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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peculiar, by Epes Sargent
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Peculiar
+       A Tale of the Great Transition
+
+Author: Epes Sargent
+
+Release Date: April 18, 2022 [eBook #67872]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: KD Weeks, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed
+             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+             produced from images generously made available by The
+             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PECULIAR ***
+
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+                          Transcriber’s Note:
+
+This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
+Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
+
+Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
+referenced.
+
+Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
+see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
+the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
+
+                                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.
+
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+<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peculiar, by Epes Sargent</p>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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+
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Peculiar</p>
+<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A Tale of the Great Transition</p>
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Epes Sargent</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April 18, 2022 [eBook #67872]</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
+  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: KD Weeks, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PECULIAR ***</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c000' />
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>Transcriber’s Note:</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>Footnotes have been collected at the end of each chapter, and are
+linked for ease of reference.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
+see the transcriber’s <a href='#endnote'>note</a> at the end of this text
+for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered
+during its preparation.</p>
+
+<div class='htmlonly'>
+
+<p class='c001'>Any corrections are indicated using an <ins class='correction' title='original'>underline</ins>
+highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the
+original text in a small popup.</p>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div class='epubonly'>
+
+<p class='c001'>Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the
+reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the
+note at the end of the text.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c002'>PECULIAR</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c000'>
+    <div><i>A Tale of the Great Transition</i></div>
+    <div class='c000'><span class='sc'>By EPES SARGENT</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>NEW YORK</div>
+    <div>CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY</div>
+    <div>M DCCC LXIV</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='small'>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by</span></div>
+    <div>EPES SARGENT,</div>
+    <div><span class='small'>in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c003'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>University Press:</span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Welch, Bigelow, and Company,</span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>Cambridge.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_iii'>iii</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0' summary=''>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='15%' />
+<col width='76%' />
+<col width='7%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Chapter</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><span class='sc'>Page</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>I.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Glance in the Mirror</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>II.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Matrimonial Blank</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_6'>6</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>III.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Wolf and the Lamb</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_12'>12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>IV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Fugitive Chattel</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>V.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Retrospect</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_28'>28</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>VI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Pin-holes in the Curtain</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_34'>34</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>VII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>An Unconscious Heiress</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>VIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Descendant of the Cavaliers</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_57'>57</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>IX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Upper and the Lower Law</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_69'>69</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>X.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Groups on the Deck</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_81'>81</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Mr. Onslow speaks his Mind</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Story of Estelle</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_105'>105</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Fire up!</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_148'>148</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XIV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Waiting for the Summoner</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_151'>151</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Who shall be Heir?</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_158'>158</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XVI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Vendue</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_165'>165</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XVII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Shall there be a Wedding?</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_178'>178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XVIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Unities Disregarded</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XIX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The White Slave</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_187'>187</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Encounters at the St. Charles</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_200'>200</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Monster of Ingratitude</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Young Lady with a Carpet-Bag</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_224'>224</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Will you walk into my Parlor?</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_233'>233</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_iv'>iv</span>XXIV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Confessions of a Mean White</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_240'>240</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Meetings and Partings</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_251'>251</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXVI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Clara makes an Important Purchase</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_257'>257</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXVII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Delight and Duty</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_264'>264</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXVIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Letter of Business</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_274'>274</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXIX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Woman who Deliberates is Lost</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_279'>279</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Feminine Van Amburgh</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_290'>290</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>One of the Institutions</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_300'>300</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Double Victory</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Satan amuses Himself</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_314'>314</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXIV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Light from the Pit</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_327'>327</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Committee adjourns</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_335'>335</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXVI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Occupant of the White House</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_349'>349</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXVII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Comparing Notes</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_359'>359</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXVIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Lawyer and the Lady</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_372'>372</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XXXIX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Seeing is Believing</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_382'>382</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XL.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Remarkable Man at Richmond</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_392'>392</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Hopes and Fears</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_397'>397</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>How it was done</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_430'>430</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Making the best of it</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_442'>442</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLIV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>A Domestic Reconnaissance</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_455'>455</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLV.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Another Descendant of the Cavaliers</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_464'>464</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLVI.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>The Night cometh</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_471'>471</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLVII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>An Autumnal Visit</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_480'>480</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLVIII.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Time Discovers and Covers</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_489'>489</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c005'>XLIX.</td>
+    <td class='c006'><span class='sc'>Eyes to the Blind</span></td>
+    <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_493'>493</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c008'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span><span class='xlarge'>PECULIAR.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER I. <br /> A GLANCE IN THE MIRROR.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Wed not for wealth, Emily, without love,—’tis gaudy slavery; nor for love without
+competence,—’tis twofold misery.”—<cite>Colman’s Poor Gentleman.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><cite>Te Deum laudamus</cite></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There is a gentle knock at the door, and to her “Come in,”
+an old black man enters.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good morning, Toussaint,” says the lady; “what have you
+there?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Does Madame find her cough any better?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Passablement bien.</i></span> 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, please don’t. Keep it. Good morning, Madame! Be
+cheerful. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Le bon temps reviendra.</i></span> All shall be well. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Bon
+jour! Au revoir</i>, Madame!</span>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>gaucherie</i></span>.” And, bowing low, he again disappears.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>insanity it would be in a poor girl to allow such a chance to
+slip by!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER II. <br /> A MATRIMONIAL BLANK.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow.”</div>
+      <div class='line in33'><cite>Shakespeare.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c012'>
+    <div><span class='sc'>To HENRY BERWICK, Cincinnati.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c013'><span class='sc'>Dear Henry</span>: 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 <em>setting a snare</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>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 <em>do</em>? 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">vol-au-vent</span>, 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.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c014'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>why</em>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<div class='c015'>Your mother, <span class='sc'>Emily Charlton</span>.</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER III.<br /> THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Bitten by rage canine of dying rich;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Guilt’s blunder! and the loudest laugh of hell!”</div>
+      <div class='line in38'><i>Young.</i></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>It was the old, old story of the cheat and the dupe; of credulous
+innocence overmatched by heartless selfishness and fraud.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 &amp; Co., under false pretences, has been arrested,
+and will be duly punished.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<em>Mine</em>, Mrs. Charlton! Where did you learn that word?”
+said the husband, really surprised at the language of his usually
+meek and acquiescent helpmate.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you not mean to give them back?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then you do not mean to give the letter back, Charlton?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The lady held out her hand, as if to receive the papers.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The letter,—do you choose to give it back?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“If, after reading it, I think proper to send it to its address,
+it shall be sent. Give yourself no further concern about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Charlton advanced with folded arms, looked him unblenchingly
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>in the face, and gasped forth, with a husky, half-chocked
+utterance, “Beware!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Truly, madam,” said the astonished husband, “this is a
+new character for you to appear in, and one for which I am
+not prepared.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go to the Devil!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>That veteran himself opened the door. A venerable black
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is my wife here?” asked Charlton.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Madame is here,” replied the old man; “but she suffers,
+and prays to be not disturbed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I must see her. Conduct me to her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Pardonnez.</i></span> Monsieur will comprehend as I say the commands
+of Madame in this house are sacred.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You insolent old nigger! Do you mean to tell me I am not
+to see my own wife?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Precisement.</i></span> Monsieur cannot see Madame Charlton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll search the house for her, at any rate. Out of the way,
+you blasted old ape!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Toussaint might have taken for his motto that of the old
+eating-house near the Park,—“<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Semper paratus</i>.</span>” 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Toussaint stood at his door as Pompilard drew nigh.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ha! good morning, my guide, philosopher, and friend!”
+exclaimed the stock-broker. “What’s in the wind now, Toussaint?
+Any money to invest?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Mr. Pompilard; but here’s a box that troubles me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,—‘<i>Henry Berwick to Emily</i>.’ Berwick? It
+was a Henry Berwick who married my wife’s niece, Miss
+Aylesford.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This box,” interposed Toussaint, “was the gift of his late
+father to his second wife, the present Mrs. Charlton.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! yes, I remember the connection now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>bank, there to be kept till called for by Miss Clara Berwick or
+her representative.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That will do,” said Toussaint.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Madame will need a physician,” replied the negro. “I have
+sent for Dr. Hull.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>me</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That will not import,” replied Toussaint, with the hauteur
+of a prince of the blood.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Felicitating himself on having got rid of a doctor’s bill,
+Charlton took his departure.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The exceedingly poor cuss!” muttered Blake, tossing after
+him the stump of a cigar.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me pay you for your trouble, Mr. Blake,” said Toussaint.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But take the rest of the cigars.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There, Marquis, you touch me on my weak point. Thank
+you. Good by, Toussaint!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Toussaint closed the door, and called to his wife in a whisper,
+speaking in French, “How goes it, Juliette?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Toussaint left at once to mail the invalid’s letter and get
+possession of her bird.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER IV. <br /> A FUGITIVE CHATTEL.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Rev. Dr.
+Palmer of New Orleans, 1861.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was a knock at the door, and Charlton cried out,
+“Come in!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>cheek was an ugly scar, almost deep enough to be from a cutlass
+wound.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good morning, Peculiar. Take a chair.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<em>alias</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>client had attributed to him, he pondered a moment, then
+spoke as follows:</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That I will do, sir. I know, if I trust a lawyer at all, I
+ought to trust him wholly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton took from his drawer a letter, which he handed to
+the negro, with the remark, “You know how to read, I suppose.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Take a seat then, Jacobs, and I will make such notes of
+your story as I may think advisable.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Was born on Herbert’s plantation in Marshall County,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>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 <span class='sc'>Peculiar Institution</span>. 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c014'><sup>[2]</sup></a> 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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In spite of prayers, however, things didn’t go right on the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>of honors and testimonials and rewards and dinners from Texan
+slaveholders, because of his loyalty to the <em>institution</em> 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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, <em>first</em>,
+what was the name of the schooner in which Peek had escaped
+from Texas. It was the Albatross. Charlton made a note.
+<em>Second</em>, did Mr. Barnwell, Peek’s late master, have an agent
+in New Orleans? Yes; Peek had often seen the name on
+packages: P. Herman &amp; Co. And, <em>third</em>, did Peek marry his
+wife in Canada? Yes. Then she, too, is a fugitive slave, eh?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Again Peek’s mind was relieved.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER V.<br />A RETROSPECT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Rev. Newman
+Hall.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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
+<em>first</em>, 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 <em>second</em> era, he encountered
+his mother, and then the frozen fountain of his affections
+was unsealed and melted. In the <em>third</em>, he met Corinna,
+and for the first time looked on life with the eyes of belief.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>status</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Pugh of Ohio, Vallandigham’s associate on the gubernatorial
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>ticket for 1863, presents his thesis thus: “When the
+slaves are fit for freedom, they will be free.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<em>When</em> 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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>liars. At eighteen he was a match for Talleyrand in using
+speech to conceal his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>His residence in New Orleans, in enlarging the sphere of his
+experiences, did not bring him the light that could quicken the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>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 <em>status</em> of the black in this or any country.
+If it were true that <em>stupid</em> blacks ought to be slaves,
+so must it be true of the same order of whites.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Will you deny, sir,” asked the reverend Doctor, “that
+slavery has the sanction of Scripture?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c014'><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You assume the equality of the races,” interposed the
+Doctor.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>assume</em> 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, a bright-looking lad. He anticipates your wants well.
+You have <a id='corr32.33'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='feed'>fed</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_32.33'><ins class='correction' title='feed'>fed</ins></a></span> him, I suppose?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>duty</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c014'><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER VI. <br /> PIN-HOLES IN THE CURTAIN.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“The reader will here be led into the great, ill-famed land of the marvellous.”</div>
+      <div class='line in53'><i>Ennemoser.</i></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>had the unction of Peek’s. From that time forth Peek had
+him completely under his control.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>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.<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c014'><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A bandore—a stringed musical instrument the name of which
+has been converted by the negroes into <em>banjo</em>—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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c014'><sup>[6]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c014'><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>He concluded that to surrender one’s faith implicitly to the
+word of a spirit <em>out</em> 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 <em>in</em> 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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>there were not <em>mind</em> to study and to wonder at creation, and
+thus to fit itself for adoration of the Creator?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My friend Lessing, when he was on your earth, once said,
+that, if God would <em>give</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek derived an indefinable but awakening impression from
+these words, and asked, “Is the Bible true?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How do I know,” asked Peek, “that you are not a devil?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is there a God?” asked the slave.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“God is,” said the spirit, “and says to thee, as once to Pascal,
+‘<span class="blackletter">Be consoled! Thou wouldst not seek me, if thou hadst
+not found me.</span>’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Corinna died, and Peek kept on thinking.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>certainty</em>; arrived at, too, by the deductions of experience,
+sense, and reason, as well as intimated by the eager
+thirst of the heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The process by which he made the phenomena he had witnessed
+conduce to this conclusion was briefly this. An invisible,
+intelligent <em>force</em> had lifted heavy articles before his eyes, played
+on musical instruments, written sentences, and spoken words.
+This <em>force</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>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,<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c014'><sup>[8]</sup></a> who has had the candor to brave
+the laugh of modern science (a very different thing from
+<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>scientia</i></span>) by recounting as facts what Professor Faraday and
+our Cambridge <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>savans</i></span> denounce as impositions or delusions.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How do you get rid of all this testimony on the subject?”
+asked Mr. Barnwell.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>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!’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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. <em>How to
+observe</em> is one of the most difficult of arts; and one must undergo
+rigid scientific culture in the practical branches before he
+can observe properly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Truly, Horace, you speak as if you half believed these
+absurdities.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>“No,—I wish I could. Peek once said to me, that he
+wouldn’t have believed these things on <em>my</em> testimony, and
+couldn’t expect me to believe them on <em>his</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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’<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c014'><sup>[9]</sup></a> are probably a poet’s
+dream. Let us not trouble ourselves about the inexplicable or
+the uncertain.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But you do not consider, Professor, that Peek’s facts <em>are</em>
+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.”<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c014'><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Before the opportunity was found, the Professor had <em>passed
+on</em>. 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 <em>have</em> 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.<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c014'><sup>[11]</sup></a> All phenomena are reducible to matter
+and motion,—matter and motion,—matter and mo-o-o—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I never knew before that Peek had a sister,” said Barnwell.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek did not come back from that visit.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER VII.<br />AN UNCONSCIOUS HEIRESS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“She is coming, my dove, my dear;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>She is coming, my life, my fate;</div>
+      <div class='line'>The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near’;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late’;</div>
+      <div class='line'>The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear’;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’”</div>
+      <div class='line in27'><cite>Tennyson.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Pompilard’s complexion was somewhat florid, and presented
+few marks of age. He wore his own teeth, which were
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>still sound and white, and his own hair, including whiskers,
+although the hue was rather too black to be natural.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I believe I have the honor of addressing Mr. Charlton,”
+said Pompilard, with the air of one who is graciously bestowing
+a condescension.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s my name, sir. What’s your business?” replied
+Charlton, in the curt, dry manner of one who gives his information
+grudgingly.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My name, sir, is Pompilard. You may not be aware that
+there is a sort of family connection between us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! yes; I remember,” said Charlton, looking inquiringly
+at his visitor, but not asking him to sit down.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Both the step-mother and aunt,” interposed Charlton, somewhat
+mollified by the language of his visitor.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My object in calling,” said Pompilard, “is merely to inquire
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>if you can give me the present address of Mrs. Henry Berwick.
+My wife wishes to communicate with her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I really cannot say whether Mr. Berwick is in the country
+or not. The last I heard of him he was in Paris.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“They seldom correspond.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Occasionally. There are some old-fashioned persons who
+consult me in regard to investments.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you want any good mortgages?” asked Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Just at present, money is very scarce and high,” replied
+Charlton.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s the very reason why I want it,” said his visitor.
+“Could you negotiate a thirty thousand dollar mortgage
+for me?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But that’s a very large sum.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pooh! I’ll bid you good morning, Mr. Charlton,” said Pompilard,
+with an air of unspeakable contempt. “Come, Grip.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Before losing sight of Pompilard we must explain why he
+was desirous that his wife should communicate with Mrs.
+Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>fêtes</i></span>, and kept
+open houses.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>hold</em> his stocks, he was compelled
+to make heavy sacrifices, and then, in trying to <em>hedge</em>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>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 <em>Aylesford</em>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me find one for you,” said Leonora, running here and
+there, and searching as she held up her riding-habit.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Henry looked after her with an interest he had never felt
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And he held it up, just as Leonora handed him a stone.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>He took the stone, and with one blow knocked out the fragment
+that lay wedged in the hollow of the sole.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you, sir,” said Leonora.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You are one of Mrs. Ridgway’s young ladies, I presume,”
+said Henry.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I shall not be back in time for my music-lesson, if I
+do not hurry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me lead him for you,” said Berwick, “I shall not have
+to go a step out of my way.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You are very obliging,” replied the lady.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And the young man led the horse, while the young lady
+walked by his side.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>at him, and said aloud, “Call us as soon as you have fitted the
+shoe”; and then added, in an <em>aside</em>, “Be an hour or so about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The new acquaintances strolled together to a beautiful pond
+within sight among the hills.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I must get them for you,” cried Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, no! It is a dangerous place,” said Leonora.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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;—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>‘As dear to me as are the ruddy drops</div>
+      <div class='line'>That visit this sad heart.’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c018'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But what if I am a wolf disguised as a lamb?” asked
+Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I am so good a judge of tune,” replied Leonora, “that I
+should detect the sham the moment you tried to cry <em>baa</em>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“An ingenious plea!” said Berwick with an affectation of
+sarcasm. “But it does not palliate your indiscretion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Very well, sir,” replied Leonora, “since you disapprove
+my precipitancy, we will—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Berwick interrupted the speech at the very portal of her
+mouth, by surprising its warders, the lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>And so it was a betrothal.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But this deranges all our little plans!” exclaimed the bride,
+with delightful <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>naïveté</i></span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, my children, you must put up with it as well as you
+can,” said Mr. Keep.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Berwick took the surprise gravely and thoughtfully. With
+this great enlargement of his means and opportunities, were
+not his responsibilities proportionably increased?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER VIII.<br />A DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Richmond (Va.) Enquirer.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is he here?” asked one.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>No answer was heard in reply. Probably a gesture had
+sufficed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Will he resist?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Possibly. These fugitives usually go armed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What shall we do if he threatens to fire?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>nothing to suggest a mode of escape. The only window in the
+closet was one over the door communicating with the office.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<em>abandon</em> of a free and independent citizen who has not been
+used to carpets.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>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.<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c014'><sup>[12]</sup></a> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>It is true that our Colonel Delancy Hyde could read and write,
+although indifferently. The labor of acquiring this ability had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>the</em> institution as
+our <em>institutions</em>.) 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c014'><sup>[13]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>his</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Iverson made an attempt to get in the negro’s rear, but a
+shriek of remonstrance from Charlton drove the officer back.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’d cut off his dirty ears!” exclaimed Blake, carried beyond
+all the discretion of a policeman by his indignation.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you say, Colonel Hyde?” asked Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s all true, Colonel,” replied Peek, speaking as if arguing
+aloud to himself. “The law was executed in Boston last
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>week, where there wasn’t half the proof you have. To do it
+they had to call out the whole police force, but they <em>did</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The cussed nigger talks as ef he was readin’ from a book!”
