave him of powers
transcending those usually ascribed to mortals, or admitted as possible
by science. The proofs were irresistible to his common sense, _First_,
That there was a power outside of himself that could read, not only his
inmost nature, but his individual thoughts, as they arose, and this
without any aid from him by look, word, or act.

Here was a test in which there was no room left for deception. The
_savans_ can only explain it by denying it; and there are in America
more than three millions of men and women who _khow_ what the denial
amounts to. Given a belief in clairvoyance, and that in spirits and
immortality follows. The motto of the ancient Pagan theists was, “_Si
divinatio est, dii sunt_.”[45]

_Secondly_, Hyde saw heavy physical objects moved about, floated in the
air, made to perform intelligent offices, and all without the
intervention of any agencies recognized as material.

The hard, cold atheism of the man’s heart was smitten, rent, and
displaced. For the first time, he was made to feel that the body’s death
is but a process of transition in the soul’s life; that our trials here
have reference to a future world; that what we love we become; that
heavenly thoughts must be entertained and relished even here, if we
would not have heaven’s occupations a weariness and a perplexity to us
hereafter. For the first time, the awful consciousness came over him as
a reality, that all his acts and thoughts were under the possible
scrutiny of myriads of spiritual eyes, and, above them all, those
Supreme eyes in whose sight even the stars are not pure,—how much less,
then, man that is a worm! For the first time, he could read the Bible,
and catch from its mystic words rich gleams of comforting truth. For the
first time, he could feel the meaning of that abused and uncomprehended
word, _pardon_; and he could dimly see the preciousness of Christ’s
revelations of the Father’s compassion.

Return we to the interview between uncle and nephew. Having wiped his
eyes and steadied his voice, the Colonel said: “Delancy Hyde Rusk,
yer’ve got ter larn some things, and unlarn others. Fust of all, you’re
not to swar, never no more.”

“What, Uncle D’lancy! Can’t I swar when I grow up? _You_ swar, Uncle
D’lancy!”

“I’m clean cured of it, nevvy. Ef ever you har me swar again, Delancy
Hyde Rusk, you jes tell me of ’t, an’ I’ll put myself through a month’s
course of hard-tack an’ water.”

“Can’t I say _hell_, Uncle D’lancy, nor _damn_?”

“You’re not ter use them words profanely, nevvy, unless you want that
air back of yourn colored up with a rope’s end. Now look me straight in
the face, Delancy Hyde Rusk, an’ tell me ef yer ever drink sperrits?”

“Wall, Uncle D’lancy, I promised the old woman—”

“Stop! Say you promised mother.”

“Wall, I promised mother I wouldn’t drink, and I haven’t.”

“Good! Now, nevvy, yer spoke jest now of the Yankees. What do yer mean
by Yankees?”

“I mean, uncle, ev’ry man born in a State whar they hain’t no niggers to
wallop. Yankees are sneaks and cowards. Can’t one Suth’n-born man whip
any five Yankees?”

“I reckon not.”

“What! Not ef the Suth’n man’s Virginia-born?”

“I reckon not. Delancy Hyde Rusk, that’s the decoy the ’ristocrats down
South have been humbuggin’ us poor whites with tell the common sense is
all eat clean out of our brains. They stuff us up with that air fool’s
brag so we may help ’em hold on ter thar niggers. Whar did the Yankees
come from? They camed from England like we did. They speak English like
we do. Thar ahnces’tors an’ our ahnces’tors war countrymen. Now don’t be
sich a lout as ter suppose that ’cause a man lives North, and hain’t no
niggers ter wallop, he must be either a sneak or a coward, or what Jeff
Davis calls a hyena.”

“Ain’t we down South the master race, Uncle D’lancy?”

“Wall, nevvy, in some respects we air; in some respects not. In dirt an’
vermin, ignorance an’ sloth, our poor folks kn giv thar poor folks half
the game, an’ beat ’em all holler. In brag an’ swagger our rich folks kn
beat thars. But I’ll tell yer what it is, nevvy: ef, as the slaveholders
try to make us think, it’s slavery that makes us the master race, then
we must be powerful poor cattle to owe it to niggers and not to
ou’selves that we’re better nor the Yankees. Now mind what I’m goin’ ter
say: the best thing for the hull Suth’n people would be to set ev’ry
slave free right off at wunst.”

“What, Uncle D’lancy! Make a nigger free as a white man? Can’t I, when
I’m a man, own niggers like gra’f’her Hyde done? What’s the use of
growin’ up ef I can’t have a nigger to wallop when I want ter, I sh’d
like ter know?”

“Delancy Hyde Rusk, them sentiments must be nipped in the bud.”

The Colonel went to the door and locked it, then cast his eyes round the
room as if in search of something. The boy followed his movements with a
curiosity in which alarm began to be painfully mingled. Finally, the
Colonel pulled a strap from his trunk, and, approaching Delancy junior,
who was now uttering a noise between a whimper and a howl, seized him by
the nape of the neck, bent him down face foremost on to the bed, and
administered a succession of smart blows on the most exposed part of his
person. The boy yelled lustily; but after the punishment was over, he
quickly subsided into a subdued snuffling.

“Thar, Delancy Hyde Rusk! yer’ll thahnk me fur that air latherin’ all
the days of yer life. Ef I’d a-had somebody to do as much for me, forty
yars ago, I shouldn’t have been the beast that Slavery brung me up ter
be. Never you talk no more of keepin’ niggers or wallopin’ niggers.
They’ve jest as much right ter wallop you as you have ter wallop them.
Slavery’s gone up, sure. That game’s played out. Thank the Lord! Jest
you bar in mind, Delancy Hyde Rusk, that the Lord made the black man as
well as the white, and that ef you go fur to throw contempt on the
Lord’s work, he’ll bring yer up with a short turn, sure. Will you bar
that in mind fur the rest of yer life, Delancy Hyde Rusk?”

“Yes, Uncle D’lancy. I woan’t do nothin’ else.”

“An’ ef anybody goes fur to ask yer what you air, jest you speak up
bright an’ tell him you’re fust a Union man, an’ then an out-an’-out
Abolitionist. Speak it out bold as ef you meant it,—_Ab-o-litionist!_”

“What, uncle! a d-d-da—”

The boy’s utterance subsided into a whimper of expostulation as he saw
the Colonel take up the strap.

But he was spared a second application. Having given him his first
lesson in morals and politics, Colonel Hyde made him wash his face, and
then took him down-stairs and introduced him to Vance. The latter
received with eagerness the precious letters of which the boy was the
bearer; at once opened them, and having read them, said to Hyde: “I
would not have failed getting these for many thousand dollars. Still
there’s no knowing what trap the lawyers may spring upon us.”

Turning to Delancy junior, Vance, who had opened all the windows when
the youth came in, questioned him as to his adventures on his journey.
The boy showed cleverness in his replies. It was a proud day for the
elated Hyde when Vance said: “That nephew of yours shall be rewarded.
He’s an uncommonly shrewd, observing lad. Now take him down-stairs and
give him a hot bath. Soak him well; then scrub him well with soap and
sand. Let him put on an entire new rig,—shirt, stockings, everything.
You can buy them while he’s rinsing himself in a second water. Also take
him to the barber’s and have his hair cut close, combed with a
fine-tooth comb, and shampooed. Do this, and then bring him up to my
room to dinner. Here’s a fifty-dollar bill for you to spend on him.”

Three hours afterwards Delancy junior reappeared, too much astonished to
recognize his own figure in the glass. Colonel Hyde had thenceforth a
new and abounding theme for gasconade in describing the way “that air
bi, sir, trahv’ld the hull distance from Montgomery ter New York, goin’
through the lines of both armies, sir, an’ bringin’ val’able letters
better nor a grown man could have did.”

A dinner at Vance’s private table, with ladies and gentlemen present,
put the apex to the splendid excitements of the day in the minds of both
uncle and nephew.

-----

Footnote 45:

  If there is divination (clairvoyance), there must be gods (spirits).




                             CHAPTER XLVI.
                           THE NIGHT COMETH.

“How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud!”—_Young._


On the evening of the day of the encounter in Charlton’s library, some
of the principal persons of our story were assembled in one of the
private parlors of the Astor House in New York.