+exclaimed Hyde, in astonishment. “Wall, Peek, what tairms
+do yer mean?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll promise,” returned Peek, “not to tell any one what’s
+going on.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Hyde whispered in Iverson’s ear, and the latter nodded
+assent.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wall, Peek,” said Colonel Hyde, “if yer’ll swar, so help
+yer Gawd, yer’ll do as yer say, we’ll let yer go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Please write down my words, sir,” said Peek, addressing
+Blake.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The policeman took pen and paper, and wrote, after Peek’s
+dictation, as follows:—</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>“Sign that, you five gentlemen, and then I’ll sign,” said
+Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><a id='corr66.13'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='“Iverson'>Iverson</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_66.13'><ins class='correction' title='“Iverson'>Iverson</ins></a></span> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>Blake shook his finger at him, and replied, “Open your lips
+again, you beggarly hound, and I’ll slap your face.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton collapsed into silence. Blake took a chair and
+said, “Amuse yourselves five minutes, gentlemen, and then
+I’ll open the door.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Silence!” exclaimed Blake in a voice of thunder.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>“Give me my revolver,” demanded the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Say two words, and I’ll have you arrested for trying to
+shoot an unarmed man,” replied Blake.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the meaning of all this?” asked Charlton, seriously
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It means that if you open that traitor’s mouth of yours
+till I tell you to, you’ll come to grief.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton subsided and was silent.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Blake thrust the paper back into his pocket, and, wholly regardless
+of Charlton’s presence, began pacing the floor.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER IX.<br />THE UPPER AND THE LOWER LAW.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Lord Brougham.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<em>me</em>! 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Bah!” said Blake, turning on his heel, and walking to the
+window.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>What had become of Peek all this time?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Flora, at once comprehending the intent of the question, replied,
+“I sha’n’t want more ’n half an hour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You can write to them from Montreal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Lor! so I can, Peek. Who’d have thought of it but you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A slave? Liable to be kicked, cuffed, spit on, fettered,
+scourged by such a creature as Colonel Delancy Hyde? No!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Peek thought of the joy that Flora would feel at seeing
+him return, and he rose to go back to the boat.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <a id='corr77.19'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='thoughtt'>thoughts</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_77.19'><ins class='correction' title='thoughtt'>thoughts</ins></a></span> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek, entering in this knotty condition of affairs, was the
+<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Deus ex machina</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I’ll go, Colonel,” said Peek, “but you’ll have an
+officer to see I don’t escape from the cars.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>can sabe yer fifty dollars, shoo-er-r-r, Kunnle Delancy Hyde, if
+you’ll do as how dis nigger tells yer to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How’ll yer do it, Peek?” asked the Colonel, much pacified
+by the slave’s repetition of his entire name and title.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Will yer sign to that, Peek, and put in, ‘So help me
+Gawd’?” asked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, have they gone?” asked he.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>“Yes, sir, and the wuss for me!” said the old woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not in New York, ma’am,” said Charlton, stealthily looking
+about the room, examining every article of furniture, and
+opening the drawers.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The furniture belongs to Mr. Craig; but all in the drawers
+is mine,” said the old woman, not favorably impressed by Charlton’s
+inquisitiveness.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“They didn’t tell me, and if I knowed, I shouldn’t tell you,
+without I knowed they wanted me to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I did.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Could you tell me the number?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, I couldn’t.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And then, after examining an old stove-funnel, he went out.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He’s no gentleman, anyhow,” said Mrs. Petticum; “and
+I don’t believe he ever was a friend of the Jacobses.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER X.<br />GROUPS ON THE DECK.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind, bowing and nodding assent to the
+Habitual and the Fashionable.”—<cite>Coleridge.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The passengers of the Pontiac were distributed in groups about
+different parts of the boat. Some were in the cabin playing at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.)</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You live in Texas then?” asked the younger gentleman.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have not seen him before,” replied Mr. Berwick. “Probably
+he came on board at New Madrid.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Leonora, what is your judgment? Is he, too, a gentleman?”
+asked Mr. Berwick of his wife.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; I will stake my reputation as a sibyl on it,” she
+replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>you</em>
+of this new-comer?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He certainly has the air of a gentleman,” said Onslow
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Atrocious!” exclaimed Mrs. Berwick. “I don’t believe a
+word of it. That man a horse-thief! Impossible!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There! I knew you must be either joking or in error,”
+said the lady.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And now,” continued Mr. Onslow, “I have a vague recollection
+of meeting him at the hotel where I stopped in Chicago
+last week.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! if he is a Chicago man, I must be right in my estimate
+of him,” said Mrs. Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why so? Why should you be partial to Chicago?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Because my father was one of the first residents of the
+place.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What was his name?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Robert Aylesford.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here the attention of all on the upper deck was arrested by
+an explosion of wrathful oaths.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ask your pardon for what?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“For darrin’ to put yer black hand on me, confound yer!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The mulatto replied with spirit: “You don’t bully this child,
+Mister. I merely did my duty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who the hell air you, sir?” said the tall man. “I reckon
+I kn settle with the nigger without no help of yourn.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” said another voice; “if the gentleman demands it,
+the nigger must ask his pardon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Onslow turned, and to his surprise beheld the stranger
+with the opera-glass.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>“Vance of New Orleans,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I could have sworn, Colonel Hyde, there was no Puritan
+blood in your veins.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The bar is crowded just now; let’s wait awhile,” replied
+Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here Mr. Onslow turned away in disgust, and, rejoining the
+Berwicks, remarked to the lady, “What think you of your
+gentleman now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall keep my thoughts respecting him to myself for the
+present,” she replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has Mrs. Berwick the gift of second-sight? Is she a
+seeress?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Her faculty does not often show itself in soothsaying,”
+said Berwick. “But I have a step-mother who now and then
+has premonitions.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do they ever find a fulfilment?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“One time in a hundred, perhaps,” said Berwick. “If I
+believed in them largely, I should not be on board this boat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why so?” inquired Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She predicts disaster to it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>“But why did you not tell me that before?” asked Mrs.
+Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Simply, my dear, because you are inclined to be superstitious.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I can readily suppose it,” replied Onslow. “The superstitious
+man is the <em>un</em>believer,—he who thinks that all these
+phenomena can be produced by the blind, unintelligent forces
+of nature, by a mechanical or chemical necessity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I may believe in spirits in their proper places,” said Berwick,
+“and not believe in their visiting this earth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you, too, then, believe in ghosts?” asked Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; I am a ghost myself,” said Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Berwick started at the abruptness of the announcement, then
+smiled, and replied, “Prove it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That I will, both etymologically and chemically,” rejoined
+Onslow. “The words <em>ghost</em> and <em>gas</em> are set down by a majority
+of the philologists as from the same root, whether Gothic,
+Saxon, or Sanscrit, implying vapor, spirit. The fermenting
+<em>yeast</em>, the steaming <em>geyser</em>, 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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And I assert that Mr. Onslow has proved his point admirably,”
+said Mrs. Berwick, clapping her little hands.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I confess I never before considered the subject in that
+light,” rejoined her husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see you haven’t the fear of Sir David Brewster and the
+North British Review before your eyes, Mr. Onslow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How are niggers now?” asked Mr. Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the prospect of doing that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see the North are threatening to send in armed immigrants,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>said Vance; “and one John Brown swears Kansas
+shall be free soil.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>sure</em> in Noo Orleenz.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Whose niggers are those I see forward there, on the
+cables?” asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 &amp; 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Very extraordinary!” said Vance, musingly. “You must
+be a great judge of character, Colonel Hyde.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Colonel, what’s your address?” asked Mr. Vance. “If
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>ever I lose a nigger, you’re the man I must send for to help me
+find him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+&amp; Co., New Orleans.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Shall be proud to do yer business, Mr. Vance,” said the
+Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I must have a talk with that handcuffed fellow of yours by
+and by,” remarked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do the owners hereabouts lose many slaves now-a-days?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not sence old Gashface was killed last autumn.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who’s Gashface? Is it a real name?” asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c014'><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How did the planters know they had got the right man?”
+asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wall, there wah n’t much doubt about that, yer see,” said
+the Colonel. “Them as shot him war’ high-tone gemmlemen,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let’s go and have a talk with your smart nigger,” interrupted
+Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wake up here, Peek,” said Hyde, kicking him not very
+gently; “here’s my friend, Mr. Vance, come ter see yer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What shall it be, Mr. Vance?” asked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Gin for me,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Make me a whiskey nose-tickler,” said the Colonel, who
+seemed to be not unfamiliar with the fancy nomenclature of the
+bar-room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 “<span class='sc'>Gin</span>” 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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>eau sucré</i></span>. 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The Colonel winked, and answered, “All right,” and Vance
+walked away.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Leonidas Quattles, a long-haired,
+swarthy youth, who looked as if he might be half Indian.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How stands the Champion now?” said another of the
+party.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Three miles astern, and thar she’ll stick,” exclaimed Quattles.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>As Vance reascended to the upper deck, he encountered the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do so,” said the mother. “I know the remedy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What is your name?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>She tried to utter it, but, failing to make herself understood,
+the mother helped her to say, “Clara Aylesford Berwick.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” said Berwick; “she gets the handsome eye from me;
+the other from her mamma.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Conceited man! cease your trifling!” interposed the lady.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance picked up from the deck a little sleeve-button of
+gold and coral. It had been dropped in the child’s fall.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>“This must belong to Miss Clara,” said Vance, “for it bears
+the initials C. A. B.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The mother took it and fixed it in the little dimity pelisse
+which the child wore.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s a noble boy of yours, sir,” said Vance, addressing
+himself to Mr. Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>All the father’s displeasure vanished with the compliment,
+and he replied, “Yes, Robert <em>is</em> a noble boy; that’s the true
+word for him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To be frank,” replied Onslow, “I <em>did</em> feel surprise that you
+should take not only the strong side, but the wrong one.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. Onslow, did you ever read Parnell’s poem of the ‘Hermit’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, it was one of the favorites of my youth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And do you remember how many things seemed wrong to
+the hermit that he afterwards found to be right?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I perceive the drift of your allusion, sir,” returned Onslow;
+“but I am puzzled, nevertheless.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My success has been all I could have hoped; but the more
+successful I am, the more imminent is my failure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why so? That sounds like a paradox.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The rich slave-owners look with fear and dislike on my
+experiment.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What else could you expect, Mr. Onslow? Take a case,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>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,<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c014'><sup>[15]</sup></a> waited on him, and told him he must discharge his
+hands and hire <em>slaves</em>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here the furious ringing of a bell called the gentlemen to
+dinner.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XI.<br />MR. ONSLOW SPEAKS HIS MIND.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“How faint through din of merchandise</div>
+      <div class='line in6'>And count of gain</div>
+      <div class='line'>Has seemed to us the captive’s cries!</div>
+      <div class='line'>How far away the tears and sighs</div>
+      <div class='line in6'>Of souls in pain!”</div>
+      <div class='line in25'><cite>Whittier.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>An opportunity for resuming the conversation did not occur
+till long after sundown, and when many of the passengers
+were retiring to bed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have heard, Mr. Onslow,” said Vance, “that since your
+removal to Texas you have liberated your slaves.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You have been rightly informed,” replied Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And how did they succeed as freedmen?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Two thirds of them poorly, the remaining third well.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Does not such a fact rather bear against emancipation, and
+in favor of slavery?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But is he not right in the application of his theory to the
+black race?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do not escaped or emancipated negroes often voluntarily
+return to slavery?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“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 <span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>dilettanti</i></span> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <a id='corr98.39'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='whites”'>whites.”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_98.39'><ins class='correction' title='whites”'>whites.”</ins></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>“Do they not seem to you rather feeble in the moral
+faculty?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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;
+<em>but your precious souls are still your own</em>.’ 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But may we not claim advantages from the system for the
+few,—for the upper three hundred thousand?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>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,<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c014'><sup>[16]</sup></a> who not only palliate, but approve
+the cheat. O the atrocity! O the shame! With what
+face can a repudiating community punish thieves?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Shall we not,” asked Vance, “at least grant the slaveholder
+the one quality he so anxiously claims,—that which he expresses
+in the word <em>chivalry</em>?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you, then, deny that slavery develops any high qualities
+in the master?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>on the other. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his
+manners and his morals undepraved by such circumstances.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You do not, then, believe those who tell us there is an eternal
+incompatibility between the people of the slaveholding and
+non-slaveholding States?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And must civil war necessarily follow from a separation?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But would not a civil war render inevitable that alienation
+which these Richmond scribblers are trying to antedate?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>their</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>“And do you anticipate civil war?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, such a civil war as the world has never witnessed.<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c014'><sup>[17]</sup></a>
+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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps. But I bide the risk; you have not been so
+shrewd an actor, sir, that I have not seen behind the mask.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance started at the word <em>actor</em>, then said, looking up at the
+stars: “What a beautiful night! Does not the Champion seem
+to be gaining on us?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have been thinking so for some minutes,” replied Onslow.
+“Good night, Mr.——. Excuse me. I haven’t the pleasure
+of knowing your name.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And yet we have met before, Mr. Onslow, and under circumstances
+that ought to make me remembered.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To what do you allude?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I was once brought before you for horse-stealing, and, what
+is more, you found me guilty of the charge, and rightly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then my recollection was not at fault, after all!” exclaimed
+Onslow, astonished. “But were you indeed guilty?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who, then, <em>are</em> you, sir?” asked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance whispered a word in reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Onslow seemed agitated for a moment, and then exclaimed,
+“But I thought he was dead!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The gentlemen parted, each retiring to his state-room for
+repose.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XII.<br />THE STORY OF ESTELLE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Tears from the depth of some divine despair,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,</div>
+      <div class='line'>In looking on the happy autumn-fields</div>
+      <div class='line'>And thinking of the days that are no more.”</div>
+      <div class='line in33'><cite>Tennyson.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Such is her individuality,” continued Vance. “I doubt if
+circumstances of education could do much to misshape her
+moral being.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall regard it with a new interest,” said Mrs. Berwick,
+as she took it back.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Onslow here appeared and bade the party good morning.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, and I warn you, sir, that I am quite enough of an
+Abolitionist to hold his memory in a sort of respect.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall esteem it a privilege, sir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The last time I told it was to your father. Be seated, and
+try and be as patient as he was in listening.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hah! Mr. Vance, I’m yourn,” exclaimed the Colonel, with
+effusion. “Been lookin’ fur yer all over the boat. Introduce
+yer friends ter me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance took from his pocket the Colonel’s card, and read
+aloud the contents of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Vance drew from his pocket a small visiting card
+crowded close with stenographic characters in manuscript.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“An’ that’s an auter—what d’ yer call it,—is it?” asked
+the Colonel. “Cur’ous!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c000'>
+    <div><span class='large'><span class="blackletter">The Story of Estelle.</span></span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>[“That’s a fak!” interposed the Colonel.]</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>After various fruitless attempts to establish himself in some
+lucrative employment, he made his <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>début</i></span>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“I took by the throat the circumci-sed dog,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And smote him <em>thus</em>,”—</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c018'>my father inflicted upon himself, not a mimic, but a real stab,
+so forcible that he did not survive it ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>On this sum she contrived for seventeen years to live decently
+and educate her son liberally.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>One evening I was playing the part of a lover. The <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>dramatis
+persona</i></span> 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 <em>kiss</em> 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——.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>[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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You’re too gallant a man, Colonel Delancy Hyde,” replied
+Vance, “not to agree with me, when I say, Duty to ladies first.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yer may bet yer pile on that, Mr. Vance; the ladies fust
+ollerz; but Madame will ’scuze <em>me</em>, I reckon. Hahd a high
+old time, ma’am, last night, an’ an almighty bahd streak of luck.
+Must make up fur it somehow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Business before pleasure, Colonel,” said Vance. “We’ll
+excuse you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.]</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you explain, Mademoiselle?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Explain what?” she inquired, as if she had been too absorbed
+in her own thoughts to hear a word of the conversation.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you explain how those gold pieces came into my
+pocket?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>Without the least sign of guilt, she replied, “I cannot explain,
+sir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><cite>De Profundis</cite></span>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c014'><sup>[18]</sup></a>
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Estelle is all sufficient,” she replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It means,” she replied, “that you have adapted the music
+to a faithful translation of the words.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have heard you play,” said I, “but why have you kept
+me in ignorance of your powers as a singer?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>at the door; good by.” And dropping my hand, she glided
+out of the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Dufour entered, and I did not see Estelle again that
+day.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No evasion!” exclaimed Estelle, in imperious tones. “I
+demand it,—I exact it,—now—this instant! You shall—you
+shall perform it!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The moaning of the invalid had been succeeded by a stertorous
+breathing, as if she had been suddenly overcome by sleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She is stone,—stone! She sleeps!—she has no heart!”
+groaned Estelle.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>reputed</em> to be
+the daughter of what the Creoles call a <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>meamelouc</i></span>, 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 <em>intentions</em>!
+It is good <em>deeds</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And then Estelle,—on the well-known principle of Southern
+law, “<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>proles sequitur ventrem</i></span>,”—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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>These disclosures on the part of Estelle awoke in me conflicting
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nearly all her property,” replied Estelle, “is mortgaged to
+her nephew, Carberry Ratcliff, and he is her only heir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Give me some account of him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He is a South Carolinian by birth. Some years ago he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you ever seen him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>As Estelle spoke, her eyes flashed, and her breast heaved.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How did he behave to you, Estelle?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>I rose, deeply agitated, and paced the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What sort of a looking man is this Mr. Ratcliff?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>She went to an <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>étagère</i></span> in a corner, opened a little box, and
+took from it a daguerrotype, which she placed in my hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Looking at the likeness, I recognized the man who once insulted
+me at the theatre.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I must go and attend to Madame Dufour,” said Estelle.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me accompany you,” said I.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>What was to be done?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Poor, poor child!” I murmured. “What can I do for
+her? Estelle, you must be saved,—but how?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>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 <em>anything</em>,—only
+let me belong to one I can love and respect. Do not, do not
+cast me off!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Cast you off, dear child? Never!” said I, and, raising her
+to her feet, I kissed her forehead.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>I led her to a chair. She sat down and burst into a passion
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you know any place of refuge?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And mine will bring another fifty,” returned I. “Let us
+go, then, at once, since here you are in danger.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>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, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“<i>Au revoir!</i>”</span></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And there, in that atmosphere of death, while the surrounding
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>population were being decimated by the terrible pestilence,
+I drank in my first draughts of an imperishable love.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>I looked at my watch. It was half an hour after midnight.
+How had the hours slipped by! We must part.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span class='sc'>To Carberry Ratcliff</span>, 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</p>
+
+<div class='c015'><span class='sc'>Estelle</span>.”</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>Two days afterwards we found the following answer in the
+newspaper named:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span class='sc'>To Estelle</span>: For fifty dollars, I will give you the papers
+you desire.</p>
+<div class='c015'>C. R.”</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Admirable!” exclaimed I, delighted at her quickness.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The interesting question now was, Had Ratcliff any clew to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>The next ten days were a blank to consciousness. Fever
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Be good, and you shall see her,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What! Did she not take passage in the boat?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There! Do not be alarmed; she will explain it all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How long have I lain thus?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This is the twelfth day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have I had a physician?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No one but Estelle; but then she is an expert; she once
+walked the hospitals with the Sisters of Charity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>She brought them into my room, and placed them on the
+bed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where shall we go?” she inquired.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To the Rev. Mr. Fulton’s,” I replied; “that is, if you
+will consent to be—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To be what?” she asked, not dreaming of my drift.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To be married to me, Estelle!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The expressions that flitted over her face,—expressions of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>doubtful rapture, pettish incredulity, and childlike eagerness,—come
+back vividly to my remembrance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You do not mean it!” at length she murmured, reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“From my inmost heart I mean it, and I desire it above all
+earthly desires,” I replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>It was the first time she had called me by my first name.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, &amp;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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Was this the sigh of her presaging heart?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What has happened to-day?” I asked her.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing of moment,” she replied. “Two men called to
+get names for a Directory.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What did you tell them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That if they wanted my husband’s name, they must get it
+from him personally.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You did well. Were they polite?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Very, and seemed to seek excuses for lingering; but, getting
+no encouragement, they left.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Could it be they were spies? The question occurred to me,
+but I soon dismissed it as improbable.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And yet they were creatures employed by Carberry Ratcliff
+to find out what they could about the man who had offended
+him.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Let me not dwell on the horrors of the next few days. We
+had made all our arrangements for departure that Saturday
+morning.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Estelle, in her simple habit, never looked so lovely. A little
+cherry-colored scarf which I had presented her was about her
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Courage, mon brave!</i></span>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>I accepted his offer of a shelter. The next morning he
+brought me a copy of the Delta. It contained this paragraph:</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>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.”</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>régime</i></span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>“But, Daddy, I’m in right earnest,” replied I. “If you’ll
+sell that banjo at any price within reason, I’ll buy it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll pay you two dollars for that banjo, Daddy. Will you
+take it?” said I, holding out the silver.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Hark! methinks I hear celestial voices sing,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Soon thou shalt be free, child of misery,—</div>
+      <div class='line'>Rest and perfect joy in heaven are waiting thee;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Spirit, plume thy wings and flee!”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>I struck a few notes, by way of acknowledgment, and left.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The next night I merely whistled the remembered air in
+token of my presence. A light appeared for a moment at the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sweet, be very prudent. While steadily maintaining towards
+this wretch, whom the law calls my master, the demeanor
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>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!</p>
+<div class='c015'><span class='sc'>Estelle.</span>”</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>I had seen men in a rage, but never had I witnessed such an
+infuriated expression as that which Ratcliff’s features now exhibited.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>What new atrocity was this?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, boy, are you ready to take her for better or for
+worse?” asked the haughty planter.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, make yourself as gallant as you please now,” said the
+planter, laughing. “Let’s see you begin to play the bridegroom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Gracious heavens! Was I right in my surmises? Under
+all his harlequin grimaces and foolery, this negro, to my quickened
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Look here, Peek, you rascal,” cried Ratcliff, “we must
+have the benefit of your soft words. What have you been
+saying to her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>To the spectators he appeared to be mocking me with grimace.