Some hours previously, Vance had introduced Clara to her nearest
relatives, the Pompilards; but before telling them her true name he had
asked them to trace a resemblance. Instantly Netty had exclaimed: “Why,
mother, it is the face you have at home in the portrait of Aunt
Leonora.” And Aunt Leonora was the grandmother of Clara!

Vance then briefly presented his proofs of the relationship. Who could
resist them? Pompilard, in a high state of excitement, put his hands
under Clara’s arms, lifted her to a level with his lips, and kissed her
on both cheeks. His wife, her grand-aunt, greeted her not less
affectionately; and in embracing “Cousin Netty,” Clara was charmed to
find a congenial associate.

Pompilard all at once recollected the gold casket which old Toussaint
had committed to his charge for Miss Berwick. Writing an order, he got
Clara to sign it, and then strode out of the room, delighted with
himself for remembering the trust. Half an hour afterwards he returned
and presented to his grand-niece the beautiful jewel-box, the gift of
her father’s step-mother, Mrs. Charlton. Clara received it with emotion,
and divesting it of the cotton-wool in which it had been kept wrapped
and untouched so many years, she unlocked it, and drew forth this
letter:—

  “MY DEAR LITTLE GRANDDAUGHTER: This comes to you from one to whom you
  seem nearer than any other she leaves behind. She wishes she could
  make you wise through her experience. Since her heart is full of it,
  let her speak it. In that event, so important to your happiness, your
  marriage, may you be warned by her example, and neither let your
  affections blind your reason, nor your reason underrate the value of
  the affections. Be sure not only that you love, but that you are
  loved. Choose cautiously, my dear child, if you choose at all; and may
  your choice be so felicitous that it will serve for the next world as
  well as this.

                                                           E. B. C.”

The Pompilards remained of course to dinner; and then to the expected
interview of the evening. They were introduced to the highly-dressed
bride, Mrs. Ripper, formerly Clara’s teacher; also to the quadroon lady,
Madame Volney. And then the gentlemen—Captain Onslow, Messrs. Winslow,
Semmes, and Ripper, and last, not least, Colonel Delancy Hyde and his
nephew—were all severally and formally presented to the Pompilards.

“Does it appear from Charlton’s letters to Hyde that Charlton knew of
Hyde’s villany in kidnapping the child?” asked Mr. Semmes of Vance.

“No, Charlton was unquestionably ignorant, and is so to this day, of the
fact that the true heir survives. All that he expected Hyde to do was to
so shape his testimony as to make it appear that the child died _after_
the mother and _before_ the father. On this nice point all Charlton’s
chances hung. And the letters are of the highest importance in showing
that it was intimated by the writer to Hyde, that, in case his testimony
should turn out to be of a certain nature, he, Hyde, besides having his
and Quattles’s expenses to New York all paid, should receive a thousand
dollars.”

“That is certainly a tremendous point against Charlton. Is it possible
that Hyde did not see that he held a rod over Charlton in those
letters?”

“Both he and Quattles appear to have been very shallow villains.
Probably they did not comprehend the legal points at issue, and never
realized the vital importance of their testimony.”

“Let me suggest,” said Semmes, “the importance of having Charlton
recognize Hyde in the presence of witnesses.”

“Yes, I had thought of that, and arranged for it.”

Here there was a stir in the little unoccupied anteroom adjoining. The
Charltons and Charlton’s lawyer, Mr. Detritch, had arrived. The ladies
were removing their bonnets and shawls. Hyde drew near to Vance, and the
latter threw open the door. Charlton entered first. The prospect of
recovering his New Orleans property had put him in the most gracious of
humors. His dyed hair, his white, well-starched vest, his glossy black
dress-coat and pantaloons, showed that his personal appearance was
receiving more than usual attention. He would have been called a
handsome man by those who did not look deep as Lavater.

After saluting Vance, Charlton started on recognizing the gaunt figure
of Delancy Hyde. Concluding at once that the Colonel had come as a
friend, Charlton exclaimed: “What! My old friend, Colonel Delancy Hyde?
Is it possible?”

And there was a vehement shaking of hands between them.

Detritch and the ladies having entered, all the parties were formally
introduced to one another. The mention of Miss Berwick’s name excited no
surprise on the part of any one.

The company at once disposed themselves in separate groups for
conversation. Captain Onslow gave his arm to Miss Charlton, and they
strolled through the room to talk of ambulances, sanitary commissions,
hospitals, and bullets through the lungs. Pompilard, who declared he
felt only eighteen years old while looking at his niece, divided his
delightful attentions between Madame Volney and Mrs. Ripper. Clara
invited Colonel Hyde to take a seat near her, and gave him such comfort
as might best confirm him in the good path he was treading. Hyde junior
looked at the war pictures in Harper’s Weekly. Winslow and Mrs. Charlton
found they had met five years before at Saratoga, and were soon deep in
their recollections. Semmes and Detritch skirmished like two old
roosters, each afraid of the other. Ripper made himself agreeable to
Mrs. Pompilard and Netty, by talking of paintings, of which he knew
something, having sold them at auction. Vance took soundings of
Charlton’s character, and found that rumor, for once, had not been
unjust in her disparagement. The man’s heart, what there was of it, was
in his iron safe with his coupons and his certificates of deposit.

Suddenly Vance went to the piano, and, striking some of the loud keys,
attracted the attention of the company, and then begged them to be
silent while he made a few remarks. The hum of conversation was
instantly hushed.

“We are assembled, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “on business in which
Mr. Charlton here present is deeply interested.”

Mr. Charlton, who occupied an arm-chair, and had Detritch on his right,
bowed his acknowledgments.

“If,” continued Vance, “I have not communicated privately to Mr.
Charlton, or his respectable counsel, all the startling and important
facts bearing on the case, I hope they will understand that it was not
through any failure of respect for them, and especially for Mrs. and
Miss Charlton, but simply because I have thought it right to choose the
course which seemed to me the most proper in serving the cause of
justice and of the party whose interests I represent.”

Charlton and Detritch looked at each other inquiringly, and the look
said, “What is he driving at?”

The amiable bride (Mrs. Ripper) touched Pompilard coquettishly with her
fan, and, pointing to Charlton, whispered, “O, won’t he be come up
with?”

“No innocent man,” continued Vance, “will think it ever untimely to be
told that he is holding what does not belong to him; that he has it in
his power to rectify a great wrong; to make just restitution. On the
table here under my hand are certain documents. This which I hold up is
a certified printed copy of the great Trial, by the issue of which Mr.
Charlton, here present, came into possession of upwards of a million of
dollars, derived from the estate of the brother of one of the ladies now
before me. It appears from the judge’s printed charge (see page 127) on
the Trial, that the essential testimony in the case was that given by
one Delancy Hyde and one Leonidas Quattles. With the former, Mr.
Charlton has here renewed his acquaintance. Mr. Quattles died some
months since, but we here have his deposition, duly attested, taken just
before his death.”

“What has all this to do with my property in New Orleans?” exclaimed
Charlton, thoroughly mystified.

“Be patient, sir, and you will see. The verdict, ladies and gentlemen,
turned upon the question whether, on the occasion of the explosion of
the Pontiac, the child, Clara, or her father, Henry Berwick, died first.
The testimony of Messrs. Hyde and Quattles was to the effect that the
child died first. But it now appears that the father died—”

“A lie and a trick!” shouted Charlton, starting up with features pale
and convulsed at once with terror and with rage. “A trick for extorting
money. Any simpleton might see through it. Have we been brought here to
be insulted, sir? You shall be indicted for a conspiracy. ’T is a case
for the grand jury,—eh, Detritch?”

“My advice to you, Mr. Charlton,” said Detritch, “is to turn this
gentleman over to me, and to refuse to listen yourself to anything
further he may have to say.”

In this advice Charlton snuffed, as he thought, the bad odor of a fee,
and he determined not to be guided by it. Laughing scornfully, he said,
resuming his seat: “Let the gentleman play out his farce. He hopes to
show, does he, that the child died _after_ the father!”

“No, ladies and gentleman,” said Vance, crossing the room, taking Clara
by the hand, and leading her forth, “what I have to show is, that she
didn’t die at all, and that Clara Aylesford Berwick now stands before
you.”