+To me he seemed an angel of deliverance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, massa, I understan’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You swear to guard her well, and never to let that white
+scoundrel yonder come near or touch her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Kiss the book on it,” said Ratcliff, handing him a Bible.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, massa, as many books as you please,” replied Peek,
+doing as he was bidden.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now attend to Mrs. Peek while another little ceremony
+takes place,” said Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“All right!” said Ratcliff. “We shall soon have half a
+dozen little Peeks toddling about. Proceed. Vickery.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>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.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Estelle,—where is she?” were my first words.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You shall see her soon,” replied the negro. “But you
+must get a little strength first.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Take me to my wife,” I murmured.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Try to lib, darlin’,” interrupted Esha; “try to lib,—dat’s
+a good darlin’! Only try, an’ yer kn do it easy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Estelle took the little cross in her hand and kissed it, then
+said to Esha, “Give this, with a lock of my hair, to—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Before she could pronounce my name, I rallied my strength,
+and, with an irrepressible cry of grief, quitted Peek’s support,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My own darling!” she murmured; “I knew you would
+come. O my poor, suffering darling!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<em>me</em>, but I shall see <em>you</em>. 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! <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Carissime Jesu, nunc libera me!</i></span>”<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c014'><sup>[19]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c014'><sup>[20]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>sacr-r-r-rés</i></span> in a given time than I supposed even a Frenchman’s
+volubility could accomplish. I bade these kind friends
+good by, and went northward.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>In Cincinnati and other cities I resumed my old vocation as
+a play-actor. In two years, having laid up twenty-five hundred
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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——</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>No! The revenge seemed too poor and narrow. I craved
+something huge and general. The mere punishing of an
+<em>individual</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Closing up my affairs in New Orleans, I entered upon that
+career which has gained me such notoriety in the Southwest.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>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, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Nunc dimittas, domi-ne!</i></span><a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c014'><sup>[21]</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>
+  <h2 class='c021'>CHAPTER XIII. <br /> FIRE UP!</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Channing.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>At the conclusion of Vance’s narrative, Mr. Onslow rose,
+shook him by the hand, and walked away without making
+a remark.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Berwick showed her appreciation by her tears.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What a pity,” said her husband, “that so fine a fellow as
+Peek did not accept your proposal to free him!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But he must be freed. I will buy him,” said Berwick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are there many such as he among the negroes?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Would you admit the black to a social equality?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But would you favor the amalgamation of the races?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Many of the most strenuous opponents of emancipation
+base their objections on their fears of amalgamation.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To which,” replied Vance, “I will reply in these words of
+one of your Northern divines, ‘<em>What a strange reason for oppressing
+a race of fellow-beings, that if we restore them to their
+rights we shall marry them!</em>’ 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see no way for emancipation,” said Berwick, “except
+through the consent of the Slave States.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Would you not,” asked Berwick, “compensate those masters
+who are willing to emancipate their slaves?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The bell for dinner broke in upon the conversation. It was
+not till evening that the parties met again on the upper deck.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Here’s a check,” said Berwick, “for twenty-five hundred
+dollars. Give it to Peek the moment he is free.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance placed it in a small water-proof wallet.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>What’s the matter?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There had been a slackening of the fires, and the Champion
+was all at once found to be fast gaining on the Pontiac.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XIV.<br />WAITING FOR THE SUMMONER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“So every spirit, as it is more pure,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And hath in it the more of heavenly light,</div>
+      <div class='line'>So it the fairer body doth procure,</div>
+      <div class='line'>To habit in, and it more fairly dight</div>
+      <div class='line'>With cheerful grace and amiable sight.</div>
+      <div class='line'>For of the soul the body form doth take,</div>
+      <div class='line'>For soul is form, and doth the body make.”</div>
+      <div class='line in23'><cite>Edmund Spenser.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of Toussaint.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Toussaint, what’s the news to-day?” asked the invalid.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Toussaint replied in French: “I do not find much of new in
+the morning papers, madame. Is madame ready for her breakfast?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, any time now. I see my little Lulu is washing himself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sit down and talk with me, Toussaint, while I eat,” said
+the invalid. “Have you seen my husband lately?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not, madame, since he called to recover the box.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has he sent to make inquiry in regard to my health?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>“Not once, to my knowledge.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pardon me, madame, but I would rather not say.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And why not?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My surmise may be uncharitable, or it might give you pain.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do not fear that, Toussaint. I have surrendered what
+they say is the last thing a woman surrenders,—all personal
+vanity. So speak freely.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But do we not, in marriage, promise to love, honor, and
+obey?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Surprised and disturbed, Mrs. Charlton said, “Take away
+the breakfast things.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But madame has not touched the salmon nor the omelette,
+and only a poor little bit of the crust of this roll,” murmured
+Toussaint.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have had enough, my good Toussaint. Take them away,
+and let Mr. Charlton come in.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Then, as if by way of contradicting what she had said a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have come, Emily,” said he, “to ask your pardon for the
+past.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! Then you want something. What can I do for
+you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My time for this world’s benefits is likely to be short,” said
+the invalid.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not so, my dear! You are looking ten per cent better than
+when I saw you last.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My glass tells me you do not speak truly in that. Come,
+deal frankly with me. What do you want?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That, sir, would be raising money under false pretences.
+I shall lend myself to no such attempt. Why not tell the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>money-lenders the truth? Why not tell them your wife
+has nothing except what she receives from the charity of her
+step-son?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But who told you this?” exclaimed Charlton, confounded.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You do me injustice, my wife, my dearest—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Psha! Do not blaspheme. We understand each other
+at last. Now to business. You want me to sign a will in your
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do not speak so, Emily,” said Charlton, in tones meant to
+be pathetic.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Name it!” said Charlton, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>With difficulty Charlton curbed his rage so far as to be
+content with the simple utterance, “Impossible!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then please go,” said the invalid, taking up a silver bell to
+ring it.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>With a smile of indescribable scorn, the invalid touched the
+bell.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Stop! We’ll call it five hundred,” groaned the conveyancer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A louder ring by the lady, and the old negro’s step was heard
+on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The invalid now rang the bell with energy.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It shall be a thousand, then!” exclaimed Charlton, just as
+Toussaint entered the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Toussaint bowed his assent; and Charlton, leaving the room,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There! you weary me. Go, if you please,” said she.
+“If I have occasion, I will send for you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“May I not call daily to see how you are getting on?”
+whined Charlton.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Cruel and unjust!” said the husband. “Have you no
+forgiveness in your heart?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good by, since you will not let me try to make amends for
+the past,” said Charlton; and he quitted the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>God require we should love what we know to be impure,
+unjust, cruel?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“God knows,” replied Toussaint; “time is short, and eternity
+is long,—long enough, perhaps, to bleach the filthiest nature,
+with Christ’s help.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here a clamorous newsboy stopped on the other side of the
+way to sell a gentleman an Extra.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What is that boy crying?” asked the invalid.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A great steamboat accident on the Mississippi,” replied
+Toussaint.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XV.<br />WHO SHALL BE HEIR?</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“I care not, Fortune, what you me deny,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>You cannot rob me of free Nature’s grace;</div>
+      <div class='line'>You cannot shut the windows of the sky,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.”</div>
+      <div class='line in36'><cite>Thomson.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Lend me a quarter, my dear, for the organ-man,” said
+Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And the lady laughed, as if she regarded the circumstance
+as an excellent joke. The child, taking her cue from the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That child will be kidnapped yet by the circus people,”
+said Pompilard, complacently. “Where did she learn all these
+accomplishments?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What have we here?” said Pompilard; and he read from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>the paper the announcement of a terrible steamboat accident,
+which had occurred on the night of the Wednesday previous,
+on the Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This is very surprising,—very surprising indeed,” he exclaimed.
+“My dear, it appears from—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of course Netty mustn’t take our example as a precedent.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>her in their laps, and petting her, and often rocking her to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O nothing,—that is, nothing of consequence,” said Pompilard.
+“Did you hear Grisi last night?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing more likely!” replied Pompilard, who had not yet
+seen the morning papers.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you know any of the survivors?” asked Charlton,</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I haven’t examined the list yet,” said Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And they parted at the head of Fulton Street.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>In one of the reports in the Memphis Avalanche, telegraphed
+to the morning papers, was the following extract:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We regret to learn that Colonel Hyde is a large loser in
+slaves. One of these, a valuable negro, named Peek, is probably
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>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.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XVI.<br />THE VENDUE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“A queen on a scaffold is not so pitiful a sight as a woman on the auction-block.”—<cite>Charles
+Sumner.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='c022'>“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.”—<cite>O. W.
+Holmes.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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 &amp; 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>me</em>.
+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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ve but five minutes more,” interposed Mr. Ripper, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wall, sir,” continued the Colonel, “this gemmleman, as I
+war tellin’ yer, is the Reverend Quattles of Alabamy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The Reverend Quattles bowed, and, with fishy eyes and a
+maudlin smile, put his hand on his heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O yes! I understand all that game,” said Ripper, knocking
+with his little finger the ashes from his cigar.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The Colonel, in an <em>aside</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come, Quattles,” said Hyde, “we’ve time for another horn
+afore we’re wanted.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hush! Don’t bawl so,” pleaded the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I <em>will</em> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Brandy-smashes for two,” said the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, massa, all sole ter Massa Wade down thar in Texas.
+He’m gwoin’ ter raise de hull lot.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>Ike’s piety ought to add thirty per cent to his wuth. I’m
+offered nine hunderd dollars for Ike. Nine hunderd dollars!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Scored?” asked an anxious inquirer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Scored? Wall, stranger, he’s been scored, then put under
+a harrer, then paddled an’ burnt. A hard ticket that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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? <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Voyez! Où
+trouverez-vous un mieux?</i></span> 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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly, Mr. Tibbs,” said Ripper, pulling off the girl’s
+shawl as if he had been uncovering a sample of Sea-Island
+cotton.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>enceinte</i></span>. 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A thousand dollars,” said Tibbs.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You hear the bid, gentlemen. I’m offered a thousand
+dollars for this <em>very</em> superior article. Only a thousand dollars.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Eleven hundred,” said Jarvey, the well-known keeper of a
+gambling-saloon.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Tibbs glanced angrily at the audacious competitor, then
+nodded to the auctioneer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>young men for the ministry. Mr. Jarvey, can’t you do
+su’thin’ for the church?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Twelve hundred,” said Jarvey.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Twelve fifty,” exclaimed Tibbs, abruptly, in a tone sharp
+with exasperation and malevolence.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now, gentlemen,” said Ripper, “I have one little fancy
+article to offer you, and then the sale will be closed. Bring on
+Number 12.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A hundred dollars,” said a voice from the crowd.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m offered two hunderd dollars for this little tidbit,” said
+Ripper, pretending to have misunderstood the bid.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who the hell are you?” asked a tall, lank, defiant-looking
+gentleman, who seemed to be disgusted at the Colonel’s interference.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hold yer tongue, Colonel; you’re drivin’ off a bidder,”
+whispered Ripper. The Colonel collapsed at once, quelling
+his indignation.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Two twenty-five,” said Tibbs.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Two fifty,” said he, as the result of his inspection.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Tibbs, irritated by the competition, made his bid three hundred.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Four hundred!” said the man with the riding-whip.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Five hundred!” retorted Tibbs, ejecting the words with a
+vicious snort.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Six hundred,” returned his competitor, with perfect nonchalance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Seven hundred and fifty,” shrieked Tibbs.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A thousand,” said the other, playing with his whip.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Tibbs did not venture further. Mortified and angry, he turned
+away, and consoled himself with an enormous cut of tobacco.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>As the barouche drove off, Hyde asked, “Who is he?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” said Hyde; “Mr. Cash is a high-tone one, that’s a
+fak. I should know him agin ’mong a thousand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>“Is Mrs. Gentry at home?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, sir. Walk in. I will take your card.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps you have heard of me before,” began Mr. Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Often, sir. Be seated,” said the lady, charmed at the idea
+of having a visit from the lord of a thousand slaves.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can I see her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A quadroon, I should think,” said Mrs. Gentry.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is she to know that she is a slave?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Amply, sir,” said the gratified lady. “I will do my best to
+carry out your wishes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You need not write me oftener than once a year,” said
+Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not if she were dangerously ill?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No; not even then. You could take better care of her
+than I; and all my interest in her is <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>in futuro</i></span>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I think I understand, sir,” said Mrs. Gentry; “and I will
+at once make a note of what you say.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Here is payment for the first half-year in advance,” said
+Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you, sir,” returned the lady, quite overwhelmed
+at the great planter’s munificence. “Shall I write you a
+receipt?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It is superfluous, madam.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Excuse me, sir, there is something I wished to ask you?
+What was it? Oh! By what name shall we call the child?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Upon my word,” said Ratcliff, “I have forgotten the name
+the auctioneer gave her. No matter! Call her anything you
+please.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, then, Estelle is a pretty name. Shall I call her
+Estelle?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff started, came close up to Mrs. Gentry, looked her
+steadily in the face, and asked, “What put that name into your
+head?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I don’t know. Probably I have seen it in some novel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, don’t call her Estelle. Call her Ellen Murray.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>“I will remember.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And the interview closed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where’s the chambermaid?” asked Mrs. Gentry.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O missis, dat Deely’s neber on de spot when she’s wanted.
+De Lord lub us, what hab we here?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A new inmate of the family, Esha. I’ve taken her to
+bring up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thar! thar!” said Esha, soothing her; “she mustn’t
+greeb nebber no more. Ole Esha will lub her dearly!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Gentry communicated the phenomenon at once to Mr.
+Ratcliff, but he never alluded to it in any subsequent letter or
+conversation.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XVII.<br />SHALL THERE BE A WEDDING?</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Ah! spare your idol; think him human still;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Charms he may have, but he has frailties too!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.”</div>
+      <div class='line in36'><cite>Young.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>But even the <em>law’s</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Poor old Toussaint! I see he has left us,” said Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>“Yes,” replied Girard, “All-Saint has gone. He was well
+named. He has never held up his head since he lost his wife.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you know him well?” asked Girard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘O non, madam,’</span> he replied, <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘car alors je serai trop noir.’</span>”<a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c014'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Pompilard’s lawyers bent down their heads, as if certain
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Julia and Mary Ireton, daughters of Angelica, came in.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Which of my little nieces will take my portfolio up-stairs?”
+asked Netty.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I will, aunt,” said the dutiful Mary; and off she ran with it.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Poor Melissa! We shall now have to put off the wedding,”
+sighed Angelica, on learning the result of the lawsuit.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No such thing! It sha’n’t be put off!” said Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>specialité</i></span>. 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>something still more sublime in the faith which led publishers
+to fall into the nets he so industriously wove for them.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Accommodate you? Of course we can! The more the
+merrier,” interrupted Pompilard. “So it’s settled. The
+wedding comes off next Wednesday.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>trousseau</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />THE UNITIES DISREGARDED.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Blessed, are they who see, and yet believe not!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Yea, blest are they who look on graves, and still</div>
+      <div class='line'>Believe none dead; who see proud tyrants ruling,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And yet believe not in the strength of Evil.”</div>
+      <div class='line in32'><cite>Leopold Schefer.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>The admirers of Aristotle must bear with us while we
+take a little liberty: that, namely, of violating all the
+unities.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Humbug and idiocy!” cried the doctors.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A cracking of the toe-joints!” said Conjurer Anderson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A scientific trick!” insisted Professor Faraday.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>“Spirits are the last thing I’ll give into,” said Sir David
+Brewster.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How very undignified for a spirit to rap on tables and talk
+commonplace!” objected the transcendentalists, who looked for
+Orphic sayings and Delphian profundities.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span>? Still we accept the fact of their existence.
+And so we do of what, in the lack of a name less vague, we
+call <em>spirits</em>. 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 <em>presto-change!</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I did not bargain for this,” grumbles the habitual novel-reader,
+resentfully throwing down our book.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Bear with us yet a moment longer, injured friend.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>During these same fourteen years of which we have spoken,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XIX.<br />THE WHITE SLAVE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Because immortal, therefore is indulged</div>
+      <div class='line'>This strange regard of deities to dust!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Hence, Heaven looks down on Earth with all her eyes;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Hence, the soul’s mighty moment in her sight;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Hence, every soul has partisans above,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And every thought a critic in the skies.”</div>
+      <div class='line in40'><cite>Young.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>“The creature is great, to whom it is allowed to imagine questions to which only a
+God can reply.”—<cite>Aimé Martin.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There were only two passions which, should they ever come
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, <em>abrun</em> (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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Such a union of the sensuous nature with pure will and intellect
+might well have made a watchful parent tremble for her
+future.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>After some conversation on public affairs, the lady asked,
+“Would you like to see my pupil?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Tell Miss Murray, I desire her presence in the parlor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I wish you, Miss Murray, to play for this gentleman. Play
+the piece you last learnt.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And yet astonishment made him speechless. He had expected
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Old? Why, he does doesn’t look a year over forty,” replied
+Mrs. Gentry. “That’s the rich Mr. Ratcliff.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, I detest him,” said Clara, emphatically.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>come up with</em>,
+if you go on in this way. Retire to your room, Miss.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Swiftly and gladly Clara obeyed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Apropos</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But it isn’t the slave’s fault, Esha, that he’s a slave.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The sick man lay on his bed of pain. ‘Allah!’ he moaned; and his
+heart grew tender, and his eyes moist, with prayer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The sick man shuddered. His heart grew cold with doubt and inquietude;
+when suddenly before him stood Elias.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘Child!’ said Elias, ‘why art thou sad? Dost think thy prayers are
+unheard and unanswered; that thy devotion is all in vain?’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And the sick man replied: ‘Ah! so often, and with such tears I have
+called on Allah! I call <em>Allah!</em> but never do I hear his “Here am I!”’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And Elias left the sick man; but God said to Elias: ‘Go to the tempted
+one; lift him up from his despair and unbelief.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘Tell him that his very longing is its own fulfilment; that his very
+prayer, “Come, Allah!” is Allah’s answer, “Here am I!”’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!’” <a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c014'><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Tell me, Esha,” said Clara, at one of their secret midnight
+conferences, “were you ever whipped?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But, Esha, don’t they generally treat the women well on
+the plantations?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>“De breedin’ women dey treat well,—speshilly jes afore dar
+time,<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c014'><sup>[24]</sup></a>—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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But that is the hair of a white woman,” said Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Bress yer, darlin’, she war jes as white as you am dis
+minute.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>After some seconds of silence, Clara said, “Tell me of her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Esha related many, though not all, of the particulars
+already familiar to the reader in the story of Estelle.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Esha, you must give me some of that hair,” said Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, darlin’, I ’ll change half of it fur some ob yourn.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The exchange was made, Clara wrapping her portion in the
+little strip of bunting torn from the American flag.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A month after the late interview with Ratcliff, Mrs. Gentry
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>received a letter which caused Clara to be summoned to her
+presence.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<em>Belong</em> to him?” cried Clara. “What do you mean?
+Am I his daughter? Am I in any way related?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, you’re his slave. He bought you at auction.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>“And what, madame, may be the duty of a slave?” interposed
+Clara, stifling down and masking the rage of her
+heart.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The duty of a slave,” said Mrs. Gentry, “is to obey her
+master. Prompt and unhesitating obedience, that is her duty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Obedience to any and every command,—is that what you
+mean, madame?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Unquestionably, it is.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And must I not exercise my reason as to what is right or
+wrong?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Your reason, under slavery, is subordinated to another’s.
+You must not set up your own reason against your master’s.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Supposing my master should order me to stab or poison
+you,—ought I to do it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The judge’s daughter, like all who venture to vindicate the
+leprous wrong on moral grounds, found herself nonplussed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You suppose a ridiculous and improbable case,” she replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How can you ask?” returned Mrs. Gentry, reproachfully.