Charlton rose half-way from his chair, the arms of which he grasped as
if to keep himself from sinking. His features were ghastly in their
expression of mingled amazement and indignation, coupled with a horrible
misgiving of the truth of the disclosure, to which Vance’s assured
manner and the affirmative presence of Colonel Hyde gave their dreadful
support. Charlton struggled to speak, but failed, and sank back in his
chair, while Detritch, after having tried to compose his client, rose
and said: “In my legal capacity I must protest against this most
irregular and insidious proceeding, intended as it obviously is to throw
my client and myself off our guard, and to produce an alarm which may be
used to our disadvantage.”

“Sir,” replied Vance, “you entirely misapprehend my object. It is not to
your fears, but to your manhood and your sense of justice that I have
thought it right to make my first appeal. I propose to prove to you by
facts, which no sane man can resist, that the young lady whose hand I
hold is the veritable Miss Berwick, to whom her mother’s estate
belonged, and to whom it must now be restored, with interest.”

“With interest! Ha, ha, ha!” cried Charlton, with a frightful attempt at
a merriment which his pale cheeks belied.

“There will be time,” continued Vance, “for the scrutiny of the law
hereafter. I court it to the fullest extent. But I have thought it due
to Mr. Charlton, to give him the opportunity to show his disposition to
right a great wrong, in the event of my proving, as I can and will, that
this lady is the person I proclaim her to be, the veritable Miss
Berwick.”

Moved by that same infatuation which compels a giddy man to look over
the precipice which is luring him to jump, Charlton, with a deplorable
affectation of composure, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and
said: “Well, sir, bring on these proofs that you pretend are so
irresistible. I think we can afford to hear them,—eh, Detritch?”

“First,” said Vance, “I produce the confession of Hyde, here present,
and of Quattles, deceased, that the infant child of Mr. Berwick was
saved by them from the wreck of the Pontiac, taken to New Orleans, and
sold at auction as a slave. The auctioneer, Mr. Richard Ripper, is here
present, and will testify that he sold the child to Carberry Ratcliff,
whose late attorney, T. J. Semmes. Esq., is here present, and can
identify Miss Berwick as the child bought, according to Ratcliff’s own
admission, from the said Ripper. Then we have the testimony of Mrs.
Ripper, lately Mrs. Gentry, by whom the child was brought up, and of
Esha, her housemaid, both of whom are now in this house. We have further
strong collateral testimony from Hattie Davy, now in this house, the
nurse who had the child in charge at the time of the accident, and who
identifies her by the marks on her person, especially by her different
colored eyes,—a mark which I also can corroborate. We have articles of
clothing and jewels bearing the child’s initials, to the reception and
keeping of which Mrs. Ripper and Esha will testify, and which, when
unsealed, will no doubt be sworn to by Mrs. Davy as having belonged to
the child at the time of the explosion.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Detritch, with a sarcastic smile, “I think Brother
Semmes will admit that all this doesn’t make out a case. Unless you can
bring some proof (which I know you cannot) of improper influences being
applied by my client to induce his chief witnesses to give the testimony
they did, you can make little headway in a court of law against a party
who is fortified in what he holds by more than fourteen years of
possession.”

“Even on this point, sir,” replied Vance, “we are not weak. Here are
five original letters, with their envelopes, postage-marks, &c., all
complete, from Mr. Charlton to Colonel Delancy Hyde, offering him and
his accomplice their expenses and a thousand dollars if they will come
on to New York and testify in a certain way. Here also are letters
showing that, in the case of a colored woman named Jacobs, decoyed from
Montreal back into slavery, the writer conducted himself in a manner
which will afford corroborative proof that he was capable of doing what
these other letters show that he did or attempted.”

As Vance spoke, he held one of the letters so that Charlton could read
it. The latter, while affecting not to look, read enough to be made
aware of its purport. His fingers worked so to clutch it, that Detritch
pulled him by the coat; and then Charlton, starting up, exclaimed: “I’ll
not stay here another moment to be insulted. This is a conspiracy to
swindle. Come along, Detritch. Come, Mrs. Charlton and Lucy.”

He passed out. Detritch offered his arm to Mrs. Charlton. She declined
it, and he left the room. There was an interval of silence. Every one
felt sympathy for the two ladies. Mrs. Charlton approached Vance, and
said, “Will you allow me to examine those letters?”

“Certainly, madam,” he replied.

She took them one by one, scrutinized the handwriting, read them
carefully, and returned them to Vance. She then asked the privilege of a
private conference with Hyde, and the Colonel accompanied her into the
anteroom. This interview was followed by one, first with Mrs. Ripper,
then with Mr. Winslow, then with Esha and Mrs. Davy, and finally with
Clara. During the day Pompilard had sent home for a photograph-book
containing likenesses of Clara’s father, mother, and maternal
grandmother. These were placed in Mrs. Charlton’s hands. A glance
satisfied her of the family resemblance to the supposed child.

Re-entering the parlor Mrs. Charlton said: “Friends, there is no escape
that I can see from the proofs you offer that this young lady is indeed
Clara Aylesford Berwick. Be sure it will not be my fault if she is not
at once instated in her rights. I bid you all good evening.”

And then, escorted by Captain Onslow, she and her daughter took their
leave, and the company broke up.

Charlton, impatient, had quitted the hotel with Detritch and sent back
the carriage. They were closeted in the library when Mrs. Charlton and
Lucy returned. The unloving and unloved wife, but tender mother, kissed
her daughter for goodnight and retired to her own sleeping-room. She
undressed and went to bed; but not being able to sleep, rose, put on a
light _robe de chambre_, and sat down to read. About two o’clock in the
morning she heard the front door close and a carriage drive off.
Detritch had then gone at last!

Charlton’s sleeping-room was on the other side of the entry-way opposite
to his wife’s. She threw open her door to hear him when he should come
up to bed. She waited anxiously a full hour. She began to grow nervous.
Void as her heart was of affection for her husband, something like pity
crept in as she recalled his look of anguish and alarm at Vance’s
disclosures. Ah! is it not sad when one has to despise while one pities!
“Shall I not go, and try to cheer him?” she asked herself. Hopeless
task! What cheer could she give unless she went with a lie, telling him
that Vance’s startling revelation was all a trick!

The laggard moments crept on. Though the gas was put up bright and
flaring, she could not have so shivered with a nameless horror if she
had been alone in some charnel-house, lighted only by pale, phosphoric
gleams from dead men’s bones.

But why did not Charlton come up?

The wind, which had been rising, blew back a blind, and swept with a
mournful whistle through the trees in the area. Then it throbbed at the
casement like a living heart that had something to reveal.

Why does he not come up?

Why not go down and see?

Though the entry-ways and the stairs were lighted, it seemed a frightful
undertaking to traverse them as far as the library. Still she would do
it. She darted out, placed her hand on the broad black-walnut
balustrade, and stepped slowly down,—down,—down the broad, low, thickly
carpeted stairs.

At last she stood on one of the spacious square landings.

What terrible silence! Not even the rattle of an early milk-cart through
the streets! Heavenly Powers! Why this unaccountable pressure, as of
some horrid incubus, upon her mind, so that every thought as it
wandered, try as she might to control it, would stop short at a tomb?
She recoiled. She drew back a step or two up,—up the stairs. And then,
at that very moment, there was a dull, smothered, explosive sound which
smote like a hand on her heart. She sank powerless on the stairs, and
sat there for some minutes, gasping, horror-stricken, helpless.

Then rallying her strength she rushed up three flights to the room of
Fletcher, the man-servant, and bade him dress quickly and come to her.
He obeyed, and the two descended to the library.

Through the glass window of the door the gas shone brightly. Fletcher
entered first; and his cry of alarm told the whole tragic tale. Mrs.
Charlton followed, gave one look, and fell senseless on the floor.

Leaning back in his arm-chair,—his head erect,—his eyes open and
staring,—sat Charlton. On his white vest a crimson stain was beginning
to spread and spread, and, higher up, the cloth was blackened as if by
fire. The vase-like ornament which had attracted Pompilard’s attention
on the library table had been drawn forth from its socket, and the
pistol it concealed having been discharged, it lay on the floor, while
Charlton’s right hand, as it hung over the arm of the chair, pointed to
the deadly weapon as if in mute accusation of its instrumentality.




                             CHAPTER XLVII.
                           AN AUTUMNAL VISIT.

       “Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart?
       Thy hopes have gone before: from all things here
       They have departed; thou shouldst now depart.”—_Shelley._


The defunct having left no will, administrators of his estate were
appointed. These deemed it proper to be guided by the wishes of the
widow and the daughter, notwithstanding the latter was still a minor.
Those wishes were, that the identification of Miss Berwick, conclusive
as it was, should be frankly admitted, and her property, with its
accumulated interest, restored to her without a contest.

There was a friendly hearing in chambers, before the probate and other
judges. The witnesses were all carefully examined; the contents of the
sealed package in the little trunk were identified; and at last, in
accordance with high legal and judicial approval, the vast estate,
constituting nearly two-thirds of the amount left by Charlton, was
transferred to trustees to be held till Clara should be of age. And thus
finally did Vance carry his point, and establish the rights of the
orphan of the Pontiac.

It was on a warm, pleasant day in the last week of September, 1862, that
he called to take leave of her.

Little more than an hour’s drive beyond the Central Park brought him to
a private avenue, at the stately gate of which he found children
playing. One of these was a cripple, who, as he darted round on his
little crutch, chasing or being chased, seemed the embodiment of Joy
exercising under difficulties. His name was Andrew Rusk. An old colored
woman who was carrying a basket of fruit to some invalid in the
neighborhood, stopped and begged Andrew not to break his neck. Vance,
recognizing Esha, asked if Clara was at home.

“Yes, Massa Vance; she’ll be powerful glad to see yer.”

While Vance is waiting in a large and lofty drawing-room for her
appearance, let us review some of the incidents that have transpired
since we encountered her last.

One of Clara’s first acts, on being put in partial possession of her
ancestral estate, had been to present her aunt Pompilard with a
furnished house, retaining for herself the freedom of a few rooms. The
house stood on a broad, picturesque semi-circle of rocky table-land,
that protruded like a huge bracket from a pleasant declivity, partly
wooded, in view of the Palisades of the Hudson. The grounds included
acres enough to satisfy the most aspiring member of the Horticultural
Society. The house, also, was sufficiently spacious, not only for
present, but for prospective grandchildren of the Pompilard stock. To
the young Iretons and Purlings it was a blessed change from Lavinia
Street to this new place.

Amid these sylvan scenes,—these green declivities and dimpling
hollows,—these gardens beautiful, and groves and orchards,—the wounded
Major and aspiring author, Cecil Purling, grew rapidly convalescent. The
moment it was understood in fashionable circles that, through Clara’s
access to fortune, he stood no longer in need of help, subscribers to
his history poured in not merely by dozens, but by hundreds. He soon had
confirmation made doubly sure that he should have the glorious privilege
of being independent through his own unaided efforts. This time there is
no danger that he will ruin a publisher. The work proceeds. On your
library shelf, O friendly reader, please leave a vacant space for six
full-sized duodecimos!

Pompilard’s first great dinner, on being settled in his new home, was
given in honor of the Maloneys. In reply to the written invitation,
Maloney wrote, “The beggarly Irish tailor accepts for himself and
family.” On entering the house, he asked a private interview with
Pompilard, and thereupon bullied him so far, that the old man signed a
solemn pledge abjuring Wall Street, and all financial operations of a
speculative character thenceforth forever.

The dinner was graced by the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Ripper, both of
them now furious Abolitionists, and proud of the name. The lady was at
last emphatically of the opinion that “Slavery will be come up with.”

Clara had Esha and Hattie to wait on her, though rather in the capacity
of friends than of servants. Having got from Mrs. Ripper a careful
estimate of the amount paid by Ratcliff for the support and education of
his putative slave, Clara had it repaid with interest. The money came to
him most acceptably. His large investments in slaves had ruined him. His
“maid-servants and man-servants”[46] had flocked to the old flag and
found freedom. A piteous communication from him appeared on the occasion
in the Richmond Whig. We quote from it a single passage.

  “What contributed most to my mortification was, that in my whole gang
  of slaves, among whom there were any amount of Aarons, Abrahams,
  Isaacs, and Jacobs, there was not one Abdiel,—not one remained loyal
  to the Rebel.”

The philosophical editor, in his comments, endeavored to shield his
beloved slavery from inferential prejudice, and said:

  “The escaped slave is ungrateful; therefore, slavery is wrong!
  Children are often ungrateful; does it follow that the relation of
  parent and child is wrong?”[47]

Could even Mr. Carlyle have put it more cogently?

The money received by Clara from Mrs. Ratcliff’s private estate was all
appropriated to the establishment of an institution in New Orleans for
the education of the children of freed slaves. To this fund Madame
Volney not only added from her own legacy, but she went back to New
Orleans to superintend the initiation of the humane and important
enterprise.

“Into each life some rain must fall.” The day after the dinner to the
Maloneys intelligence came of the death of Captain Ireton. He had been
hung by the fierce slaveocracy at Richmond as a spy. It was asserted
that he had joined the Rebel Engineer Corps, at Island Number Ten, to
obtain information for the United States. However this may have been, it
is certain _he was not captured in the capacity of a spy_; and every one
acquainted with the usages of civilized warfare will recognize the
atrocity of hanging a man on the ground that he had _formerly_ acted as
a spy. The Richmond papers palliated the murder by saying Ireton had
“_confessed_ himself to be a spy.” As if any judicial tribunal would
hang a man on his own confession! “Would you make me bear testimony
against myself?” said Joan of Arc to her judges.

Much to the disgust of the pro-slavery leaders, who had counted on a
display of that cowardice which they had taught the Southern people to
regard as inseparable from Yankee blood, Ireton met his death cheerily,
as a bridegroom would go forth to take the hand of his beloved.[48] It
reminded them unpleasantly of old John Brown.

                    “Whether on the gallows high
                      Or in the battle’s van,
                    The fittest place for man to die
                      Is where he dies for man.”

The news of Ireton’s death was mentioned by Captain Onslow while making
a morning call on Miss Charlton. Her mother had dressed herself to drive
out on some visits of charity. As she was passing through the hall to
her carriage, Lucy called her into the drawing-room and communicated the
report. The widow turned deadly pale, and left the room without
speaking. She gave up her drive for that day, and commissioned Lucy to
fulfil the beneficent errands she had planned. Captain Onslow begged so
hard to be permitted to accompany Lucy, that, after a brief consultation
between mother and daughter, consent was given.

Thus are Nature and Human Life ever offering their tragic contrasts!
Here the withered leaf; and there, under the decaying mould, the green
germ! Here Grief, finding its home in the stricken heart; and there
thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair!

Colonel Delancy Hyde speedily had an opportunity of showing the
sincerity of his conversion, political and moral. He went into the fight
at South Mountain, and was by the side of General Reno when that loyal
and noble officer (Virginia-born) fell mortally wounded. For gallant
conduct on that occasion Hyde was put on General Mansfield’s staff, and
saw him, too, fall, three days after Reno, in the great fight at
Antietam. On this occasion Hyde lost a leg, but had the satisfaction of
seeing his nephew, Delancy junior, come out unscathed, and with the
promise of promotion for gallantry in carrying the colors of the
regiment after three successive bearers had been shot dead.

Hyde was presented with a wooden leg, of which he was quite proud. But
the great event of his life was the establishment of his sister, the
Widow Rusk, with her children, in a comfortable cottage on the outskirts
of Pompilard’s grounds, where the family were well provided for by
Clara. Here on the piazza, looking out on the river, the Colonel played
with the children, watched the boats, and read the newspapers. Perhaps
one of the profoundest of his emotions was experienced the day he saw in
one of the pictorial papers a picture of Delancy junior, bearing a flag
riddled by bullets. But the Colonel’s heart felt a redoubled thrill when
he read the following paragraph:—

  “This young and gallant color-bearer is, we learn, a descendant of an
  illustrious Virginia family, his ancestor, Delancy Hyde, having come
  over with the first settlers. Nobly has the youth adhered to the
  traditions of the Washingtons and the Madisons. His uncle, the brave
  Colonel Hyde, was one of the severely wounded in the late battle.”