+“’T is the slave’s duty to marry as the master orders.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Even though her husband be living, do I understand you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Undoubtedly. Ministers of the Gospel will tell you, if
+there’s wrong in it, the master, not the slave, is to blame.”<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c014'><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I thank you for making the slave’s duty so clear. You’re
+quite sure Dr. Palmer would approve your view?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Entirely. All his preaching on the subject convinces me
+of it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And the woman, you think, who killed herself rather than
+be false to her husband, went straight to hell?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>prie-dieu</i></span> 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 <em>in</em> or <em>out</em> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>jubilate</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We’ve but a moment for talk, Esha. Help me to act.
+My owner (owner!) may be here any minute.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who am dat owner?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>“No,—no,—no! Not dat man! Not him! De Lord help
+de dare chile if dat born debble wunst git hole ob her!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you know of him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He war de cruel massa ob dat slabe gal whom you hab de
+hair ob in yer bosom.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, darlin’ chile, what am dar ole Esha kn do for her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hab a carpet-bag I kn gib her. You jes wait one minute.”
+And Esha returned with the desired article.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Look dar! What yer see dar, darlin’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A pair of little sleeve-buttons. How pretty! Gold with
+a setting of coral. And on the inside, in tiny letters, C. A. B.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Night and day, darlin’. But Esha mus gib suffn more ’n
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>prayers. Take dese twenty dollars in gold, darlin’. Yer’ll
+want ’em, sure. Don’t ’fuze ’em.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How long have you been saving up this money, Esha?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So much de better. Dar! Put ’em safe in yer pocket.
+Dat’s a good chile.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <a id='corr199.26'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='knowedge'>knowledge</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_199.26'><ins class='correction' title='knowedge'>knowledge</ins></a></span> 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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dat I will, if only for your sake, darlin’.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XX.<br />ENCOUNTERS AT THE ST. CHARLES.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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!”—<cite>Rev. John Weiss.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>a God-sent
+missionary to the nations</em> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>when you dam please. So fire up, and do your prettiest.
+Be n’t we the master race?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pshaw! Let go those reins,” said Ratcliff, cutting the
+vagabond over his face with the but-end of a riding-whip.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go ter the ’pothecary’s! With nary a red in my pocket!
+Strannger, don’t try to fool this child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Here’s money, if you want it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Money? I should like ter see the color of it, strannger.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hold your hat, then.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go and attend to your eye, my friend,” said Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I will. An’ if ever I kun do yer a good turn, jes call on——”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>very pale and bleeding,—and tied,—tied to the stake.
+O Ratcliff! When shall this bridled vengeance overtake thee?
+Pshaw! What is <em>he</em>,—an individual,—what is the sum of
+pain that <em>he</em> can suffer? Would that be a requital? Will not
+his own devices work better for me than aught <em>I</em> can do?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>paltry</em>
+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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was a knock at the door. Vance shut the box, replaced
+it in his pocket, and cried, “Come in!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>“Colored man down stars, sar, wants to see yer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did he give his name?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, sar, he say his name is Jacobs.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Show him up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek threw off his disguises, and Vance seized him by the
+hand as he might have seized a returning brother.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What of your wife and child? Have you found ’em?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Mr. Vance, I’m still a wanderer over the earth in
+search of them. I shall find them in God’s good time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sit down, Peek.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Excuse me, Mr. Vance, I’d rather stand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Very well. Then I’ll stand too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Since you make it a point of politeness, sir, I’ll sit.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My poor Peek, your not finding her has probably saved
+you from a deeper disappointment.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you mean, Mr. Vance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The chance is, she has been forced to marry some other
+man.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When you and I parted at Memphis, Mr. Vance, I went to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“During your travels, Peek, you must have had opportunities
+of helping on the good cause.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Peek; public sentiment is almost as much poisoned at
+the North as at the South, by this slavery virus.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And what have <em>you</em>, sir, been about all these years?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Much of my time has been spent in Kansas. I’ve been a
+border ruffian.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A sham one, I suppose?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are you, then, a secessionist, Mr. Vance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ve been thinking much lately,” said Peek, “of our adventure
+on board the Pontiac. What ever became of Colonel
+Delancy Hyde?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The Colonel,” replied Vance, “for a time wooed fortune
+in Kansas, but didn’t win her. Since then I’ve lost him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I confess I’ve a weakness for the Colonel,” said Vance,
+“though unquestionably he’s a great scoundrel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you ever learn, Mr. Vance, what became of that yellow
+girl he coveted?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She and the child were drowned,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What proof of that did you ever have?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Were their bodies ever recovered?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>“Did you ever learn who those passengers were?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Excuse me. Were you never summoned as a witness on
+the trial which gave Mr. Charlton the Berwick property?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Never. Perhaps one of the inconveniences of my <em>aliases</em>
+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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“More than a million of dollars,—so Ireton told me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A million? The father and mother dead,—then prove
+that the child—But stop. I’m going too fast. <em>Hyde</em>
+couldn’t have been interested in having it supposed that the
+child was dead. How could he have known about the Berwick
+property?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But might he not have tried to kidnap the yellow girl?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance wet a towel in iced water, and pressed it on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hyde may be able to put you on the right track,” suggested
+Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To Texas,” replied Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To Texas you shall go. Would you venture to face Colonel
+Hyde?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“With these green goggles I would face any of my old masters;
+and the scalds upon my face would alone prevent my
+being known.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“By the next boat,—in half an hour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>And, with a grasp of the hand, they parted, and Peek quitted
+the hotel to take the boat for Galveston.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Senator Wigman, a puffy, red-faced man, had been holding
+forth on the prospective glories of the Confederacy.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Wigman was obliged to refill his glass before he could summon
+his thoughts for a reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>man addressed as Kenrick. At the latter Vance hardly looked,
+so intent was he on Onslow’s response.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Look here, young man, do you mean to insinuate that I’m
+getting drunk,” said Wigman, angrily.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Far from it, Wigman. Any one can see you’re <em>not getting</em>
+drunk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I accept the apology,” said Wigman, with maudlin dignity.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, then, gentlemen,” cried Robson, “now for the previous
+question! Confusion to the old concern!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, by Jove!” interposed Wigman. “And we’ll welcome
+our invaders with—with—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <cite>Dixie</cite>, 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Answer me, Mr. Charles Kenrick,” said Wigman, assuming
+a front of judicial severity, “did you mean any offence to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>the Confederacy by dishonoring the sentiment of hostility to
+its enemy?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Damn the Confederacy!” said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Damn slavery!” said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Kenrick is joking,” said Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Kenrick was never more serious in his life, Mr. Onslow!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Look here, my dear fellow,” said Robson, “there <em>are</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Damn slavery!” reiterated Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He’s a subject for the Committee of Safety,” suggested
+Wigman.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>“It is to me that Mr. Kenrick must answer for this insult to
+the flag,” said Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>was</em>, but as it <em>shall</em> 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 <em>my</em> religion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall not sit at table with a traitor,” cried Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then keep standing all the time,” said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow resumed his seat. Wigman stiffened himself up and
+drew nearer to the table, fired at the prospect of a fresh bottle.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>At this juncture Mr. George Sanderson, a Northern man
+with Southern principles, in person short, vulgar, and flashily
+dressed, the very <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>beau ideal</i></span> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Washington must be taken,” said Sanderson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We must winter in Philadelphia,” said Wigman.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In what capacity? As conquerors or as captives?” said
+Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is the gentleman at all shaky?” asked Sanderson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He has been shamming Abolitionism,” replied Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He damns slavery,” cried the indignant Wigman.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What is your private opinion of the Yankees, Mr. Sanderson?”
+asked Kenrick. “Do you think they’ll fight?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then you think the Yankees are cowards, eh?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Compared with the Southerners,—yes!” said Sanderson,
+holding up his glass for the waiter to refill.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“His opinion is that of an expert. He’s himself a Yankee!”
+cried Robson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see Mr. Sanderson soars far above the spirit of the old
+proverb touching the bird that fouls its nest,” said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A sudden snore from Wigman, who had fallen asleep in his
+chair, startled the party once more into laughter.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Sanderson, seeing that a bottle of Chateau Margaux
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance still sat at his table, and from behind a newspaper
+glanced occasionally at the two young men who had so excited
+his interest.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>your</em> apostasy from truths which such a man as
+your father holds!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My father is an honorable man,—an excellent man,”
+said Onslow; “but—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But,” interrupted Kenrick, “if you were sincere just now
+in the epithet you flung at me, you consider him also a traitor.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>Now a traitor is one who betrays a trust. What trust has
+your father betrayed?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He does not stand by his native State in her secession
+from the old Union,” answered Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But what if he holds that his duty to the central government
+is paramount to his duty to his State?” asked Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That I regard as an error,” replied Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, I didn’t mean that, Charles,—your pardon,” said
+Onslow, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly. Proceed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I think,” said Onslow, “my father acted unwisely in
+sacrificing his fortunes to an abstraction.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“May not good men differ as to slavery?” asked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>not</em> differ,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>and <em>shall</em> 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 <em>liberty of the press</em> 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.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nine tenths of the men at the South of any social position,”
+said Onslow, “are in favor of secession.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>status</em> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <i>versus</i> Free.’ Unfortunately for
+my admirers and disciples, there was in my father’s library a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What said your father?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But what do you mean to do, Charles? ’T is unsafe for
+you to stay here in New Orleans, holding such sentiments.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You would not fight against your own State?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps a week; perhaps a month.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall watch over you while you remain, for I do not
+fancy seeing my old crony hung.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Better so than be false to the light within me. Though
+worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow made no reply, but affectionately, almost compassionately,
+took Kenrick by the arm and led him away.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance put down his newspaper, and then, immersed in meditation,
+slowly passed out of the dining-hall and up-stairs into
+his own room.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXI.<br />A MONSTER OF INGRATITUDE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Faint hearts are usually false hearts, choosing sin rather than suffering.”—<em>Argyle,
+before his execution.</em></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>After many satisfactory glances in the mirror, Mrs. Gentry
+sat down and trotted her right foot impatiently. Tarquin, entering,
+announced the carriage.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, go to Miss Ellen, and ask when she’ll be ready.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has Pauline looked for her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, missis.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ask Esha if she has seen her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Gentry waxed angry. “O, but she’ll be come up
+with!” This was the teacher’s favorite form of consolation.
+The <em>Abolitionists</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When will she be back?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps not till dinner-time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I’ll call to-morrow at this hour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>the</em>
+institution! Intolerable! Of course it was no concern of hers
+to what fate that slave was about to be consigned.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O Mr. Ratcliff! Mr. Ratcliff!” she exclaimed, rushing forward,
+then checking herself melodramatically, and seizing the
+back of a chair, as if for support.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, madam, what’s the matter?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>“That heartless,—that ungrateful girl!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What of her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Gentry answered by applying her handkerchief to her
+eyes very much as Mrs. Siddons used to do in Belvidera.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come, madam,” interrupted Ratcliff, “my time is precious.
+No damned nonsense, if you please. To the point. What has
+happened?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Rudely shocked into directness by these words, Mrs. Gentry
+replied: “She has disappeared,—r-r-run away!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, she’ll be come up with,—she’ll be come up with!”
+sobbed Mrs. Gentry.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come up with,—where?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In the next world, if not in this.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pooh! When did she disappear?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yesterday, while I was waiting for her to go out to buy
+her new dresses. O the ingratitude!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you made no search for her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you let her know that I was her master?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, ’t was only yesterday I imparted the information.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How did she receive it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She was a little startled at first, but soon seemed reconciled,
+even pleased with the idea of her new wardrobe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you closely questioned your domestics?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. They know nothing. She must have slipped unobserved
+out of the house.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is there any one among them with whom she was more
+familiar than with another?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She used to read the Bible to old Esha, by my direction.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Call up old Esha. I would like to question her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Esha soon appeared, her bronzed face glistening with perspiration
+from the kitchen fire,—the never-failing bright-colored
+Madras handkerchief on her head.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Esha,” said Mr. Ratcliff, “have you ever seen me before?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you know what an oath is, Esha?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, massa, it’s when one swar he know dis or dunno dat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Very well. Do you know what becomes of her who swears
+falsely?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O yes, massa; she go to de lake of brimstone and fire,
+whar’ she hab bad time for eber and eber, Amen.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are you a Christian, Esha?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ze notin’ else, Massa Ratcliff.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Esha, here’s the Holy Bible. Take it in your left
+hand, kiss the book, and then hold up your right hand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Esha went through the required form.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Esha kissed the book, and returned it to the table.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now, then, do you know anything of the disappearance of
+this girl, Ellen Murray?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nuffin, massa, nuffin at all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did she ever tell you she meant to leave this house?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nebber, massa! She nebber tell me any sich ting.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did she have any talk with you yesterday?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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’—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There! That will do, Esha. You can go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Massa Ratcliff.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Stealing into the next room, Esha listened at the folding-doors.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll do all I can, sir, to have her caught.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That will be your most prudent course, madam.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Ratcliff, with more exasperation in his face than his
+words had expressed, quitted the house.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Esha crept down into the kitchen, with thoughts intent on
+what she had heard.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXII. <br /> THE YOUNG LADY WITH A CARPET-BAG.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Pain has its own noble joy when it kindles a consciousness of life, before stagnant and
+torpid.”—<cite>John Sterling.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The two girls used to stroll through the garden with arms
+about each other’s waist. One day Clara, in a gush of candor,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>not only avowed herself an Abolitionist, but tried to convert
+Laura to the heresy. <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>Quelle horreur!</i></span> There was at once a
+cessation of the intimacy,—-Laura exacting a recantation
+which the little infidel proudly refused.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Fortunately he was half asleep, and did not see her.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>“Can I assist you?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, thank you,” replied Clara. “I’m fatigued,—that’s
+all,—and am resting here a few minutes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! but you <em>have</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is it you, Mr. Vance? We’ve been wondering why you
+didn’t come.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Madame Bernard, this young lady is fatigued. I wish her
+to rest in my room.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The room of Monsieur is always in order. Follow me, my
+dear.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing, thank you. I’ll rest on the sofa awhile. You’re
+very kind. The gentleman’s name is Vance, is it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; is he not an acquaintance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I never saw him till three minutes ago. He noticed me
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>resting, and, I fear, weeping in the street, and he asked me in
+here to rest.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“’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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Does he play well?” asked Clara, who had almost forgotten
+her own troubles in listening to the little woman’s gossip.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is he a professor?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, merely an amateur. But he puts a soul into the
+notes. Do you play at all, my dear?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I began to learn so early that I cannot recollect the
+time when.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I thought you must be musical. Just try this instrument,
+my dear, that is, if you ’re not too tired.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly, if ’t will oblige you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Seating herself at the piano, Clara played, from Donizetti’s
+<cite>Lucia</cite>, Edgardo’s melodious wail of abandonment and despair,
+<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">“<i>L’ universo intero e un deserto per me sensa Lucia</i>.”</span></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, ever since I can remember.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>“So I should think. Now let me hear something in a different
+vein.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“And the Star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave</div>
+      <div class='line'>O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>“But that’s treason!” cried Mrs. Bernard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll not be so imprudent again,” returned Clara. “Will
+you play for me, sir?” And she resumed her seat on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Bernard left to attend to the affairs of the <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>cuisine</i></span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now, mademoiselle,” said Vance, “what can I do before
+I go?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“All I want,” replied Clara, “is time to arrange some plan.
+I left home so suddenly I’m quite at a loss.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do I understand you’ve left your parents?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have no parents, sir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then a near relation, or a guardian?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Neither, sir. I am independent of all ties.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you no friend to whom you can go for advice?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I had a friend, but she gave me up because I’m an Abolitionist.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Miss Laura Tremaine. She lives at the St. Charles. Do
+you know her, sir?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Slightly. I met her in the drawing-room not long since.
+She does not appear unamiable. But why are you an Abolitionist?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Because I believe in God.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Darling, as you—”—“O, but, sir! <em>you</em> must not
+call me Darling. That would never do!”—“What <em>can</em> I call
+you, then?”—“Call me Miss, or Mademoiselle.”—“Well,
+Miss.”—“No, I do not like the sibilation.”—“Will <em>Ma’am</em>
+do any better?”—“Not till I’m more venerable. Call me
+Perdita.”—“Perdita what?”—“Perdita Brown,—yes, I
+love the name of Brown.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>“Indeed, sir, I’ve told you nothing but the truth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Yes. She had told the truth, but unhappily not the <em>whole</em>
+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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And so the golden opportunity was allowed to escape!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are you related to Mr. Vance?” he asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Truly he’s a friend in need, Mademoiselle. I saw him do
+another kind thing to-day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What was it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What a shame!” interposed Mrs. Bernard. “A coat and
+vest he must have put on clean this morning! So nicely
+ironed and starched!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go on,” replied Clara; and she sipped from a tumbler of
+cold water.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Bernard again rubbed his hands.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And was that the last you saw of Mr. Vance?” asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The last. Shall I help you to some pine-apple, Mademoiselle?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, thank you. I’ve finished my dinner. You will excuse
+me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And she returned to the little room assigned to her use.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXIII.<br />WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOR?</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Sing again the song you sung</div>
+      <div class='line'>When we were together young;</div>
+      <div class='line'>When there were but you and I</div>
+      <div class='line'>Underneath the summer sky.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Sing the song, and o’er and o’er,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Though I know that nevermore</div>
+      <div class='line'>Will it seem the song you sung</div>
+      <div class='line'>When we were together young.”</div>
+      <div class='line in12'><cite>George William Curtis.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance and the surgeon prevented the movement. The
+patient stared, and said: “You’ve done it agin, have yer?
+What’s yer name?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This is Mr. Vance,” replied the surgeon.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, my poor fellow, I must leave you. Good by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I’ll not forget it.”—“Call to-morrow, will yer?”—“Yes,
+if I’m alive I’ll call.”—“Thahnk yer, strannger.
+Good by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span class='sc'>To Perdita</span>: 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.</p>
+
+<div class='c015'><span class='sc'>Vance.</span>”</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance meanwhile, after a frugal dinner, eliminated from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, “<span class='sc'>Mr. Vance</span>.” She did not try
+to check the start of exultation with which she said, “Show
+him in.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>very</em> 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
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>retroussé</i></span>, 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>bien conservé</i></span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>she</em>?”—“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>At that moment the servant entered with two cards.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you tell them I’m in?”—“Yes, Mahmzel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, then,” said Laura, with an air of disappointment,
+“show them up.” And handing the cards to Vance, she
+asked, “Shall I introduce them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. Robert Onslow,—Charles Kenrick. Certainly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The young men entered, and were introduced.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! What did he say?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pshaw, Charles! A truce to politics!” said Onslow.
+“Why will you thrust it into faces that frown on your wild
+notions?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>“Miss Tremaine reigns absolute in this room,” rejoined
+Vance; “and from the slavery she imposes we have no desire,
+I presume, to be free.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And her order is,” cried Laura, “that you sink the shop.
+Thank you, Mr. Vance, for vindicating my authority.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And so to Laura he dwindled into insignificance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance rose to go.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“One song. Indeed, I must have one,” said Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance complied with her request, singing a favorite song of
+Estelle’s, Reichardt’s</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">“Du liebes Aug’, du lieber Stern,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Du bist mir nah’, und doch so fern!”</span><a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c014'><sup>[26]</sup></a></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>Then, pressing Laura’s proffered hand, and bowing, he left.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What a voice! what a touch!” said Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It was enchanting!” cried Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I thought he was a different sort of man,” sighed Kenrick.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXIV.<br />CONFESSIONS OF A MEAN WHITE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Throw thyself on thy God, nor mock him with feeble denial;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Sure of his love, and O, sure of his mercy at last;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Bitter and deep though the draught, yet drain thou the cup of thy trial,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And in its healing effect smile at the bitterness past.”</div>
+      <div class='line in16'><cite>Lines composed by Sir John Herschel in a dream.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>After an early breakfast the following morning, Vance
+proceeded to the hospital. The patient had been
+expecting him.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He has seemed to know just how near you’ve been for
+the last hour,” said the nurse. “He followed—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sit down, Mr. Vance, please,” interrupted the patient.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance drew a chair near to the pillow and sat down.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>mean white</em>, 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My dear fellow,” interrupted Vance, who saw the man was
+suffering, “you’re fatiguing yourself too much. Rest awhile.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My friend,” said Vance, “you’ve got at the truth at last,
+though I fear you’ve been long about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>peculiar</em>
+prermoted me ter. I riz to be foreman uv of a rat-pit.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of a <em>what</em>?” interrogated Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You must have seen things from a bad stand-point, my
+friend.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>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.”<a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c014'><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you whip them?” inquired Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance administered a spoonful, and the patient resumed his
+story.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“On the Mississippi! When and where?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Some fifteen yars ago, on boord the Pontiac, jest afore
+she blowed up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! I’ve no recollection of meeting you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Don’t yer remember Kunnle D’lancy Hyde?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perfectly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are you that man?” exclaimed Vance, restraining his
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m nobody else, Mr. Vance, an’ it ain’t fur nothin’ I’ve
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Were you on the forward part of the wreck?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Stop a moment,” said Vance; and, drawing out paper and
+pencil, he made copious notes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And the child?” asked Vance. “Did you know whose it
+was?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And didn’t you undeceive them?” asked Vance, giving
+the water.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did the judge put you to your oaths?” asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>you</em> all that time, Mr. Vance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And what did you do with the child?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>With an irrepressible groan, Vance walked to the window.