The Colonel did not faint, but he came nearer to it than ever before in
his life.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin? It has generally been thought not.
But there was certainly an element of grace in Hyde which now promised
to bleach the whole moral complexion of the man; and that element,
though but as a grain of mustard-seed, was love for his sister and her
offspring.

Mr. Semmes was glad to receive, as the recompense for his services, the
exemption of certain property from confiscation. At their parting
interview Vance ingenuously told him he considered him a scoundrel.
Semmes didn’t see it in that light, and entered into a long argument to
prove that he had done no wrong. Vance listened patiently, and said in
reply, “Do you perceive an ill odor of dead rats in the wall?” Semmes
snuffed, and then answered, “Indeed I don’t perceive any bad smell.” “I
_do_,” said Vance; “good by, sir!” And that was the end of their
acquaintance.

But it is in the track of Vance and Clara that we promised to conduct
the reader. Clara had proposed a ramble over the grounds. Never had she
appeared so radiant in Vance’s eyes. It was not her dress, for that was
rather plain, though perfect in its adaptedness to the season and the
scene. It was not that jaunty little hat, hiding not too much of her
soft, thick hair. But the climate of her ancestral North seemed to have
added a new sparkle and gloss to her beauty. And then the pleasure of
seeing Vance showed itself so unreservedly in her face!

They strolled through the well-appointed garden, and Vance was glad to
see that Clara had a genuine love of flowers and fruits, and could name
all the varieties, distinguishing with quick perception the slightest
differences of form and hue. In the summer-house, overlooking the
majestic river, and surrounded, though not too much shaded, by birches,
oaks, and pines, indigenous to the soil, they found Miss Netty Pompilard
engaged in sketching. She ran away as they approached, presuming, like a
sensible young person, that she could be spared. Even the mocking-bird,
Clara’s old friend Dainty, who pecked at a peach in his cage, seemed to
understand that his noisy voluntaries must now be hushed.

The promenaders sat down on a rustic bench.

“Well, Clara,” said Vance, “I have heard to-day great and inspiring
news. It almost made me feel as if I could afford to stop short in my
work, and to be content, should I, like Moses, be suffered only to _see_
the promised land with my eyes, but not to ‘go over thither.’”

“To what do you allude?”

“To-morrow President Lincoln issues a proclamation of prospective
emancipation to the slaves of the Rebel States.”

“Good!” cried Clara, giving him her hand for a grasp of congratulation.

“But I foresee,” said Vance, “that there is much yet to be done before
it can be effective, and I’ve come to bid you a long, perhaps a last
farewell.”

Clara said not a word, but ran out of the summer-house below the bank
into a little thicket that hid her entirely from view. Here she caught
at the white trunk of a birch, and leaning her forehead against it, wept
passionately for some time. Vance sat wondering at her disappearance.
Ten minutes passed, and she did not return. He rose to seek her, when
suddenly he saw her climbing leisurely up the bank, a few wild-flowers
in her hand. There was no vestige of emotion in her face.

“You wondered at my quitting you so abruptly,” she said. “I thought of
some fringed gentians in bloom below there, and I ran to gather them for
you. Are they not of a lovely blue?”

“Thank you,” said Vance, not wholly deceived by her calm, assured
manner.

“So you really mean to leave us?” she said, smiling and looking him full
in the face. “I’m very sorry for it.”

“So am I, Clara, for it would be very delightful to settle down amid
scenes like these and lead a life of meditative leisure. But not yet can
I hope for my discharge. My country needs every able-bodied son. I must
do what I best can to serve her. But first let me give you a few words
of advice. Your Trustees tell me you have been spending money at such a
fearful rate, that they have been compelled to refuse your calls. To
this you object. Let me beg you to asquiesce with cheerfulness. They are
gentlemen, liberal and patriotic. They have consented to your giving
your aunt this splendid estate and the means of supporting it. They have
allowed you to bestow portentous sums in charity, and for the relief of
sick and wounded soldiers. I hear, too, that Miss Tremaine has sent to
you for aid.”

“Yes; her mother is dead, and her father has failed. They are quite
poor.”

“So you’ve sent her a couple of thousand dollars. The first pauper you
shall meet will have as much claim on you as she. Would I check that
divine propensity of your nature,—the desire to bestow? O never, never!
Far from it! Cherish it, my dear child. Believe in it. Find your
constant delight in it. But be reasonable. Consider your own future. A
little computation will show you that, at the present rate, it will not
take you ten years to get rid of all your money. You will soon have
suitors in plenty. Indeed, I hear that some very formidable ones are
already making reconnoissances, although they find to their despair that
the porter forbids them entrance unless they come on crutches; and I
hear you send word to your serenaders, to take their music to the banks
of the Potomac. But your time will soon come, Clara. You will be
married. (Please not pull that fringed gentian to pieces in that
barbarous way!) You will have your own tasteful, munificent, and
hospitable home. Reserve to yourself the power to make it all that, and
do not be wise too late.”

“And is there nothing I can do, Mr. Vance, to let you see I have some
little gratitude for all that you have done for me?”

“Ah! I shall quote Rochefoucault against you, if you say that. ‘Too
great eagerness to requite an obligation is a species of ingratitude.’
All that I’ve done is but a partial repayment of the debt I owed your
mother’s father; for I owed him my life. Besides, you pay me every time
you help the brave fellow whose wound or whose malady was got in risking
all for country and for justice.”

“We must think of each other often,” sighed Clara.

“That we cannot fail to do,” said Vance. “There are incidents in our
past that will compel a frequent interchange of remembrances; and to me
they will be very dear. Besides, from every soul of a good man or woman,
with whom I have ever been brought in communication (either by visible
presence or through letters or books), I unwind a subtile filament which
keeps us united, and never fails. I meet one whose society I would
court, but cannot,—we part,—one thinks of the other, ‘How indifferent he
or she seemed!’ or ‘Why did we not grow more intimate?’ And yet a
friendship that shall outlast the sun may have been unconsciously
formed.”

“You must write me” said Clara.

“I’m a poor correspondent,” replied Vance; “but I shall obey. And now my
watch tells me I must go. I start in a few hours for Washington.”

They strolled back to the house. Vance took leave of all the inmates,
not forgetting Esha. He went to Hyde’s cottage, and had an affectionate
parting with that worthy; and then drove to a curve in the road where
Clara stood waiting solitary to exchange the final farewell.

It was on an avenue through the primeval forest, having on either side a
strip of greensward edged by pine-trees, odorous and thick, which had
carpeted the ground here and there with their leafy needles of the last
years growth, now brown and dry.

The mild, post-equinoctial sunshine was flooding the middle of the road,
but Clara stood on the sward in the shade. Vance dismounted from his
carriage and drew near. All Clara’s beauty seemed to culminate for that
trial. A smile adorably tender lighted up her features. Vance felt that
he was treading on enchanted ground, and that the atmosphere swam with
the rose-hues of young romance. The gates of Paradise seemed opening,
while a Peri, with hand extended, offered to be his guide. Youth and
glad Desire rushed back into that inner chamber of his heart sacred to a
love ineffably precious.

Clara put out her hand; but why was it that this time it was her right
hand, when heretofore, ever since her rescue in New Orleans, she had
always given the left?

Rather high up on the wrist of the right was a bracelet; a bracelet of
that soft, fine hair familiar to Vance. He recognized it now, and the
tears threatened to overflow. Lifting the wrist to his lips he kissed
it, and then, with a “God keep you!” entered the carriage, and was
whirled away.

“It was the bracelet, not the wrist, he kissed,” sighed Clara.




                            CHAPTER XLVIII.
                       TIME DISCOVERS AND COVERS.

“_Crito._ How and where shall we bury you?

”_Socrates._ Bury me in any way you please, if you can catch me to bury.
Crito obstinately thinks, my friends, I am that which he shall shortly
behold dead. Say rather, Crito,—say if you love me, ‘Where shall I bury
your body’; and I will answer you, ‘Bury it in any manner and in any
place you please.’”—_Plato._


On rolled the months, nor slackened their speed because of the
sufferings and the sighings with which they went freighted. Almost every
day brought its battle or its skirmish. Almost every day men,—sometimes
many hundreds,—would be shot dead, or be wounded and borne away in
ambulances or on stretchers, not grudging the sacrifices they had made.