+When he returned, he looked with pity on Quattles, and said,
+“Proceed!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How did he dispose of the child?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He stained her skin till she looked like a half mulatter, an’
+then he jest got Ripper, the auctioneer, ter sell her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who bought the child?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wall, Cash bowt her. That’s all I ever could find out.
+Ef Ripper knowed more, he wouldn’t tell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>“To whom did you sell the yellow girl?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When did you last hear of him?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The last I heerd tell uv Davy, he war in Natchez, and that
+war five years ago.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What became of the yellow girl?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>Take</em>, 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.<a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c014'><sup>[28]</sup></a> She got back her senses all straight,
+an’ Davy made her his wife.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you keep anything that belonged to the child?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Jest you feel in the pockets uv them pants under my piller,
+and git out my pus.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thar! Open that ar’ box,” said the patient.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you any article of clothing belonging to her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not a rag, Mr. Vance. They all went with her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you notice any mark on the clothes?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, they was marked C. A. B., in letters worked in hahnsum
+with white silk.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Was that the kind of letter?” asked Vance, who, having
+drawn the cipher in old English, held it before the patient’s
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What day was it you parted with the child?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The same day she was sold.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When was that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance glanced at the cover. The apothecary’s name and
+the number of the prescription were legible. Vance put the
+box in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can’t yer think uv su’thin’ else?” asked Quattles.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Only this,” replied Vance: “How shall I manage Hyde?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance carefully recorded the mysterious words; then asked,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>“Do you remember Peek, the runaway slave Hyde had in
+charge?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can Amos identify you as the Quattles of the Pontiac?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In coorse he can, for he knowed all ’bout me at the time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And now, my friend, I wish to have this testimony of yours
+sworn to and witnessed; but I’m overtasking your strength.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do it, Mr. Vance. Help me ter lose my strength, ef yer
+think I kn do any good tellin’ the truth.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you get along without this opiate two hours longer?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Mr. Vance, I kn do without it altogether.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I’ll leave you for two hours.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“One word, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What is it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did yer ever pray?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; every man prays who tries to do good or undo evil.
+You’ve been praying for the last hour, my friend.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Willingly, my poor fellow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Couldn’t do it, Mr. Vance. Them letters I mean to hand
+down to my children.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, it’s of no consequence. I’ll go into the next store
+for the rest of my goods.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, he had them for twenty years back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Would he look in the volume for 18—, for a certain
+number?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Willingly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>In two minutes the number was found, and the day of the
+prescription fixed. Vance then proceeded to the office of
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><cite>L’Abeille</cite></span>, turned to the newspaper of that day, and there, in
+the advertising columns, found a sale advertised by P. Ripper
+&amp; Co., auctioneers. It was a sale of a “lot” of negroes; and
+as a sort of postscript to the specifications was the following:—</p>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span></div>
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>Not pausing to indulge the emotions which these cruel words
+awoke, Vance went in search of Ripper &amp; 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where next?” thought Vance. “Plainly to Natchez, to
+see if I can learn anything of Davy and his wife.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXV.<br />MEETINGS AND PARTINGS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“I hold it true, whate’er befall,—</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>I feel it when I sorrow most,—</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>’Tis better to have loved and lost</div>
+      <div class='line'>Than never to have loved at all.”</div>
+      <div class='line in24'><cite>Tennyson.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Truly an enterprising young lady!” But what could
+he do?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! After what you’ve said of her singing, I’m very
+anxious to hear her. Do try to find her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Vance. There’s a mystery. Of
+that much I’m persuaded from Mrs. Gentry’s manner.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You mustn’t mind Darling’s notions on slavery.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O no, Mr. Vance, I shall turn her over to you for conversion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Should you succeed in entrapping her, detain her till I
+come back from Natchez, which will be before Sunday.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Be sure I’ll hold on to her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>dancing; all about the opera and the theatre; in short, what is
+there the man doesn’t know?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Papa was too absorbed in his terrapin soup to answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where are the Bernards?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“They are out promenading. I told them I was not afraid.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How have you passed your time, Miss Perdita?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, I’ve not been idle. Such choice books as you have
+here! And then what a variety of music!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you studied any of the pieces?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not many. That from Schubert.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Please play it for me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall do it!” said Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you heard that famous Hallelujah Chorus, which the
+Northern soldiers sing?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No? Why, ’tis in honor of John Brown (any relation of
+Perdita?) You shall hear it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And he played the well-known air, now appropriated by the
+hand-organs. Clara asked for a repetition, that she might
+remember it.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sing me something,” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Clara placed on the reading-frame the song of “Pestal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not that, Perdita! What possessed you to study that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It suited my mood. Will you not hear it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No!... Yes, Perdita. Pardon my abruptness. But
+that song was the first I ever heard from lips, O so fair and
+dear to me!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>O, if this man whose very presence inspired such confidence
+and hope,—if it was sweeter to him to <em>remember</em> another than
+to <em>listen</em> to <em>her</em>,—where in the wide world should she find, in
+her desperate strait, a friend?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let us talk over your affairs,” he said. “To-morrow I
+must leave for Natchez. Will you remain here till I come
+back?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>“I’ll not fail to remember you in that event, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Honor bright?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Honor bright, Mr. Vance!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I shall not feel utterly homeless. Thank you, Mr.
+Vance!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And by the way, Perdita, do not let Miss Tremaine know
+that we are acquainted.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll heed your caution, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We shall meet again, my dear young lady. Of that I feel
+assured.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I hope so, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And now farewell! I’ll tell Bernard to order a carriage
+and attend to your baggage. Good by, Perdita!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good by, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I was not aware we were such near neighbors, Mr.
+Kenrick.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To me also ’t is a surprise,—and a pleasant one. Will
+you walk in, Mr. Vance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, if ’t is not past your hour for visitors.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is it possible you eschew alcohol and tobacco?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come up to the confessional, Mr. Vance! Admit that
+you’re as much of an antislavery man as I am.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You puzzle me, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not as much as you’ve puzzled <em>me</em>, my young friend.
+Come here, and look in the mirror with me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance took him by the hand and led him to a full-length
+looking-glass. There they stood looking at their reflections.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you see?” asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What was it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Arthur Maclain.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I can’t help thinking, Charles,” said Vance, “that your
+zeal has the purer origin. <em>Mine</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>the
+least of these little ones</em> ought to be felt by me also, and by all
+men! But now—now—I shall not lack the sting of a
+personal incentive. <em>Your</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I had intended to go North, and join the army of freedom,”
+said Kenrick; “but what you say gives me pause.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘There is no courage but in innocence,</div>
+      <div class='line'>No constancy but in an honest cause!’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXVI.<br />CLARA MAKES AN IMPORTANT PURCHASE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, you dear little good-for-nothing Darling,” said Laura,
+after there had been a conflux of kisses. “Could anything be
+more <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>apropos</i></span>? 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Will you solemnly promise,” said Clara, “on your honor as
+a lady, not to reveal what I tell you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“As I hope to be saved, I promise,” replied Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A slave? Impossible! Why, Darling, you’ve a complexion
+whiter than mine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So have many slaves. The hue of my skin will not invalidate
+a claim.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s true. But who presumes to claim you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. Carberry Ratcliff.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Laura, I’ve seen the man. ’T would be hopeless to
+try to melt him. You must help me to get away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>“But you do not mean,—surely you do not mean to—to—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To what, Laura? You seem gasping with horror at some
+frightful supposition. What is it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You’d not think of running off, would you? You wouldn’t
+ask me to harbor a fugitive slave?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>After a pause, “What do you advise?” said Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Darling, stay with me a week or two, then go quietly
+back to Mrs. Gentry’s, and play the penitent.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hadn’t I better go at once?” asked Clara, simulating
+meekness.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But hadn’t I better write to Mrs. Gentry and tell her
+where I am?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How will you manage?” asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What more simple?” replied Laura. “I’ll take you right
+into my sleeping-room; you shall be my schoolmate, Miss
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>Brown, come to pass a few days with me before going to St.
+Louis. Papa will never think of questioning my story.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I’ve no dresses with me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It will not be safe for me to appear at the public table.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let it be Perdita.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>An expression so strange flitted over Clara’s face, that Laura
+asked: “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Wouldn’t it be a joke to let him fall in love with a poor little
+slave?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So, you don’t mean to fall in love with him yourself?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O no! He’s good-looking, but poor. Can you keep a
+secret?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, I mean to set my cap for Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Possible?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And is he the only string to your bow?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>With softened heart, she rose and went to the window.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But how did you happen to be there, Esha?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What happened after I left home?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dar war all sort ob a fuss dat ebber you see, darlin’. Fust
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So the hounds are out in pursuit, are they?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, darlin’. Look dar at dat man stahndin’ at de corner.
+He’m one ob ’em.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He’s not dressed like a policeman.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Bress yer heart, dese ’tektivs go dressed like de best
+gem’men about. Yer’d nebber suspek dey was doin’ de work
+ob hounds.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hound number one!” thought Clara to herself, and, having
+walked slowly away in one direction, she suddenly turned,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, massa, I seed a woman in a green veil.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, are you sure she mayn’t be the one?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go back and take a look at her. There! she steps into
+the shop.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see my mistake, Esha. I’ve been buying a dagger.
+Look there!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>Esha joined the detective. “Did you get a good sight of
+her?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Went right up an’ spoke ter her,” said Esha. “She’s jes
+as much dat gal as she’s Madame Beauregard.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The detective, his vision of a $500 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>douceur</i></span> melting into
+thin air, pensively walked off to try fortune on a new beat.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>An officer in the Confederate uniform, seeing she was ill,
+said, “Mademoiselle, you need help. Allow me to escort
+you home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Miss Brown. I’m stopping a few days with my friend,
+Miss Tremaine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! I was to call on her this evening. We may
+renew our acquaintance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s one of the prime managers of the secession movement.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXVII.<br />DELIGHT AND DUTY.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Henry More</cite>, A.D. 1659.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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 <em>his</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A servant knocked at the door, with the information that
+two gentlemen were in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dear me! I must go in at once,” said Laura. “Now
+tell me you’ll be quick and follow, Darling.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Clara gave the required pledge, and proceeded to arrange
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“On what do you base your calculations?” asked Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“On the fact that for the last twelve hours I haven’t heard
+you call down maledictions on the Confederate cause.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps I conclude that the better part of valor is discretion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Charles, yours is not the Falstaffian style of courage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, construe my mood as you please. Miss Tremaine,
+your piano stands open. Does it mean we’re to have music?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. Hasn’t the Captain told you of his meeting a young
+lady,—Miss Perdita Brown?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll do him the justice to say he <em>did</em> tell me he had escorted
+such a one.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What did he say of her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing, good or bad.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But that’s very suspicious.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So it is.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pray who is Miss Perdita Brown?” asked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She’s a daughter of—of—why, of Mr. Brown, of course.
+He lives in St. Louis.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is she a good Secessionist?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“On the contrary, she’s a desperate little Abolitionist.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Look at Charles!” said Onslow. “He’s enamored already.
+I’m sorry she isn’t secesh.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Think of the triumph of converting her!” said Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That indeed! Of course,” said Onslow, “like all true women,
+she’ll take her politics from the man she loves.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And the Captain smoothed his moustache, and looked handsome
+as Phœbus Apollo.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow was astounded at this fire of raillery. Could the
+lady have heard of any disparaging expression he had dropped?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Spare me, Miss Laura,” he said. “Don’t deprive the
+Confederacy of my services by slaying me before I’ve smelt
+powder.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where’s Miss Brown all this while?” asked Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Laura went to the door, and called “Perdita!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In five minutes!” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And thus accoutred she entered the room where the three
+expectants were seated.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>On seeing her, Laura’s first emotion was one of admiration,
+as at sight of an imposing <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>entrée</i></span> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When were you last in St. Louis, Miss Brown?” asked
+Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So! She sets up for an eccentric,” thought Onslow. “Perhaps
+politics would suit you,” he added aloud. “I hear you’re
+an Abolitionist.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ask Miss Tremaine,” said Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, she has betrayed you already,” replied Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I’ve nothing to say. I’m in her hands.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>“I confess I’ve my prejudices against it,” replied Clara.
+“But these charges of woman-whipping, you know, are Abolition
+lies.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, so Northern conservatives say; but we of the plantations
+know that nearly one half the whippings are of women.”<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c014'><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come! Sink the shop!” cried Laura. “Are we so dull
+we can’t find anything but our horrible <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>bête noir</i></span> for our
+amusement? Let us have scandal, rather; nonsense, rather!
+Tell us a story, Mr. Kenrick.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well; once on a time—how would you like a ghost-story?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Above all things. Charming! Only ghosts have grown
+so common, they no longer thrill us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dear Mr. Kenrick, is this a time for a lecture?” expostulated
+Laura. “Aren’t you bored, Perdita?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>“On the contrary, I’m interested.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you think of spiritualism, Miss Brown?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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? <span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>Cui bono?</i></span> What
+of it all?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘Nothing in it!’ as Sir Charles Coldstream says of the
+Vatican,” interposed Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You demand the use of it all,—the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span>,—do
+you?” retorted Kenrick. “Did it ever occur to you to make
+your own existence the subject of that terrible inquiry, <span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>cui
+bono</i></span>?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly,” replied Onslow, laughing; “my <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span> is to
+fight for the independence of the new Confederacy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And for the propagation of slavery, eh?” returned Kenrick.
+“I don’t see the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span>. 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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span> of their
+corrupt and unprofitable lives?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But how undignified in a spirit to push tables about and
+play on accordions!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, what authority have you for the supposition that
+there are no undignified spirits? We know there are weak
+and wicked spirits <em>in</em> the flesh; why not <em>out</em> of the flesh? A
+spirit, or an intelligence claiming to be one, writes an ungrammatical
+sentence or a pompous commonplace, and signs <em>Bacon</em>
+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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll tell you what the ghost has contributed, not at Rochester
+merely, but everywhere, through the ages. He has contributed
+<em>himself</em>. You say, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono?</i></span> And I might say of ten
+thousand mysteries about us, <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono?</i></span> The lightning strikes
+the church-steeple,—<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono?</i></span> An idiot is born into the
+world,—<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono?</i></span> It is absurd to demand as a condition of
+rational faith, that we should prove a <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span>. 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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono?</i></span>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Enough, my dear Mr. Kenrick!” exclaimed Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>But he was not to be stopped. He rose and paced the
+room, and continued: “The <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>cui bono</i></span> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Your story, dear Mr. Kenrick, your story!” urged Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My story is ended. The ghost has come and vanished.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is that all?” whined Laura. “Are n’t we, then, to have a
+story?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In mercy give us some music, Miss Brown,” said Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Play Yankee Doodle, with variations,” interposed Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not unless you’d have the windows smashed in,” pleaded
+Onslow; and, giving his arm, he waited on Clara to the piano.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span><a id='corr272.1'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='“She'>She</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_272.1'><ins class='correction' title='“She'>She</ins></a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And now for a song!” exclaimed Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c014'><sup>[30]</sup></a> She gave it with her whole
+soul, as if a personal wrong were adding intensity to the
+defiance of her tones.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you think of that, Charles?” asked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It was terrible,” said Kenrick. “I wanted to kill a slaveholder
+while she sang.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But she has the powers of a <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>prima donna</i></span>,” said Onslow,
+turning to Laura.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, one would think she had practised for the stage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Clara now returned with a countenance placid and smiling.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How long do you stay in New Orleans, Miss Brown?”
+inquired Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How long, Laura?” asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A week or two.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We shall have another opportunity, I hope, of hearing you
+sing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I hope so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have an appointment now at the armory. Charles, are
+you ready to walk?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, thank you. I prefer to remain.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, can you read them?” asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you mean?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Only a dream I had. There’s a letter on them somebody
+is to open and read.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, that I were a Daniel to interpret!” said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br />A LETTER OF BUSINESS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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, <em>be just and let the oppressed go free</em>. Let us do his bidding,
+and the plagues cease.”—<cite>Letter from a native of Richmond, Va.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>The following letter belongs chronologically to this stage
+in our history:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'><cite>From F. Macon Semmes, New York, to T. J Semmes, New
+Orleans.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Brother</span>: 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>“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,
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>née</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The other day Mr. Hicks, a friend of the family, learning
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Charlton, completely struck aghast, fell back in his chair,
+his face pale, and his lips quivering. I thought he had fainted.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘Your brother wouldn’t rob me, Mr. Semmes?’ he gasped
+forth.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘But it is worth two hundred thousand dollars!’ he exclaimed,
+in a tone that was almost a shriek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>“‘So much the better for the Confederate treasury!’ I replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I then broached what you told me to in regard to his making
+a <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>bona fide</i></span> sale of the property to you. I offered him twenty
+thousand dollars in cash, if he would surrender all claim.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘Please recall that word, sir,’ I said, touching my wristbands.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘Well, your brother’s <em>plan</em>, sir. Will that suit you?’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘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?’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘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.’</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c023'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Fraternally yours,</div>
+      <div class='line in47'>F. M. S.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXIX.<br />THE WOMAN WHO DELIBERATES IS LOST.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“O North-wind! blow strong with God’s breath in twenty million men.”—<cite>Rev.
+John Weiss.</cite></p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Loud wind, strong wind, sweeping o’er the mountains,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Fresh wind, free wind, blowing from the sea,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Pour forth thy vials like streams from airy fountains,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Draughts of life to me.”—<cite>Miss Muloch.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>On coming down to the breakfast-table one morning,
+Kenrick was delighted to encounter Vance, and asked,
+“What success?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>a noble people who are manfully fighting the great battle of
+humanity against such infernalism as this?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“They would probably fall back on the doubter’s privilege.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c014'><sup>[31]</sup></a> 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 <em>the punishment of the
+hand-saw</em>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Kenrick showed the photograph of a man with his back
+scarred as if by a shower of fire.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This poor fellow,” said Kenrick, “shows the effects of the
+<em>corn-husk punishment</em>; 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And yet,” remarked Vance, “horrible as these things are,
+how small a part of the wrong of slavery is in the mere <em>physical</em>
+suffering inflicted!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, the crowning outrage is mental and moral.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This war,” resumed Vance, “is not sectional, nor geographical,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>nor, in a party sense, political: it is a war of eternally antagonistic
+principles,—Belial against Gabriel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here the approach of guests led to a change of topic.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And how have <em>your</em> affairs prospered?” asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! cousin,” replied Kenrick, “I almost blush to tell you
+what an experience I’ve had.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not fallen in love, I hope?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And which is the favored admirer?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I must know something of the lady first.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. I’ll do your bidding, Charles. How often have you
+seen this enchantress?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Too often for my peace of mind: three times.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is she a coquette?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Say a deep one. Shall we meet at Miss Tremaine’s
+to-night?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; the moth knows he’ll get singed, but flutter he must.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“Take comfort, Charles, in that of thought of Tennyson’s,
+who tells us,</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘That not a moth with vain desire</div>
+      <div class='line'>Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire.’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That was sent here with several others by the photographer.