O precious blood, not vainly shed! O bereaved hearts, not unprofitably
stricken! Do not doubt there shall be compensation. Do not doubt that
every smallest effort, though seemingly fruitless, rendered to the
right, shall be an imperishable good both to yourselves and others.

On rolled the months, bringing alternate triumph and disaster, radiance
and gloom, to souls waiting the salvation of the Lord. The summer of
1863 had come. There had been laurels for Murfreesboro’ and crape for
Chancellorville. Vicksburg and Port Hudson yet trembled in the balance.
Pennsylvania was threatened with a Rebel invasion. The Emancipation
Proclamation, gradual as the great processes of nature, was working its
way, though not in the earthquake nor in the fire. Black regiments had
been enlisted, and were beginning to answer the question, Will the negro
fight?

On the sixth of June, 1863, a cavalry force of Rebels made their
appearance some four miles from Milliken’s Bend on the Mississippi, and
attacked and drove a greatly inferior Union force, composed mainly of
the Tenth Illinois cavalry.

Suddenly there rose up in their path, as if from the soil, two hundred
and fifty black soldiers. They belonged to the Eleventh Louisiana
African regiment, and were under the command of Colonel Lieb. They had
never been in a fight before. The “chivalry” came on, expecting to see
their former bondsmen crouch and tremble at the first imperious word;
but, to the dismay of the Rebels, they were met with such splendid
bravery, that they turned and fled, and the Illinois men were saved.

The next day nine hundred and forty-one troops of African descent had a
hand-to-hand engagement with a Texan brigade, commanded by McCulloch,
which numbered eighteen hundred and sixty-five. Three hundred and
forty-five of the colored troops were killed or wounded, though not till
they had put _hors de combat_ twice that number of Rebels. The gunboat
Choctaw finally came up to drive off the enemy.

Conspicuous for intrepid conduct on both these occasions was a black
man, slightly above the middle height, but broad-shouldered,
well-formed, and athletic. Across his left cheek was a scar as if from a
sabre-cut. This man had received the name of Peculiar Institution, but
he was familiarly called Peek. On the second day his words and his
example had inspired the men of his company with an almost superhuman
courage. Bravely they stood their ground, and nowhere else on the field
did so many of the enemy’s dead attest the valor of these undrilled
Africans.

One youth, apparently not seventeen, had fought by Peek’s side and under
his eye with heroic defiance of danger. At last, venturing too far from
the ranks, he got engaged with two Rebel officers in a hand-to-hand
encounter, and was wounded. Peek saw his danger, rushed to his aid,
parried a blow aimed at the lad’s life, and shot one of the infuriate
officers; but as he was bearing the youth back into the ranks, he was
himself wounded in the side, and fell with his burden.

The boy’s wound was not serious. He and Peek were borne within the
protection of the guns of the Choctaw. They lay in the shade cast by the
Levee. The surgeon looked at Peek’s wound, and shook his head. Then
turning to the boy he exclaimed, “Why, Sterling, is this you?”

At the name of Sterling, Peek had roused himself and turned a gaze, at
once of awe and curiosity, on the youth; then sending the surgeon to
another sufferer, had beckoned to the boy to draw near.

“Is your name Sterling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you born?”

“In Montreal.”

“And your mother’s name was Flora Jacobs, and your father’s—Sterling!
_I_ am your father!”

Profoundly overcome by the disclosure, the boy was speechless for a time
with agitation. But Peek pressed him to tell of his mother. “And be
quick, Sterling; for my time is short.”

We need not give the boy’s narrative in his own words, interrupted as it
was by the inquiries put by Peek, while his life-blood was ebbing. The
story which Clara Berwick had heard at school, and communicated to Mrs.
Gentry, was the story of Flora Jacobs. Those who hate to think ill of
slavery sneer at such reports as the exaggerations of romance; but the
great heart of humanity will need no testimony to show that, in the
nature of things, they must be too often true.

Flora and Sterling, mother and son, were held as slaves by one Floyd in
Alabama. Flora had religiously kept her oath of fidelity to Peek, much
to the chagrin and indignation of her master, who saw that he was losing
at least fifty per cent on his investment, through her stubborn
resistance to his demands that she should increase and multiply after
the fashion of his Alderneys and Durhams. At last it happened that
Sterling, who had been inspired by his mother with the desire to seek
his father, ran away, was retaken, and tied up for a whipping. Ten
lashes had been given, and had drawn blood. And there were to be one
hundred and ninety more! The mother, in an agony, interceded. There was
only one way by which she could save him. She must marry coachman
George. She consented. But a month afterwards Floyd learnt that Flora
had made the marriage practically null, and had not suffered coachman
George to touch even the hem of her robe. Floyd was enraged. He wrought
upon the evil passions of George. There were first threats, and then an
attempt at violence. The attempt was baffled by Flora’s inflicting upon
herself a mortal stab. As she fell on the floor she marked upon it with
her own blood a cross, and kissed it with her last breath.

“’T is all right,—all just as it should be,” murmured Peek. “God knew
best. Bless him always for this meeting, Sterling. Hold the napkin
closer to the wound. There! I knew she would be true! So! Take the belt
from under my vest. Easy! It contains a hundred dollars. ’T is yours.
Take the watch from the pocket. So! A handsome gold one, you see. ’T was
given me by Mr. Vance. The name’s engraved on it. Can you write? Good.
Your mother taught you. Write by the next mail to William C. Vance,
Washington, D. C. Tell him what has happened. Tell him how your mother
died. He’ll be your friend. You fought bravely, my son. What sweetness
God puts into this moment! Take no trouble about the body I leave
behind. Any trench will do for it. Fight on for freedom and the right.
Slavery must die. All wrong must die. You can’t wrong even a worm
without wronging yourself more than it. Remember that. Holy living makes
holy believing. Charity first. Think to shut out others from heaven, and
the danger is great you’ll shut yourself out. Don’t strike for revenge.
Slay because ’t is God’s cause on earth you defend; and don’t fight
unless you see and believe that much, let who may command. Love life. ’T
is God’s gift and opportunity. The more you suffer, the more, my dear
boy, you can show you prize life, not for the world’s goods, but for
that love of God, which is heaven,—Christ’s heaven. Think. Not to think
is to be a brute. Learn something every day. Love all that’s good and
fair. Love music. Love flowers. Don’t be so childish as to suppose that
because you don’t hear or see spirits, they don’t hear and see _you_.
Remember that your mother and I can watch you,—can know your every
thought. You’ll grieve us if you do wrong. You’ll make us very happy if
you do right. Ah! The napkin has slipped. No matter. There! Let the
blood ooze. See! Sterling! Look! There! Do you not see? They come. The
angels! _Your_ mother—_my_ mother—and beyond there, high up
there—one—Ah, God! Tell Mr. Vance—tell him—his—his—”

Peek stood up erect, lifted his clasped hands above his head, looked
beyond them as if watching some beatific vision, then dropped his mortal
body dead upon the earth.

-----

Footnote 46:

  See Mr. Jefferson Davis’s proclamation for a fast, March, 1863.

Footnote 47:

  These quotations are genuine, as many newspaper readers will
  recollect.

Footnote 48:

  The case seems to have been precisely parallel to that of Spencer
  Kellogg Brown, hung in Richmond, September 25th, 1863, as a spy. On
  the 18th of that month, Brown told the Rev. William G. Scandlin of
  Massachusetts (see the latter’s published letter), that they had kept
  him there in prison “_until all his evidence had been sent away,
  allowed him but fifteen hours to prepare for his defence, and denied
  him the privilege of counsel_.” Brown was captured by guerillas, not
  while he was acting as a spy, but while returning from destroying a
  rebel ferry-boat near Port Hudson, which he had done under the order
  of Captain Porter. The hanging of this man was as shameless a murder
  as was ever perpetrated by Thugs. But Slavery, disappointed in the
  hanging of Captains Sawyer and Flynn, was yelling lustily for a Yankee
  to hang; and Jeff Davis was not man enough to say “No.”