+You’ll find his name on the back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see. What shall I pay you for it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A dollar.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There it is.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Not an hour had passed when a black man in livery put into
+Onslow’s hands this note:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Will you come and dine with me at five to-day without
+ceremony? Please reply by the bearer.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c023'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Yours,</div>
+      <div class='line in26'><span class='sc'>C. Ratcliff</span>.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You’ve a superb house here,” said the ingenuous Captain.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“’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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Won’t the Yankees retaliate?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We sha’n’t allow them to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“After we’ve whipped Yankee-Doo-dle-dom, what then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c014'><sup>[32]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can we expect aid from England?” asked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not open aid, but substantial aid nevertheless. Exeter
+Hall may grumble. The <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>doctrinaires</i></span>, the Newmans, Brights,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow, in his innocence, inquired after Mrs. Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My wife is an invalid, and rarely quits her room,” said the
+host.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>apropos</i></span> of pretty women,” he exclaimed, “let me
+show you a photograph of one I have in my pocket.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>As he spoke, there was a rustling in the grape-vines at a
+window. He turned, but saw nothing.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow took the photograph, and exclaimed: “But this is
+astonishing! I’ve a copy of the same in my pocket.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You surprise me, Captain. Do you know the original?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Quite well; and I grant you she’s beautiful.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow did not notice the expression of Ratcliff’s face at
+this confession, but another did. Lifting a glass of Burgundy
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has she admirers in her train?” asked Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I know of but one beside myself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! And who is he?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Charles Kenrick has called on her with me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“By the way, Wigman tells me that Charles insulted the
+flag the other day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Poh! Wigman was so drunk he couldn’t distinguish jest
+from earnest.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So Robson told me. But touching this Miss Brown,—is
+she as pretty as her photograph would declare?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You deserve a colonelcy for that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you. Is your clock right?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I must go. I’ve an engagement.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>“Sorry for it. Beware of Miss Brown. This is the day
+of Mars, not Venus. Good by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To the St. Charles, on political business.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Searching further among his papers, she found an envelope,
+on which certain memoranda were pencilled, and among them
+these: “<em>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.</em>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>him</em>? 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Clara shuddered to think that no honorable attachment between
+her and a gentleman could exist.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c014'><sup>[33]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But surely this man, whose very glance seems shelter and
+protection,—this true and generous <em>gentleman</em>,—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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Her heart throbbed. She was on the point of uttering that
+one name, <em>Ratcliff</em>,—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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The golden opportunity seemed to have slipped by!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>Of course there was music; and Clara sang.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you think of her voice?” asked Laura of Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The little gilt clock over the mantel tinkled eleven.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance rose to go, and said to Laura, “May I call on Miss
+Brown to-morrow with some new music?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll answer for her, yes,” replied Laura. “We shall be at
+home any time after twelve.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Amen to that!” replied Onslow, before he well took in the
+entire meaning of what she had said.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXX.<br />A FEMININE VAN AMBURGH.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“She who ne’er answers till a husband cools,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules.”—<cite>Pope.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There’s to be an early church-service,” she replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Bah! You’re always going to church!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is Esha in?” asked the quadroon.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>“Is this Esha?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, missis, dis am nob’dy else.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Esha, I want a few minutes’ talk with you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Take a char, den, missis, and ’scuse my looks.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You look like a good woman, Esha, so no matter for dress.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Tahnk yer, missis. Esha’s like de res’,—not too good,—but
+nebdeless dar’s wuss folks dan she.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Esha, who is this young girl Mr. Ratcliff is after?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Esha’s eyes snapped, and she looked sharply at her visitor.
+“Why you want ter know?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are you a slave, Esha?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, missis, I’se born a slabe,—hab libd a slabe, an’ ’spek
+to die a slabe.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! by him? by him?” muttered Esha.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do yer lub him,—dis Massa Ratcliff?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She, missis? She am a slabe too.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She a slave? Whose slave?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She ’longs to Massa Ratcliff!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And he has kept it a secret from me!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Esha, like most slaves, was a quick judge of character. She
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And are you sure,” she asked, “quite sure that little
+Darling, as you call her, will resist Ratcliff to the last?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good! I love her!” cried Madame Volney, with flushed
+cheeks. “But Esha, do you know where she is now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, missis; but I tink I better not tell eb’n you,—’cause
+you see—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She’s with Miss Tremaine, at the St. Charles!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“De Lord help us! How yer know dat, missis?” cried
+Esha, alarmed. “Do Massa Ratcliff know ’bout it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>green</em>, do
+as he tells you. Should the ribbon be <em>black</em>, 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>“Ebry word ob it, missis! Tahnk de Lord fur sendin’ yer.
+Watch Massa Ratcliff sharp. Fix him sure, missis,—fix
+him sure!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Trust me, Esha! He seizes no young girl to-day, unless I
+let him. But be very prudent. You may need money.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, missis. No pay fur tellin’ de troof.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But you may need it for the child’s sake.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O yis, missis. I’ll take it fur de chile, sure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>When Ratcliff came down, he complimented her on her good
+looks, and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ve been to confession,” she said, as she touched the tap
+of a splendid silver urn, and let hot water into the cups.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And what have you been confessing, Josy?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ve been confessing how very foolish I’ve been the last
+few months.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Foolish in what, Josephine?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Foolish in my jealousy of <em>you</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s partly true. But don’t I know what you most
+desire of earthly things?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of course! You know I desire the success of the Southern
+Confederacy, corner-stone and all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, not that. You covet one thing even more than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! What is it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A legitimate child who may inherit your wealth, and transmit
+your name.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You’ve not confined yourself to hints. You’ve been provident
+in act as well as in thought.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What the deuce do you mean?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This: I know your scheme in regard to Miss Murray, and,
+what is more, I highly approve of it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You’re the Devil!” exclaimed Ratcliff, starting up from
+his seat. Then, seeing Josephine’s unaffected smile and evident
+good humor, he sat down.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The deuce you have! Talked with your confessor, eh?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And what do you understand to be my plan?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why, Josephine, she’s a slave!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where the Devil—Confound the woman!” muttered
+Ratcliff, half frightened at what looked like clairvoyance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>“Yes,” she continued, “her parents must have been of
+gentle blood. Look at her hands and feet. Hear her speak.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Josy, you’re right there; you’re a jewel of a woman.
+Such devilish good common sense! Go on.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But, Josy, would you really recommend my marrying this
+girl?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why not? Where will you find her equal?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But just think of it,—she was sold to me at public auction
+as a slave.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When one loves,” replied Josephine, “one is quick to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did he keep the whole story from her because he supposed
+Josy would be jealous?” asked the quadroon, with a caress.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Capital!” exclaimed Ratcliff. “Josy can remain where
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hang me, but you’re right again, Josy! I had thought
+of carrying her off this very day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I supposed so.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And that’s Mr. Tremaine!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So it is, by Jove! How did you know it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I put this and that together, and drew an inference. You
+mean to place her again, for the present, at Mrs. Gentry’s.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“True! That was my plan. But I hadn’t mentioned it to
+a soul.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, there’s an old slave-woman,—Esha. She has a
+grudge against the little miss, and isn’t likely to be too indulgent.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Josy, I didn’t think anything else.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We can have an officer close by to apply to in case of
+need.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of course! What a woman you are for plotting!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Carberry, give me <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>carte blanche</i></span> to act for you, and
+I’ll have her here before one o’clock. But there’s a condition,
+Carberry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Name it, Josy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Right! right! A thousand times right!” exclaimed the
+debauchee, his pride getting the ascendency.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Josy,” said he, after a silence of some minutes, “I
+accept your condition; I give the promise you demand.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Honor bright?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good! You’ve decided wisely, Carberry. Shall I order
+the carriage for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. I’ll send it back to you with Esha, and then myself
+go on foot to the St. Charles to see Tremaine.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>black</em> ribbon on it, leaving the one distinguished by a
+<em>green</em> band. She then rang and ordered the carriage.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXI.<br />ONE OF THE INSTITUTIONS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Small service is true service while it lasts;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of friends, however humble, scorn not one.”—<cite>Wordsworth.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Those who know anything of society in the Slave States are
+well aware that concubinage (one of the institutions of <em>the</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The carriage was waiting at the door. “Go now,” said Mrs.
+Ratcliff, “and be sure you bring the girl right up to see me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s wanting?” asked Clara, half dreading some trick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>“None whatever,” replied Clara, and she locked it.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You fear I may be here as an agent of Mr. Ratcliff,” said
+Josephine.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Never!” exclaimed Clara, the blood flaming up like red
+auroras over neck, face, and brow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>yes</em> to the proposition?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Never! never!” cried Clara, carrying her hand again to
+her breast with a gesture she thought significant only to herself.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What does it all mean, Esha?” asked Clara, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It mean, darlin’, dat Massa Ratcliff hab tracked you to dis
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Truth beamed from her looks, and made itself musical in her
+tones, and Clara gratefully pressed her hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And shall I have Esha with me?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I shall have all the slave-hunters in the Confederacy
+after me if I try to get away.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do not fear. We have golden keys that open many doors
+of escape.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I would like,” said Clara, “to find out at the bar what
+charge has been made for my stay here, and pay it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me do it for you,” suggested the quadroon.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“If you would be so kind!” replied Clara. “Here are
+fifteen dollars. I don’t think it can come to more than that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span></div>
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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>
+
+<div class='c015'>P. B.”</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXII.<br />A DOUBLE VICTORY.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“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.”—<cite>Henry More</cite>,
+A. D. 1659.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“No, sure, ’t is ever youth there! Time and Death</div>
+      <div class='line'>Follow our flesh no more; and that forced opinion,</div>
+      <div class='line'>That spirits have no sexes, I believe not.</div>
+      <div class='line'>There <em>must</em> be love,—there <em>is</em> love!”</div>
+      <div class='line in25'><cite>Beaumont and Fletcher.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you had those sharp throbbings to-day?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The answer was brought by Clara herself, and Josephine left
+the two together. Yes, Clara had written out the story. It
+was called <span lang="de" xml:lang="de"><i>Zu Spat</i></span>, 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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>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!”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Read that passage again,” said Mrs. Ratcliff; adding, after
+Clara had complied, “You needn’t read any more now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, my peerless one, what is it?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I wish to talk with you, Ratcliff, about this white slave of
+yours. What do you think of her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Think of her? Nothing! I’ve given no thought to the
+subject. I’ve hardly looked at her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Lie Number 1,” thought the invalid, looking him in the
+face, but betraying no distrust in her expression.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And that brilliant and dainty creature was <em>his</em>,—<em>his!</em> He
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m glad you’re so indifferent to this white slave,” said
+Mrs. Ratcliff to her husband.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And why should you be glad, my pet?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Because, Ratcliff, I want you to give her to me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, if you don’t want to <em>give</em> her, then <em>sell</em> her to me.
+I’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars for her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Detecting the trap, the wife at once replied: “Thank you,
+dear husband. This generosity is so like you! Can she be
+freed?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, then, Ratcliff, there’s one little form you must consent
+to. The title-deed must be vested in Mr. Winslow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>in loco parentis</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>requests</em> she might have made. There had
+consequently been an informal will, if <em>will</em> it could be called,
+made by her a year before, in Ratcliff’s favor.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>habeas corpus</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The invalid wife’s proposal to vest the title to the white slave
+in Winslow caused in Ratcliff a visible embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You know, my dear,” he replied, “I would do anything for
+your gratification; but there are particular reasons why—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why what, husband?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>will</em> consent to: Josephine shall be yours to do
+with just as you please.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, then, good night,” said she, pointing to the door.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The clock was striking twelve the next day when Mr.
+Winslow came, and Josephine ushered him into the invalid’s
+presence.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>“You may leave us alone for a while, Josephine,” she said.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the state of the property you still hold for me, Mr
+Winslow?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It is half invested in real estate in Northern cities, and
+half in special deposits of gold in Northern banks.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! Then you must have sent it North long before
+these troubles began.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, more than four years ago,—soon after the Nashville
+Convention.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the amount in your hands?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Half a million; probably it will be seven hundred thousand,
+if gold should rise, as I think it will.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And how much, Mr. Winslow, of the property, my father
+left me has gone to Mr. Ratcliff?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“More than three millions.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m aware of that, Mr. Winslow. It is not so much a
+will as a series of requests I’ve to make.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I see you understand it, madam. The memoranda you
+give me I will embody in the form of a will of my own.
+Proceed!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Put down,” said the invalid, “a hundred thousand for the
+Orphan Asylum.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A hundred thousand to the Lying-in Hospital.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>“Nothing could be more proper. Proceed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A hundred thousand to the fund for the Sisters of Charity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! those dear sisters! Bless you for remembering them,
+madam.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A hundred thousand to be distributed in sums of five thousand
+severally to the persons whose names I have here written
+down.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>She handed him a sheet of paper containing the names, and
+he transcribed them carefully.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of course. Their owner could at once appropriate any
+sum you might leave to them, even though it were a million
+of dollars.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You have now heard all I have to say, Mr. Winslow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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: ‘<em>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.</em>’ The autograph will have no legal force, but it
+may serve to satisfy your husband.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The lady wrote, and handed back the paper.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good!” said Winslow. “Before taking another meal, I
+will draw up and sign a will by which your requests can be
+made effectual.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The task he put upon me has been a very simple one,
+madam. Good by. We shall soon meet again, I hope.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. I shall be quite well of my heart-complaint <em>then</em>.
+Good by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Hardly had Winslow left the house than Ratcliff drove up
+and entered. He was in a jubilant mood. News had just been
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>eau de Cologne</i></span>; 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff started forward, and satisfied himself that his wife
+was really dead. Then he looked up at Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>his</em> slave!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>But Clara,—what of <em>her</em>? Mrs. Ratcliff’s sudden death
+seemed to shatter the last barrier between her and danger.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Once more he turned on Clara that look from which she had
+twice before shrunk dismayed and exasperated.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>After he had gone, “Help me to escape at once!” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXIII.<br />SATAN AMUSES HIMSELF</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“We can die;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And, dying nobly, though we leave behind us</div>
+      <div class='line'>These clods of flesh, that are too massy burdens,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Our living souls fly crowned with living conquests.”</div>
+      <div class='line in25'><cite>Beaumont and Fletcher.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>beeyownd</em> for <em>bounds</em> and <em>neeyow</em> for
+<em>now</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>While Vance was meditating on his arrangements, a card
+was brought to him. It bore the name “Simon Winslow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Show him in,” said Vance to the servant.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>As Simon entered, Vance recognized him as the individual
+who had aided him the day of the rescue of Quattles from the
+mob.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There’s a sort of freemasonry, Mr. Vance,” said Winslow,
+“that assures me I may trust you. Your sympathies, sir, are
+with the Union.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Wary and suspicious, Vance bowed, but made no reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Enough, Mr. Winslow! I’ll trust your threescore years
+and your loyal face. Tell me what I can do for you. Be
+seated.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of what Mrs. Ratcliff?” inquired Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mrs. Carberry Ratcliff. By her death I become the
+legally irresponsible, and therefore all the more <em>morally</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But her husband will never consent to it!” interposed
+Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>quasi</i></span>
+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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I know something of the man’s temper,” said Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Winslow obeyed, and Vance, opening his parlor door, met
+Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, cousin,” asked Vance, “are you all ready? You
+look pale, man! What’s the matter?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; it almost does her justice. Could you draw out from
+the Tremaines no remark which would afford a further clew?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>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.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! what could that mean?” exclaimed Vance, thoughtfully.
+“Can that story of a paternal Brown be all a lie?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here there was a low knock at the door. Vance opened it,
+and there stood Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come in!” said Vance, grasping him by the hand, drawing
+him in, and closing the door. “What news?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Kenrick put out his hand with a face so glowing with a
+cordial respect that Peek could not resist the proffer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“None, Mr. Vance. I think they cannot be in Texas.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then what of Colonel Delancy Hyde?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The Colonel was said to have attached himself to the fortunes
+of General Van Dorn. That’s all I could find out about
+Hyde.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where shall I find Captain Onslow of the Confederate
+army?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>“I’ve terrible news for him,” said Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What has happened?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. Good Heavens! Is old Onslow among the victims?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He and his whole family—wife, son, and daughter—have
+been slain by the Confederate agents.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I cut off those strands of hair, thinking that Captain Onslow
+might prize them,” said Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You did well,” remarked Vance. “And since you have
+authority to permit it, I will read this letter.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>He then read aloud as follows:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Stricken down by a death-wound, I write this. When it</div>
+      <div class='line'>reaches you, my son, you will be the last survivor of your</div>
+      <div class='line'>family. The faithful negro who bears this letter will tell you</div>
+      <div class='line'>all. You may rely on what he says. This crafty, this Satanic</div>
+      <div class='line'>Slave Power has—I can use the pen no longer. But I</div>
+      <div class='line'>can dictate. The negro must be my amanuensis.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>And then, in a different handwriting, the letter proceeded:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This Slave Power, which, for many weeks past, has been
+hunting down and hanging Union men, has at last laid its
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>bloody hand on our innocent household. Should you meet
+Colonel A. J. Hamilton,<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c014'><sup>[34]</sup></a> he will tell you something of what
+the pro-slavery butchers have been doing.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Jeff Davis, I hear, has just joined the church. Would he
+be pardoned, and <em>retain</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>a negro’s testimony
+is not taken against a white man</em>. As for the <em>marriage</em> 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.<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c014'><sup>[35]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The originators of this rebellion saw that <em>by inevitable laws
+of population</em> slavery must go down under a republican form
+of government. Their fears and their jealousies of freedom
+grew intolerable. The very word <em>free</em> 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
+<em>even less to separate from the North than to crush into
+hopeless subjection, through that separation, the white masses at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>the South</em>. 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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was silence for a full minute after the reading.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll wait,” said Kenrick, “till he gets through dinner before
+I tell him the news. He’ll need all his strength, poor
+fellow!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek reflected a moment, and then said: “Yes; I know a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There’s yet another service you can render,” said Vance;
+and he gave five raps on the door of his chamber.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The lock was turned from the inside, and Winslow appeared.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I want an agent who can write and keep accounts.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then Peek is just the man for you. Of his ability you
+can satisfy yourself in five minutes. For his <em>honesty</em> I will
+vouch.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But will he remain in New Orleans the next six months?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good! He will remain, Mr. Winslow. Go now both of
+you into the next room. You’ll find writing materials on the
+table.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>“Come to the dinner-table, Kenrick. Where are you?</div>
+      <div class='line'>Dreaming of Perdita? Or planning impracticable victories</div>
+      <div class='line'>for your Yankee friends? Come and join me in a bottle of</div>
+      <div class='line'>claret. It may be our last together. Only think of it, my</div>
+      <div class='line'>dear fellow, I am to be made a Colonel! But that will not</div>
+      <div class='line'>please you. Sink politics! We will ignore all that is disagreeable.</div>
+      <div class='line'>There shall be no slavery,—no Rebeldom,—no</div>
+      <div class='line'>Yankeedom. All shall be Arcadian. We will talk over old</div>
+      <div class='line'>times, and compare notes in regard to Perdita. I don’t believe</div>
+      <div class='line'>you are a tenth part as much in love as I am. Where has the</div>
+      <div class='line'>enchantress gone? ‘O matchless sweetness! whither art thou</div>
+      <div class='line'>vanished? O thou fair soul of all thy sex! what paradise hast</div>
+      <div class='line'>thou enriched and blessed?’ Come, Kenrick, come; if only</div>
+      <div class='line'>for auld lang syne, come and chat with me; for the day of</div>
+      <div class='line'>action draws near, when there shall be no more chatting!”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’d rather face a battery than do it; but it must be done.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>At the same moment Winslow and the negro entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ve arranged everything with Peek,” said the old man.
+“I’ve placed in his hands funds which I think will be sufficient.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek carefully noted down dates and amounts in a memorandum-book,
+and then remarked, “Now I must see Captain
+Onslow.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Give me that letter from his father, and I will myself
+deliver it,” said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I promised to see him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That you can do this evening.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek gave up the letter, and Kenrick darted out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Turning to Vance and Winslow, Peek remarked: “I thank
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>you for your confidence, gentlemen. I’ll do my best to deserve
+it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek compared watches with Vance, promised to be punctual,
+and took his leave.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Though I’ve been a planter and owned slaves, I must
+say <em>no</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then a revolver would rather be a danger than a security.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Vance thrust the pistols into the side pockets of his
+own coat.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Dinner was brought in.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Such a sentiment would better become a man of my age
+than of yours,” replied Winslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Excellent!” said Vance. “For reaching the very sublime
+of the superficial, commend me to De Bow or to the
+Chevalier Maury.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Before the dinner was over, each man felt that the day had
+not been unprofitable, since he had earned a friend.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXIV.<br />LIGHT FROM THE PIT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“There’s not a breathing of the common wind</div>
+      <div class='line'>That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Thy friends are exultations, agonies,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And love, and Man’s unconquerable mind.”—<cite>Wordsworth.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But how grave and pale you look, Charles!” said Onslow.