                             CHAPTER XLIX.
                           EYES TO THE BLIND.

              “Farewell! The passion of long years I pour
              Into that word!”—_Mrs. Hemans._

“Heureux l’homme qu’un doux hymen unira avec elle! il n’aura à craindre
que de la perdre et de lui survivre.”—_Fenelon._


It was that Fourth of July, 1863, when every sincere friend of the Great
Republic felt his heart beat high with mingled hope and apprehension.
Tremendous issues, which must affect the people of the American
continent through all coming time, were in the balance of Fate, and the
capricious chances of war might turn the scale on either side.
Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Helena! The great struggles that
were to make these places memorable had reached their culminating and
critical point, but were as yet undecided.

Lee’s Rebel army of invasion, highly disciplined, and numbering nearly a
hundred thousand men, was marching into Pennsylvania. General Lee
assured his friends he should remain North just as long as he wished;
that there was no earthly power strong enough to drive him back across
the Potomac. He expected “to march on Baltimore and occupy it; then to
march on Washington and dictate terms of peace.”

Such was Lee’s plan. Its success depended on his defeating the Union
army; and of that he felt certain.

The loyal North was unusually reticent and grave; “troubled on every
side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair.” A change of
commanders in the army of the Potomac, when just on the eve of the
decisive contest, added to the general seriousness.

Clara, since her parting from Vance, had addressed herself thoughtfully
to the business of life. Duties actively discharged had brought with
them their reward in a diffusive cheerfulness.

On the morning of that eventful Fourth of July, the ringing of bells and
the firing of cannon roused her from slumber somewhat earlier than
usual. On the piazza she met Netty Pompilard, and Mary and Julia Ireton,
and Master and Miss Purling, and they all strolled to the river’s
side,—then home to breakfast,—then out to the mown field by the orchard,
where a mammoth tent had been erected, and servants were spreading
tables for the day’s entertainment, to be given by Clara to all the poor
and rich of the neighborhood. Colonel Hyde, having been commissioned to
superintend the arrangements, was here in his glory, and not a little of
his importance was reflected on the busy cripple, his nephew.

Clara’s thoughts, however, were at Gettysburg, where brave men were
giving up their lives and exposing themselves to terrible, life-wasting
wounds, in order that we at home might live in peace and have a country,
free and undishonored. She thought of Vance. She knew he had resigned
his colonelcy, and was now employed in the important and hazardous,
though untrumpeted labors of a scout or spy, for which he felt that his
old practice as an actor had given him some aptitude. We subjoin a few
fragmentary extracts from the last letter she had received from him:—

  “Poor Peek,—rather let me say fortunate Peek! He fell nobly, as he
  always desired to fall, in the cause of freedom and humanity. His son,
  Sterling, is now with me; a bright, brave little fellow, who is
  already a great comfort and help.”

  “Until the North are as much in earnest for the right as the South are
  for the wrong, we must not expect to see an end to this war. It is not
  enough to say, ‘Our cause is just. Providence will put it through.’ If
  we don’t think the right and the just worth making great sacrifices
  for,—worth risking life and fortune for,—we repel that aid from Heaven
  which we lazily claim as our due. God gives Satan power to try the
  nations as he once tried Job. ‘Skin for skin,’ says Satan; ‘yea, all
  that a man hath will he give for his life.’ Unless we have pluck
  enough to disprove the Satanic imputation, and to show we prize God’s
  kingdom on earth more than we do life or limb or worldly store, then
  it is not a good cause that will save us, but a sordid spirit that
  will ruin us. O for a return of that inspiration which filled us when
  the first bombardment of Sumter smote on our ears!”

  “The President will soon call for three hundred thousand more
  volunteers. O women of the North!—ye whose heart-wisdom foreruns the
  slow processes of our masculine reason,—lend yourselves forthwith to
  the great work of raising this force and sending it to fill up our
  depleted armies.”

  “This Upas-tree of slavery is now girdled, they tell us. ‘Why not
  leave it to the winds of heaven to blow down?’ But if this whirlwind
  of civil war can’t do it, don’t trust to the zephyrs of peace. No! The
  President’s proclamation must be carried into effect on every
  plantation, in every dungeon, where a slave exists. Better that this
  generation should go down with harness on to its grave, and that war
  should be the normal state of the next generation, than that we should
  fail in our pledged faith to the poor victims of oppression whose
  masters have brought the sword.”

The grand entertainment under the tent lasted late into the afternoon.
An excellent band of music was present, and as the tunes were selected
by Clara, they were all good. Pompilard was, of course, a prominent
figure at the table. He was toast-master, speech-maker, and general
entertainer. He said pleasant things to the women and found amusements
for the children. He complimented “the gallant Colonel Hyde” on his
“very admirable arrangements” for their comfort; and the Colonel replied
in a speech, in which he declared that much of the honor belonged to his
sister Dorothy, and his nephew, Andrew Jackson.

In a high-flown tribute to the Emerald Isle, “the land of the Emmetts
and of that brave hater of slavery, O’Connell,” Pompilard called up
Maloney, who, in a fiery little harangue, showed that he did not lack
that gift of extemporaneous eloquence which the Currans and the Grattans
used so lavishly to exhibit. The band played “Rory O’More.”

A compliment to “the historian of the war” called up Purling, who, in
the lack of one arm, made the other do double duty in gesticulating. He
was cheered to his heart’s content. The band played “Hail Columbia.”

A compliment to the absent Captain Delaney Hyde Rusk drew from his uncle
this sentiment: “The poor whites of the South! may the Lord open their
eyes and send them plenty of soap!” The band played “Dixie.”

A venerable clergyman present, the Rev. Mr. Beitler, now rose and gave
“The memory of our fallen brave!” This was drunk standing in solemn
silence, with heads uncovered. But Mrs. Ireton and Clara vainly put
their handkerchiefs to their faces to keep back their sobs. By a secret
sympathy they sought each other, and sat down under a tree where they
could be somewhat retired from the rest. Esha drew near, but had too
much tact to disturb them.

It was four o’clock when a courier was seen running toward the assembled
company. He came with an “Extra,” containing that telegraphic despatch
from the President of the United States, flashed over the wires that
day, giving comforting assurances from Gettysburg. Pompilard stood on a
chair and proposed a succession of cheers, which were vociferously
delivered. Clara and Mrs. Ireton dried their tears and partook of the
general joy. Then rapping on the table, Pompilard obtained profound
silence; and the old clergyman, kneeling, addressed the Throne of Grace
in words of thankfulness that found a response in every heart. The day’s
amusements ended in a stroll of the company through the beautiful
grounds.

After the glory the grief. No sooner was it known that Lee, whipped and
crestfallen, was retreating, than there was a call for succor to the
wounded and the dying. Clara, under the escort of Major Purling (who was
eager to glean materials for the great history) went immediately to
Gettysburg. She visited the churches (converted into hospitals), where
wounded men, close as they could lie, were heroically enduring the
sharpest sufferings. She labored to increase their accommodations. If
families wouldn’t give up their houses for love, then they must for
money. Yes, money can do it. She drew on her trustees till they were
frightened at the repetition of big figures in her drafts. She soothed
the dying; she made provision for the wounded; she ordered the
wholesomest viands for those who could eat.

On the third day she met Mrs. Charlton and her daughter, and they
affectionately renewed their acquaintance. As they walked together
through a hospital they had not till then entered, Clara suddenly
started back with emotion and turned deadly pale. But for Major
Purling’s support she would have fallen. Tears came to her relief, and
she rallied.

What was the matter?

On one of the iron beds lay a captain of artillery. He did not appear to
be wounded. He lay, as if suffering more from exhaustion than from
physical pain. And yet, on looking closer, you saw from the glassy
unconsciousness of his eyes that the poor man was blind. But O that
expression of sweet resignation and patient submission! It was better
than a prayer to look on it. It touched deeper than any exhortation from
holiest lips. It spoke of an inward reign of divinest repose; of a land
more beautiful than any the external vision ever looked on; of that
peace of God which passeth all understanding.

Clara recognized in it the face of Charles Kenrick. A cannon-ball had
passed before his eyes, and the shock from the concussion of air had
paralyzed the optic nerves. The surgeons gave him little hope of ever
recovering his sight.