+“What the deuce is the matter? Come on! <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Absit atra cura!</i></span>
+Begone, dull care! Toss off that glass of claret, or Robson
+will scorn you as a skulker.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Kenrick could not force a smile. He touched his lips with
+the claret.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You will take soup?” inquired Onslow. “It is tomato,
+and very good.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What you please, I’m not hungry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow ordered the servant to bring a plate of soup. Kenrick
+stirred it a moment, tasted, then pushed it from him. Its
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>color reminded him of the precious blood, dear to his friend,
+which had been so ruthlessly shed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A plate of pompinoe,” said Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The dainty fish was put before Kenrick, and he broke it into
+morsels with his fork, then told the servant to take it away.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But you’ve no appetite,” complained Onslow. “Is it the
+Perdita?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Kenrick shook his head mournfully.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is it Bull Run?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did I not promise there should be no politics? Nevertheless,
+expound.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Isn’t it a pity, Robson, that so good a fellow as Charles
+should be so bitter an Abolitionist?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“As I live,” cried Onslow, “there’s a tear in his eye!
+What does it mean, Charley?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>“If it is a tear, respect its sanctity,” replied Kenrick, gravely.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>No sooner had he gone than Kenrick said: “Let us adjourn
+to your room. I have something to say to you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>In silence the friends passed out of the hall and up-stairs
+into Onslow’s sleeping apartment.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Charles, your hate of the Confederacy grows morbid. Let
+it not make us private as well as public enemies.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Robert, we shall be faster friends than ever.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Kenrick affectionately threw his arms round his friend
+and pressed him to his breast.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But what does this mean, Charles?” cried Onslow.
+“There’s a terrible pity in your eyes. Explain it, I beseech
+you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” sighed Kenrick. “From their graves they beg it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>At last, as if bracing himself to an effort that tore his very
+heart-strings, he rose and said, “Now, Charles, tell me all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where can I see this negro?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He will be here at the hotel this evening,” replied Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And what,—what,” said Onslow hesitatingly, “what did
+they do with my father?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“They hung him on the same tree with your brother.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” said Onslow, with a calmness more terrible than a
+frantic grief. “Yes! Of course his gray hairs were no protection.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was a pause; and then, “What do you mean to do?”
+said Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you doubt?” exclaimed Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>defending</em>
+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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Omnium brevissima
+recta!</i></span> 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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Then, rising, he said, “Kenrick, your hand!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>Slavedom, for the crime of being true to their country’s
+flag.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>me</em>,—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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>No!</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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. ‘<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Delenda est!</i></span>’ is now and henceforth
+my motto!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>Kenrick clasped his proffered hand, and, looking up, said, “So
+prosper us, Almighty Disposer, as we are true to the promises
+of this hour!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Charles,” said Onslow, “I did not think that Perdita would
+so soon have her prayer granted.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you mean?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, the first opportunity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That opportunity will be this very night.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Be patient. We shall live to see the old flag wave resplendent
+over free and regenerated Texas.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Time flies,” said Kenrick. “Have you any preparations
+to make?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>“Yes, a few bills to pay and a few letters to write.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you despatch all your work by quarter to nine?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sooner, if need be.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is it possible? I supposed him an ultra Secessionist.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He has a stronger personal cause than even you to strike
+at slavery.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can that be? Well, he shall find me no tame ally. Do
+you know, Charles, you resemble him personally?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, there’s good reason for it. We are cousins.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Be firm,—be prudent, my friend,” said Kenrick. “And
+now good by till we meet again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow pressed Kenrick’s proffered hand, and replied, “You
+shall find me punctual.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXV.<br />THE COMMITTEE ADJOURNS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Why now, blow, wind; swell, billow; and swim, bark!</div>
+      <div class='line'>The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.”—<cite>Shakspeare.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The negro who is to drive us,” said Vance, “is the man
+to whom your father confided his last messages.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah!” exclaimed Onslow; “let me be with him. Let me
+learn from him all I can!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“All right,” said he. “Peek is punctually on the spot.
+Does that carpet-bag contain all your baggage, Mr. Onslow?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>“Yes, and I can dispense with even this, if you desire it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dis am massa’s turn-out, an’ nobody else’s, sure,” said
+Peek, disguising his voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, who’s massa?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Massa’s de owner ob dis carriage. Thar, yer’v got it. So
+dry up, ole feller!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pooh! Everybody in New Orleans knows me,” said
+Winslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I can’t help that, sir,” said the detective, laying his hand
+on the old man’s shoulder, “I must insist on your letting—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<em>Did</em> he?” cried Onslow. “Was he, then, more anxious
+that I should know all, than that he himself should escape?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you see it done?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And my mother,” asked Onslow. “Was there any hope?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>“None whatever, sir. She was undoubtedly dead.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Peek, you have a claim upon me henceforth. At present
+I’ve but little money with me, but what I have you must take.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Onslow said no more. For the first time in his life he felt
+that a negro could be a gentleman and his equal.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That I do cheerfully, sir. Here we are close by the
+steam-tug.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Never fear for me, Mr. Vance. I could leave the horses
+and run, in case of need. Do not forget the telegraph wires.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well thought of, Peek! Farewell!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>They interchanged a quick, strong grasp of the hand, and
+Peek jumped on the box and drove off.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The next moment he cast off the hawser and leaped on
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Captain Payson took up his speaking-trumpet, and replied:
+“Come and stop it yourself, you blasted bawler!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“By order of the Confederate authorities I call on you to
+stop that boat,” screamed the officer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The Confederate authorities may go to hell!” returned old
+Payson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The retort of the officer was lost in the mingled uproar of
+winds and waves.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>It had been also resolved to summon Charles Kenrick before
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>the conclave, and an officer had been sent to the hotel for that
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Does any one know,” asked Semmes, “whether Captain
+Onslow has yet got the news of this terrible disaster to his
+family in Texas?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why should it?” inquired Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He must be a spooney to let it make any difference,” said
+Sanderson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s a fact,” responded George Sanderson, who was getting
+thirsty, and adhered to Robson as to the genius of good
+liquor.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Old Onslow deserved his fate,” said Mr. Curry, a fiery little
+man, resembling Vice-President Stephens.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To be sure he deserved it!” returned Robson. “And so
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let us have no half-way measures!” exclaimed Robson.
+“We can’t check feminine treason by sprinkling rose-water.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The rankest Abolitionists are among the women,” interposed
+Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It will do very well for you and the bishops,” replied Robson,
+“to tell the <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>hoi polloi</i></span>,—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 <em>might makes right</em>, and on no other.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s the talk,” said Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is it quite prudent to make such declarations?” asked Mr.
+Polk, in a deprecatory tone.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>“Is there any one here, sir, you want to hoodwink?” returned
+Robson.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O no, no!” replied Mr. Polk. “I presume we are all
+qualified to understand the esoteric meaning of the Rebellion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Which way has it gone?” asked Semmes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Down the river. Probably to Pass à l’Outre.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Telegraph to the forts to intercept her,” said Semmes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Before Robson’s proposition was carried into effect, an
+errand-boy from the telegraph-office brought Semmes this
+letter:—</p>
+
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span></div>
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c023'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Yours,</div>
+      <div class='line in11'><span class='sc'>Ratcliff</span>.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘Tous les méchants sont buveurs d’eau;</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">C’est bien prouvé par le déluge!’</span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c018'>Which, for Sanderson’s benefit, I will translate:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘Who are the wicked? Why, water-drinkers!</div>
+      <div class='line'>The deluge proves it to all right thinkers.’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>Leaving the trio over their cups, let us follow the enraged
+Ratcliff in his adventures subsequent to his letter to Semmes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>“What’s that? Drinks, I suppose!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No. He’s a terrible Abolitionist.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So much the better! We shall all be Abolitionists before
+this war is ended. ’T is the only way to end it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good, my Commodore! Such sentiments from men in
+your position will do as much as rifled cannon for the cause.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“More, Mr. Vance, more! And now duty calls me off. Your
+men, sir, shall be provided for. Good by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Commodore,” said Ratcliff, “’t is important I should have a
+few words with you immediately.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, sir, be quick about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Commodore, I have long known you by reputation as a
+man of honor. I have often heard Commodore Tatnall—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The damned old traitor! Well sir?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I beg pardon; I supposed you and Tatnall were intimate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I beg pardon, Commodore. As I was saying, we know
+you to be a gentleman—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It’s necessary I should return at once to New Orleans.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! How do you propose to get there?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When you hear my story, you’ll give me the facilities.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Don’t flatter yourself. I shall do no such thing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But, Commodore, I came out in pursuit of an unfaithful
+agent, who was running off with my property.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hark you, sir, when you speak in those terms of Simon
+Winslow, you lie, and deserve the cat.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXVI.<br />THE OCCUPANT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“They forbore to break the chain</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Which bound the dusky tribe,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Checked by the owner’s fierce disdain,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Lured by ‘Union’ as the bribe.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Destiny sat by and said,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>‘Pang for pang your seed shall pay;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Hide in false peace your coward head,—</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>I bring round the harvest-day.’”</div>
+      <div class='line in26'><cite>R. W. Emerson.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I would have you lead public opinion, Mr. President, instead
+of waiting for public opinion to lead you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Impossible! The public are not ripe for any such extreme
+measure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, sir, speak your mind freely. I love sincerity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I think not, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But are you a prophet, Mr. Vance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>carte blanche</i></span> to enlist as many negroes as I can
+for the war.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps,—but I don’t see my way clear to do it yet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I am not a great man, Mr. Vance,” said the President,
+with unaffected <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>naïveté</i></span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I believe your intentions are good and great, Mr. President,”
+was the reply; “for what you supremely desire is, to do
+your duty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I claim that much. Thank you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Would not a proclamation of emancipation from Abraham
+Lincoln be much like the Pope’s bull against the comet?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>throughout the universe</em>. But the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>emancipation proclamation would not be futile; for it would
+give body and impulse to an <em>idea</em>, and that idea one friendly
+to right and to progress.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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, <em>if they dared</em>; 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>slips by, and new thousands must be slaughtered before it
+can be recovered.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, what would be your programme?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This, Mr. President: accept it as a foregone conclusion
+that slavery <em>must</em> 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! <em>The price
+paid has been already proportionate to the magnitude of the
+overthrow.</em>’ 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.”<a id='r36' /><a href='#f36' class='c014'><sup>[36]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Mr. Vance, we will suppose the Mississippi opened;
+New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, and Richmond captured,—the
+Rebellion on its last legs;—what then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>peccavi</i></span>, and offers to give in, I would say to the people of
+the Rebel States: ‘<em>First</em>, Slavery, the cause of this war, must
+be surrendered, to be disposed of at the discretion of the victors.
+<em>Secondly</em>, you must so modify your constitutions that
+Slavery can never be re-established among you. <em>Thirdly</em>,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>every anti-republican feature in your State governments must
+be abandoned. <em>Fourthly</em>, every loyal man must be restored
+to the property and the rights you may have robbed him of.
+<em>Fifthly</em>, no man offensively implicated in the Rebellion must
+represent any State in Congress. <em>Sixthly</em>, 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And could we reconcile such a course with a due regard to
+law?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But you say nothing of <a id='corr355.18'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='confiscation,” Mr. Vance'>confiscation, Mr. Vance.”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_355.18'><ins class='correction' title='confiscation,” Mr. Vance'>confiscation, Mr. Vance.”</ins></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Undoubtedly, Mr. Vance, the interests of the masses, North
+and South, are identical.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That is true, Mr. President, but it is what the Rebel leaders
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>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 <span lang="it" xml:lang="it"><i>dilettanti</i></span> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What should we do with the blacks after we had freed
+them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let them alone! Let them do for themselves. The difficulties
+in the way are all those of the imagination.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I like the moderation of your views as to confiscation.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O no! I delight to meet with men who come to me,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Robert Onslow and Charles Kenrick.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The President drew from his pocket a memorandum-book
+and hastily wrote a line or two. Vance rose to take his leave.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. President,” said he, “I thank you for this interview.
+But there’s one thing in which you’ve disappointed me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! you think me rather a slow coach, eh?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; but that wasn’t what I alluded to.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“From what I’ve read about you in the newspapers, I
+expected to have to hear one of your stories.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A smile full of sweetness and <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>bonhommie</i></span> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance resumed his seat.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>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!’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And what did the old ’coon say to that?” asked Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The old ’coon begged to be excused, protesting that he had
+experienced quite enough of the charms of office.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The President held out his hand. Vance pressed it with a
+respectful cordiality, and withdrew from the White House.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXVII.<br />COMPARING NOTES.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“But thou art fled,...</div>
+      <div class='line'>Like some frail exhalation which the dawn</div>
+      <div class='line'>Robes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled;</div>
+      <div class='line'>The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The child of grace and genius!”</div>
+      <div class='line in31'><cite>Shelley.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was a knock at the door, and Vance entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How is our cavalry captain to-day?” he asked cheerily.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Better and better, my dear Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me feel of his pulse. Excellent! Firm, regular!
+Appetite?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Improving daily. He ate two boiled eggs and a lamb chop
+for breakfast, not to speak of a slice of aerated bread.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. Vance, I’ve been pondering the strange story of your
+life; your interview with my father on board the Pontiac; the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, by certain marks on her person. She at once recognized
+the little sleeve-button I got from Quattles.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Please let me look at it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ha, Lieutenant! What’s the news?” exclaimed Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Impossible!” said Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Again I say, impossible,” quoth Vance. “Something like
+it perhaps, but not this. How could she have come by it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Cousin,” replied Kenrick, “I’m quick to detect slight differences
+of color, and in this case I’m sure.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>this</em>, Robert?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why do you ask with so much interest?” inquired Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Because that same button I’ve seen worn by Perdita.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now I know you’re raving,” said Vance; “for, till now, it
+hasn’t been out of my pocket since Quattles gave it me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; her nurse identifies it. Undoubtedly it is one of a
+pair worn by poor little Clara.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>“Then,” said Kenrick, with the emphasis of sudden conviction,
+“Clara and Perdita are one and the same!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A slave!” gasped Kenrick, struck to the heart by the
+cruel word, and turning pale.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No!” replied Kenrick. “Coral of that color is what you
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What letters?” exclaimed Vance, fiercely, arresting Kenrick’s
+hand so he could not examine the button.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The letters C. A. B.,” replied Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Tell me, Captain,” said Vance to Onslow, “did you ever
+notice in Perdita any physical peculiarity, in which she differed
+from most other persons?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Enough, Captain!” interrupted Vance. “I see you did
+not detect the peculiarity to which I allude. Now tell me,
+cousin, how was it with <em>you</em>? Were you more penetrating?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I think I know to what you refer,” replied Kenrick. “Her
+eyes were of different colors; one a rich dark blue, the other
+gray.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Fate! yes!” exclaimed Vance, dashing one hand against
+the other. “Can you tell me which was blue?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span>“Yes, the left was blue.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance took from the envelope a paper, and unfolding it
+pointed to these lines which Onslow and Kenrick perused together:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'><i>Vance.</i> “You tell me one of her eyes was dark blue, the
+other dark gray. Can you tell me which was blue?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><i>Hattie.</i> “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 <em>her</em> color
+was the child’s <em>right</em> eye; to which the father replied, ‘But the
+<em>left</em> is nearest the heart.’ And so, sir, remembering that conversation,
+I can swear positively that the child’s left eye was
+the blue one.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Rather a striking concurrence of testimony!” said Onslow.
+“I wonder I should never have detected the oddity.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you remember, Charles,” said Vance, “our visit to the
+hospital the day after our landing in New York?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, I shall never forget the scene,” replied Kenrick.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Would he be disposed to surrender it?” asked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Probably not. I took pains while in New York to make
+inquiries. I learnt that his domestic <em>status</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I should not feel much compunction in compelling such a
+man to unclutch his riches,” remarked Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It will be very difficult to do that, I fear,” said Vance,
+“even supposing we can find and identify the true heir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We must find her, cost what it may!” cried Kenrick.
+“Cousin, take me to New Orleans with you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Truly I think your place is here,” said Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A servant entered with a letter. It was for Vance. He
+opened it, and finding it was from Peek, read as follows:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<div class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>New Orleans</span>, February, 1862.</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>”<span class='sc'>Dear Mr. Vance</span>: On leaving you at the Levee I drove
+straight for the stable where my horses belonged. I passed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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, &amp; 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And who is the white slave? you will ask. Ah! there’s
+the mystery. Who <em>is</em> 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.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here there was a cry of pain from Vance, so sharp and
+sudden that Kenrick started forward to his relief.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the matter? Is it bad news?” inquired Onslow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’ll finish reading the letter by myself,” replied Vance,
+taking his departure without ceremony.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Seated in his own apartment, he continued the reading:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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. <em>May.</em> But you know
+I believe in the phenomena of Spiritualism. <em>Belief</em> is not the
+right word. <em>Knowledge</em> would be nearer the truth.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There is here in New Orleans a young man named Bender
+who calls himself a <em>medium</em>. 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span>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.<a id='r37' /><a href='#f37' class='c014'><sup>[37]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,
+<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Clara Aylesford Berwick</i></span>. 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
+<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Henry Berwick</i></span>.<a id='r38' /><a href='#f38' class='c014'><sup>[38]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<em>Henry</em> is right, where did he get <em>that</em>? 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The effect upon Clara (for so we now all call her) of this
+singular event was such as to convince her instantaneously that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.<a id='r39' /><a href='#f39' class='c014'><sup>[39]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span>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, &amp;c.; die in the last ditch, &amp;c. We
+shall see. This prayer suffices for me: <em>God help the right!</em>
+Adieu!</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c023'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in12'>“Faithfully,</div>
+      <div class='line in47'><span class='sc'>Peek</span>.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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: <em>Henry Berwick</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The click of the telegraph apparatus in the War Office was
+speedily heard, putting the desired interrogatory.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Expect a reply in half an hour,” said the operator.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>before his imagination, and importuned desire. But
+they speedily vanished, and that other transcendent image returned
+and resumed its place.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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,—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“And dear as sacramental wine</div>
+      <div class='line'>To dying lips was all she said,”—</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br />THE LAWYER AND THE LADY.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“The Devil is an ass.”—<cite>Old Proverb.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_373'>373</span>of the conservatism that would impede God’s work of
+justice and of love!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And have you heard from poor Mr. Ratcliff?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He is still in confinement, I believe, in Fort Lafayette.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And how is Miss Murray?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Esha lived with me fifteen years. A capital cook,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_374'>374</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, very well. Mr. Jasper and the other gentlemen were
+very polite and considerate.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Jasper! He was the counsel in the great case of Winslow
+<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>versus</i></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I hope,” said he, carefully trying his ground, “you weren’t
+incommoded by the application.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Semmes was still in the dark.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And was Esha’s testimony taken?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To what did Esha depose?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Haven’t you seen the depositions?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O yes! But not having read them carefully as yet, I
+should like the benefit of your recollections.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Could you let me see the clothes and the account-books?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I gave them all up to Mr. Jasper. Didn’t he tell you
+so?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps. I may have forgotten.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Semmes bade Mrs. Gentry good evening.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Headed off by all that’s unfortunate!” muttered he, as he
+walked away. “And by that smooth Churchman, Jasper!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_375'>375</span>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>coup d’état</i></span> at once, if I would defeat their plottings. How
+shall I manage it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Esha, can that brother of yours drive a carriage?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O yes, massa, he can do eb’ry ting.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dar’s noting Jake would like quite so well, massa; but
+how unfortnit it am!—Jake’s gone to Natchez.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where does Jake live when he’s here?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Finding he could make nothing out of Esha, Semmes resolved
+on his second precaution; for he felt that, with two
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_376'>376</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Don’t let her do it, Esha!” exclaimed Clara. “Run quick,
+and prevent it!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_377'>377</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How do you feel now, my dear?” asked Agatha.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There! don’t get excited,” said the sister. “Your poor
+brain has been in a whirl,—that’s all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Please tell me who you are, and why I am here, and what
+has happened.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There, dear, be quiet! Lie down, and don’t distress yourself,”
+said Sister Agatha. “We’ll have some breakfast for
+you soon.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You speak of my having had a bad turn,” resumed Clara.
+“What sort of a bad turn? A fit?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, dear, a fit.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come nearer to me, Sister Agatha. Don’t you perceive
+an odor of chloroform on my clothes?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why not? They gave it for your relief.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, child, you both talk and look as if you were not in
+your right mind. So be a good girl and compose yourself.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_378'>378</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I am a prisoner within these rooms, am I?” asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“When can I see Mr. Semmes?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He promised to be here by ten o’clock.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then if I turn simple, you will think I am recovering, eh?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who told you I am crazy?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The gentleman who engaged me to attend you,—Mr.