For some private reason, best known to herself, Clara did not make
herself known to Kenrick. She did not even inform any one that she knew
him. She induced Lucy Charlton to minister to his wants. On Lucy’s
asking him what she could do (for she did not know he was Onslow’s
friend), he said, “If you can pen a letter for me, I shall be much
obliged.”

“Certainly,” said she; “and my friend here shall hold the ink while I
write.”

She received from the hands of her maid in attendance a portfolio with
which she had come provided, anticipating such requests. She then took a
seat by his side, while Clara sat at the foot of the cot, where she
could look in his blind, unconscious face, and wipe away her tears
unseen.

“I’m ready,” said Lucy. And he dictated as follows:—

  “MY DEAR COUSIN: I received last night your letter from Meade’s
  headquarters. ’T was a comfort to be assured you escaped unharmed amid
  your many exposures.

  “You tell me I am put down in the reports as among the slightly
  wounded, and you desire to know all the particulars. Alas! I may say
  with the tragic poet, ‘My wound is great because it is so small.’
  Don’t add, as Johnson once did, ‘Then ‘t would be greater, were it
  none at all.’ A cannon-ball, my dear fellow, passed before my eyes,
  and the sight thereof is extinguished utterly. The handwriting of this
  letter, you will perceive, is not my own.

  “What you say of Onslow delights me. So he has behaved nobly before
  Vicksburg, and is to be made a Colonel! The one hope of his heart is
  to be with the army of liberation that shall go down into Texas.
  Onslow will not rest till he has redeemed that bloody soil to freedom,
  and put an end to the rule of the miscreant hangmen of the State.

  “I said the _one_ hope of his heart. But what you insinuate leads me
  to suspect there may be still another,—a tender hope. Can it be? Poor
  fellow! He deserves it.

  “You bid me take courage and call on Perdita. You tell me she is free
  as air,—that the bloom is on the plum as yet untouched, unbreathed
  upon. My own dear cousin, if I was hopeless before I lost my eyesight,
  what must I be now? But, since a thing of beauty is a joy forever, was
  I not lucky in making her acquaintance before that cannon-ball swept
  away my optic sense? Now, as I rest here on my couch, I can call up
  her charming image,—nay, I can hear the very tones of her singing. She
  is worthy of the brilliant inheritance you were instrumental in
  restoring to her. I shall always be the happier for having known her,
  even though the knowing should continue to be my disquietude.

  “I have just heard from my father. He and his young wife are in
  Richmond. His pecuniary fortunes are at a very low ebb. His slaves
  were all liberated last month by Banks, who has anticipated the work I
  expected to do myself. My father begins to be disenchanted in regard
  to the Rebellion. He even admits that Davis isn’t quite so remarkable
  a man as he had supposed. How gladly I would help my father if I
  could! May the opportunity be some day mine. All I have (’t is only
  five thousand dollars) shall be his.

  “What can I do, my dear cousin, if I can’t get back my eyesight? God
  knows and cares; and I am content in that belief. ‘There is a special
  providence in the falling of a sparrow.’ Am not I better than many
  sparrows? ‘Hence have I genial seasons!’ ’T is all as it should be;
  and though He slay me, yet will I trust in him.

                               “Farewell,
                                                   “CHARLES KENRICK.

“TO WILLIAM C. VANCE.”

Several times during the dictating of this letter, Lucy (especially when
Onslow’s name was mentioned) would have betrayed both herself and Clara,
had not the latter in dumb show dissuaded her. The next day Clara made
herself known, and introduced Major Purling; but she did not allow the
blind man to suspect that she was that friend of his unknown amanuensis,
who had “held the ink.”

Her own persuasions, added to those of the Major, forced Kenrick at last
to consent to be removed to Onarock. Here, in the society of cheerful
Old Age and congenial Youth, he rapidly recovered strength. But to his
visual orbs there returned no light. There it was still “dark, dark,
dark, amid the blaze of noon.”

He did not murmur at the dispensation. In all Clara’s studies, readings,
and exercises he was made the partaker. Even the beautiful landscapes on
all sides were brought vividly before his inner eyes by her graphic
words. Along the river’s bank, and through the forest aisles, and along
the garden borders she would lead him, and not a flower was beautiful
that he was not made to know it.

                               ----------

It was the 18th of October, 1863,—that lovely Sabbath which seemed to
have come down out of heaven,—so beautiful it was,—so calm, so
bright,—so soft and yet so exhilarating. The forest-trees had begun to
put on their autumnal drapery of many colors. The maple was already of a
fiery scarlet; the beech-leaves, the birch, and the witch-hazel, of a
pale yellow; and there were all gradations of purple and orange among
the hickories, the elms, and the ashes. The varnished leaves of the oak
for the most part retained their greenness, forming mirrors for the
light to reflect from, and flashing and glistening, as if for very joy,
under the bland, indolent breeze. It was such weather as this that drew
from Emerson that note, we can all respond to, in our higher moments of
intenser life, “Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of
emperors ridiculous.”

With Kenrick, even to his blindness there came a sense of the beauty and
the glow. He could enjoy the balmy air, the blest power of sunshine, the
odors from the falling leaves and the grateful earth. And what need of
external vision, since Clara could so well supply its want? He walked
forth with her, and they stopped near a rustic bench overlooking the
Hudson, and sat down.

“Indeed I must leave you to-morrow,” said he, in continuation of some
previous remark: “I’ve got an excellent situation as sub-teacher of
French at West Point.”

“O, you’ve got a situation, have you?” returned Clara.

The tears sprang to her eyes; but, alas for human frailty! this time
they were tears of vexation.

There was silence for almost a minute. Then Kenrick said, “Do you know
I’ve been with you more than three months?”

“Well,” replied Clara, pettishly, “is there anything so very surprising
or disagreeable in that?”

“But I fear Onarock will prove my Capua,—that it will unfit me for the
sterner warfare of life.”

“O, go to your sterner warfare, since you desire it!”

And with a desperate effort at nonchalance she swung her hat by its
ribbon, and sang that little air from “La Bayadère” by Auber,—“Je suis
content,—je suis heureux.”

“Clara, dear friend, you seem displeased with me. What have I done?”

“You want to humiliate me!” exclaimed Clara, reproachfully, and bursting
into a passion of tears.

“Want to humiliate you? I can’t see how.”

“I suppose not,” returned Clara, ironically. “There are none so blind as
those who don’t choose to see.”

“What do you mean, dear friend?”

“Dear _friend_ indeed!” sobbed Clara. “Is he as blind as he would have
me think? Haven’t I given hints enough, intimations enough,
opportunities enough? Would the man force me to offer myself outright?”

There was another interval of silence, and this time it lasted full ten
minutes. And then Kenrick, his breath coming quick, his breast heaving,
unable longer to keep back his tears, drew forth his handkerchief, and
covering his face, wept heartily.

He rose and put out his hand. Clara seized it. He folded her in his
arms; and their first kiss,—a kiss of betrothal,—was exchanged.




                                THE END.








      Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                               Footnotes

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                           Transcriber’s Note

There are several compound words which appear with and without
hyphenation, which are given here as printed (bed-side, chamber-maid,
child-birth, head-quarters, low-lived, side-walk). If a word is
hyphenated at a line or page break, the hyphen is retained only if other
instances can establish the author’s intent.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.

  32.33    You have fe[e]d him, I suppose?                Removed.
  66.13    [“]Iverson stepped forward                     Removed.
  77.19    Tender thought[t/s] of the sufferings          Replaced.
  98.39    as high a civilization as the whites[.]”       Added.
  199.26   know[l]edge of many good men and women         Inserted.
  272.1    [“]She dashed into a medley                    Removed.
  355.18   “But you say nothing of confiscation,[” Mr.    ” moved.
           Vance./ Mr. Vance”]
  395.29   to the Emperor’s predispositions[.]            Added.
  430.24   super[ ]human and supercanine                  Removed.
  448.5    [“]Do you know,” he continued,                 Removed.
  449.18   _seventy thousand dollars_![”]                 Added.
  466.34   and then, cov[er]ing his face                  Inserted.
  497.11   the face of C[l/h]arles> Kenrick               Replaced.