+Semmes.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Am I crazy only on one point or on many?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But, Sister Agatha, if you were shut up in a house against
+your will, wouldn’t you desire to be free?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The door of the communicating room was here unlocked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s that?” asked Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_379'>379</span>“They are bringing in your breakfast,” said the sister. “I
+hope you have an appetite.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Though faint and sick at heart, Clara resolved to conceal her
+emotions. So she sat down and made a show of eating.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I will leave you awhile,” said the sister. “If you want
+anything, you can ring.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The key turned in the door, and Sister Agatha appeared.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mr. Semmes is here. Can he come in?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. I’ve been waiting for him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The sister withdrew and the gentleman entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sit down,” said Clara. “For what purpose am I confined
+here?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Stop there, sir! How do you know I’m a slave?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of course I am bound to take the testimony of my client,
+an honorable gentleman, on that point.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_380'>380</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Proofs? You have proofs? Impossible! What are
+they?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“God will defend the right, Mr. Semmes; and I advise you
+to range yourself on his side forthwith.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It wouldn’t do for me to desert my client. That would be
+grossly unprofessional.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Even if satisfied your client was in the wrong?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My dear young lady, that’s just the predicament where a
+lawyer’s services are most needed. What can I do for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing, for I’m not in the wrong. My cause is that of
+justice and humanity. You cannot serve it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In that remark you wound my <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>amour propre</i></span>. 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_381'>381</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then, sir, you’re safe, however angrily I may speak.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Your pin-money alone, my dear young lady, will be enough
+to support half a dozen ordinary families.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, sir, if your eloquence is exhausted, you can do me a
+favor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What is it, my dear young lady?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Leave the room.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly. By the way, I expect Mr. Ratcliff any hour
+now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I thought he was in Fort Lafayette!” replied Clara, trying
+to steady her voice and conceal her agitation.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No. He succeeded in escaping. His letter is dated Richmond.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_382'>382</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XXXIX.<br />SEEING IS BELIEVING.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“It is a very obvious principle, although often forgotten in the pride of prejudice and
+of controversy, that what has been seen <em>by one pair of human eyes</em> is of force to countervail
+all that has been reasoned or guessed at by a thousand human understandings.”—<cite>Rev.
+Thomas Chalmers.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>After she had recovered from her first shock of anger, she
+asked: “Why hasn’t Peek been here these five days?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“’Cause he ’cluded’t wan’t safe,” replied Esha. “He seed
+ole Semmes war up ter su’thin, an’ so he keep dark.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, Esha, we must see Peek. You know where he
+lives?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Missis, but we mus’ be car’ful ’bout lettin’ anybody
+foller us.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We can look out for that. Come! Let us start at once.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The two women sallied forth into the street, and proceeded
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_383'>383</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Seein’ as how jobs air scarss, Esha, doan’ car ef I do; so
+hahnd him up.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wish I’d thowt ob dat dis mornin’, Peek; for ole Semmes
+has jes done his wustest,—carried off dat darlin’ chile, Miss
+Clara.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek could hardly suppress a groan at the news.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_384'>384</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But what if Ratcliff should return?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s what disturbs me; for the papers say he has escaped.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then he may be here any moment?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“For that we must be prepared.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But that is horrible! I pledged my word—my very life—that
+the poor child should be saved from his clutches. She
+<em>must</em> be saved! Money can do it,—can’t it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Brains can do it better.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let both be used. Is not this a case where some medium
+can help us? Why not consult Bender?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But we’ve no time for talking, Peek. We must act. <em>How</em>
+shall we act?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you give me any article of apparel which Miss Clara
+has recently worn,—a glove, for instance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, that can easily be got.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_385'>385</span>“Do you mean to take the gloves to a clairvoyant?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not to a clear-see’er, but to a clear-smeller,—in short, to
+a four-footed medium, a bloodhound of my acquaintance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, but what hound can keep the scent through our streets?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“If any one can, Victor can.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not at the corner!” interposed Peek. “Go to some more
+distant stand. Move always as if a spy were at your heels.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The two women passed into the street. Half an hour afterwards
+Esha returned with the glove. There was a noise of
+firing.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Does Mr. Bender board here?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_386'>386</span>“Yes, sar, go up two pair ob stairs, an’ knock at de fust door
+yer see, an’ he’ll come.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek did as he was directed. “<i>J. Bender, Consulting Medium</i>,”
+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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“How is business, Mr. Bender?” asked Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Very slim just now,” said Bender. “This war fills people’s
+minds. Can I do anything for you to-day?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. You remember the young woman at the house I
+took you to the other day,—the one whose name you said was
+Clara?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I remember. She paid me handsomely. Much obliged to
+you for taking me. Will you have a sip of Bourbon?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Of whom do you mean?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can we not save him?” asked Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_387'>387</span>“No. His own bitter experiences must be his tutor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why will he try to deceive,” asked Peek;—“to deceive
+sometimes even in these manifestations of his wonderful gift?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can I help him in any way? Will money aid him to
+throw off the bad influences?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, and neither mortal nor spirit could make me think
+otherwise. But tell me where I shall look for her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<em>me</em>, as I now <em>am</em>, and <em>him</em> as he usually <em>is</em>. Do you
+know what is truly the hell of evil-doers? <em>It is to see themselves
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_388'>388</span>as they are, and God as he is.</em><a id='r40' /><a href='#f40' class='c014'><sup>[40]</sup></a> 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 <em>is</em>! But pardon
+me; your mind is preoccupied with the business on which you
+came. You are anxious and impatient.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you tell me,” asked Peek, “what it is about?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And is that all you can tell me?” inquired Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes. Why do you seem disappointed?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I must go. What shall I pay?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pay him his usual fee, two dollars. Not a cent more.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek drew two dollars from a purse, and offered them to him.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I reckon you can afford more than that,” said Mr. Bender.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s your regular fee,” replied Peek. “I haven’t been
+here half an hour.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_389'>389</span>“O well, we won’t dispute about it,” said the medium, thrusting
+the rags into a pocket of his vest.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the matter, mother?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Matter enough. De debble’s own time, and all troo you,
+Peek. I’se been watchin’ fur yer all de time dese five days.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Explain yourself. How have I brought trouble on Antoine?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“My poor Antoine!” said Peek. “Must he, then, suffer
+for me? Tell me, mother, what has become of Victor, his
+dog?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where shall I be likely to find the dog?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“’Bout de streets somewhar, huntin’ fur Antoine. Ef dat
+dumb critter could talk, he’d ’stonish us all.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_390'>390</span>“Well, mother, thank you for all your trouble. Here’s a
+dollar to buy a pair of shoes with. Good by.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The old woman’s eyes snapped as she clutched the money,
+and with a “Bress yer, Peek!” hobbled away.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Why, Victor, is this you? I’ve been looking for you all
+day.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Victor thanked him in another low whine, uttered as if addressed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_391'>391</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Come along, then, you rascal,” said Peek. “We can do
+nothing further to-night. Come and share my room with me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_392'>392</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XL.<br />THE REMARKABLE MAN AT RICHMOND.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Let me have men about me that are fat;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:</div>
+      <div class='line'>Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look.”</div>
+      <div class='line in32'><cite>Shakespeare.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>régime</i></span>, sick and wounded United
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_393'>393</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>hauteur</i></span> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_394'>394</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>This man could not be betrayed into the ease and <em>abandon</em>
+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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The interview between Ratcliff and Davis began with an
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_395'>395</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“She died some time since,” replied Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! In these times of general bereavement we find
+it impossible to keep account of our friends.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; may yours be as fortunate! Who is the lady?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Mrs. Davis will be charmed to make her acquaintance.
+Come and help us celebrate Lee’s next great victory.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It would suit me entirely, Mr. President.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You may rely on my friendly consideration.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you. How about foreign recognition?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Slidell writes favorably as to the Emperor’s <a id='corr395.29'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='predispositions'>predispositions.</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_395.29'><ins class='correction' title='predispositions'>predispositions.</ins></a></span>
+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 <em>indirectly</em>, 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m glad to see, Mr. President, you characterize the Northern
+scum as they deserve,—descendants of the refuse sent
+over by Cromwell.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_396'>396</span>“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,<a id='r41' /><a href='#f41' class='c014'><sup>[41]</sup></a>—can poorly disguise
+our disgust at any association with Yankees.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Gladstone says you’ve created a nation, Mr. President.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; Gladstone is a high-toned gentleman. His ancestors
+made their fortunes in the Liverpool slave-trade.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you any assurances yet from Mason?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing decisive. But the eagerness of the Ministry to
+humble the North in the Trent affair shows the real <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>animus</i></span>
+of the ruling classes in England. Lord John disappoints me
+occasionally. Bad blood there. But the rest are all right.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A pity they couldn’t put their peasantry into the condition
+of our slaves!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A thousand pities! But the new Confederacy must be a
+Missionary to the Nations,<a id='r42' /><a href='#f42' class='c014'><sup>[42]</sup></a> to teach the ruling classes throughout
+the world, that slavery is the normal <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>status</i></span> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you hear from Washington, Mr. President?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The last I heard of the gorilla, he was investigating the
+so-called spiritual phenomena. The letter-writers tell of a
+<em>medium</em> having been entertained at the White House.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The “President” rose, pressed Ratcliff’s proffered hand, and,
+with a stiff, angular bow, parted from him at the door.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_397'>397</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLI.<br />HOPES AND FEARS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“In the same brook none ever bathed him twice:</div>
+      <div class='line'>To the same life none ever twice awoke.”</div>
+      <div class='line in33'><cite>Young.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I cannot believe,” said Ratcliff, “that Josephine intended
+to have the girl escape. She was the first to plan this marriage.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<em>quadroon</em>. Now plainly she has no sign of African blood in
+her veins.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_398'>398</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Bah! I’ve no fear of that. Who, in the name of all the
+fairies, does the little woman imagine she is?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“None whatever!” exclaimed Ratcliff, affecting to laugh,
+but evidently preoccupied in mind, and intent on following out
+some vague reminiscence.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>He remembered that the infant he had bought as a slave
+and taken into his barouche wore a chemise on which were
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_399'>399</span>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 <em>cab</em>. The initials were C. A. B.
+Semmes detected his emotion, and drew his own inferences
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! One would think, judging from the trouble you
+take about it, you attached some degree of credence to this fanciful
+story.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No. ’T is quite incredible. But a lawyer, you know,
+ought to be prepared on all points, however trivial, affecting his
+client’s interests.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did you find anything to repay you for your search?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“‘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.’”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_400'>400</span>“I don’t see anything in all that,” said Ratcliff, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Really, Semmes, you seem to be trying to make out a
+case.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The force of habit. ’T is second nature for a lawyer to revolve
+such questions. Many big cases are built on narrower
+foundations.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Psha! The incident might do very well in a romance,
+but ’t is not one of a kind known to actual life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Damn it, Semmes, what are you driving at? Do you want
+to take a chance in that lottery?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have I ever deserted a client? We must not shrink—we
+lawyers—from looking a case square in the face.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nonsense! The art how <em>not</em> 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 <em>his</em> side of it,
+that he wins.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_401'>401</span>and who the Colonel was who acted as Quattles’s friend, but
+whose name I forget. ’T is barely possible there <em>may</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>yes</em> to your proposition.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<em>fail</em> in this business, Mr. Lawyer. You must help me to bring
+it to a prosperous conclusion instantly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No: do not say <em>instantly</em>. Beware being precipitate.
+Remember what the poet says,—‘A woman’s <em>No</em> is but a
+crooked path unto a woman’s <em>Yes</em>.’ 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<em>May</em> win? I <em>must</em> win, Semmes! There must be no <em>if</em>
+about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I want to see you win, Ratcliff; but show her you assume
+there’s no <em>if</em> in the case, and you repel and alienate her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The lawyer shrugged his shoulders, then replied: “The
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_402'>402</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff seized his hat and passed out of the room up-stairs
+as fast as his somewhat pursy habit of body would allow.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Thus venting his anger in soliloquy Mr. Semmes quitted the
+house, and walked in meditative mood to his office.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff paused at the uppermost stair on the third story.
+From the room came the sound of a piano-forte, with a vocal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_403'>403</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff looked narrowly to see if there were any expression
+of pleasure on her face, but it did not relax from its impenetrability.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Will you not be seated?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_404'>404</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! Is there any objection to my knowing to what
+friend you allude?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“None at all, sir. Madame Volney is that friend.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_405'>405</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! Josephine has told you, then, has she? And what
+did you say to it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I said I could never say <em>yes</em> to such a proposition from a
+man who claimed me as a slave.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But what if I forego my claim, and give you free papers?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Try it,” said Clara, sternly.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can you then give me any encouragement?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+“<em>No!</em>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>no</em> as
+much as she pleased.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_406'>406</span>“You say <em>no</em> now, but by and by you will say <em>yes</em>,” he
+replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Tell me one thing,” replied Ratcliff. “Do you speak thus
+because your affections are pre-engaged?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Inclinations may change,” suggested Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In this case mine can only grow more and more adverse,”
+replied Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>wife</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>He laid a significant emphasis on this last word, <em>wife</em>; 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>On the whole he felicitated himself on the interview. He
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_407'>407</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s your name, and whose boy are you?” asked Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_408'>408</span>“What directions did he leave for you?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“He told me to stay and wait upon you, sir, just as I had
+upon him, till you saw fit to dismiss me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What other servants are there in the house?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“One colored woman, sir, and one, a negro; Manda the
+cook, and Agnes the chambermaid.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Any other persons?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Only the young woman that’s crazy, and the Sister of
+Charity that attends her. They are on the third floor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff looked sharply at the mulatto, but could detect in
+his face no sign that he mistrusted the story of the insane
+woman.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Send up the chambermaid,” said Ratcliff.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, sir. When will you have your dinner, sir?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In half an hour. Have you any wines in the house?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, sir; Sherry, Madeira, Port, Burgundy, Hock, Champagne.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Put on Port and Champagne.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Sam’s departure was followed by the chamber-maid’s appearance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Are my rooms all ready, Agnes?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, massa. Front room, second story, all ready. Sheets
+fresh and aired. Floor swept dis mornin’. All clean an’
+sweet, massa.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now, Agnes,” said he, “tell me what you think of the
+little crazy lady up-stairs?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’se of ’pinion, sar, dat gal am no more crazy nor I’m
+crazy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_409'>409</span>“Shouldn’t tink massa would need no help, wid all his
+money. Wheugh! What’s de matter? Am she offish?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I nebber ’fuse a good offer, massa. You may count on dis
+chile, sure!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now go and send up dinner,” said Ratcliff, confident he
+had secured one confederate who would not stick at trifles.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The dinner was brought up hot and carefully served.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Ratcliff pressed his foot on the brass mushroom under the
+table and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A bottle of Burgundy, Sam.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The mulatto brought on a bottle, and drew the cork gently
+and skilfully, so as not to shake the precious contents.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you, sir, I never drink.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nigger, you lie! Hand me that goblet.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Sam, you solemn nigger, what’s o’clock?” said he.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The clock is just striking ten, sir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Possible? Have I been three—hiccup—hours at the
+table? Sam, see me up-stairs and put me to bed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Half an hour afterwards Ratcliff lay in the heavy, stertorous
+slumber which wine, more than fatigue, had engendered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_410'>410</span>taken the precaution to put a couple of bottles under his arm,
+foreseeing that it would be needed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you any objection to playing a tune for me?” he
+asked, with the timid air of a Corydon.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not at all. I can go through the whole book without
+fatigue.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Don’t think of it! What have you here? ‘Willis’s
+Poems.’ Are you fond of poetry, Miss Murray?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I <em>am</em> fond of poetry; but my name is not Murray.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Indeed! What may it then be?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_411'>411</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” she replied, starting up from the music-chair,—“the
+cause which the master must always give the slave.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But if I were to remove that objection, could you not like
+me?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Impossible!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have I ever done anything to prevent it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, much.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Surely not toward you; and if not toward you, toward
+whom?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Toward Estelle!” said Clara, roused to an intrepid scorn,
+which carried her beyond the bounds at once of prudence and
+of fear.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_412'>412</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Suddenly he went up-stairs and paid her a third visit. His
+manner and speech were abrupt.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I will not!” said Clara, in a firm and steady tone.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then remember,” replied Ratcliff, “it is your own hands
+that have made the foul bed in which you prefer to lie.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And with these terrible words he quitted the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_413'>413</span>of thy righteous judgments. Wonderfully hast thou led me
+heretofore: forsake me not in this extreme. Save now, I beseech
+thee, O Lord; <em>send now prosperity</em>! 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But you’re not going to leave me!” cried Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; I’ve been told to go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“By whom have you been told to go?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“By the gentleman who now takes charge of you,—Mr.
+Ratcliff.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But he’s a bad man! Look at him, study him, and you’ll
+be convinced.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Agnes? I’ve no faith in that girl. I fear she is corrupt;
+that money could tempt her to much that is wrong.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_414'>414</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, &amp;c. This she signed <em>Clara A. Berwick</em>. 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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No, Missis, can’t ’low dat,” said the chuckling voice of
+Agnes.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_415'>415</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r43' /><a href='#f43' class='c014'><sup>[43]</sup></a> If a <em>mistress</em> could do
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_416'>416</span>such things, what barbarity might not a <em>master</em> like Ratcliff
+attempt?</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>And where was Ratcliff all this while?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_417'>417</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Before unlocking the door on this occasion she asked in a
+whisper, “Who’s dar?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The reply came, “Sam.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s de matter?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I want to speak with you a minute. Open the door.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can’t do it, Sam. It’s agin orders.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, no matter. I only thought you’d like to tell me
+what sort of a shawl to get.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What?—what’s dat you say ’bout a shawl?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The Massa has given me ten dollars to buy a silk shawl for
+you. What color do you want?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_418'>418</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_419'>419</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There are times when a brief, hardly articulate utterance,—a
+simple intonation,—seems to carry in it whole volumes of
+meaning. That single <em>Oh!</em>—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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes,” said he, “there they are! the blue and the gray!
+Why did I not notice them before?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah!” she cried. “Here is my dream fulfilled. You have
+at last taken from them that letter which lay there.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was the sound of footsteps on the landing in the upper
+hall. Clara instinctively threw an arm over Vance’s shoulder.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_420'>420</span>The key of the chamber-door was turned, and Ratcliff
+entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>On entering the chamber, Ratcliff, before perceiving that
+there was an unexpected occupant, turned and relocked the
+door on the inside.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Now look at me well,” said Vance. “You have seen me
+before. Do you recognize me now?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_421'>421</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Suddenly, in the midst of these inflictions, Vance felt his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_422'>422</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Stand aside, Peek,” said Vance; “I have hardly begun
+yet. You are the last man to intercede for this wretch.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not one more blow, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No preaching, Peek! Stand out of the way! I’d sooner
+forego my hope of heaven than be balked now. Away!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have I ever done that which entitles me to ask a favor of
+you, Mr. Vance?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; for that reason I will requite the scars you yourself
+bear. The scourger shall be scourged.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Would you not do <em>her</em> bidding, could you hear it; and can
+you doubt that she would say, Forgive?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Vance recoiled for a moment, then replied: “You have used
+the last appeal; but ’ will not serve. <em>My</em> wrongs I can forgive.
+<em>Yours</em> I can forgive. But <em>hers</em>, never! Once more I
+say, Stand aside!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You <em>shall</em> not give him another blow,” said Peek.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Shall not?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No harm done, Mr. Vance! But you are quick as lightning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_423'>423</span>“Look at me, Peek. Let me see from your face that I’m
+forgiven.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Peek turned on him such an expression, at once tender
+and benignant, that Vance, seeing they understood each other,
+was reassured.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Clara had sat all this time intently watching every movement,
+but too weak from agitation to interfere, even if she had
+been so disposed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_424'>424</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>me</em>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>To these wrathful words, Blake replied: “Perhaps you don’t
+remember me, Colonel Hyde.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Cuss me ef I do. Ef ever I seed you afore, ’ was so long
+ago that it’s clean gone out of my head.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I don’t remember nobody else!” exclaimed Hyde, jubilant
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_425'>425</span>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 <em>is</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_426'>426</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Semmes!” he exclaimed, “what has happened? Where
+do these Yankees come from?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Butler?” exclaimed Ratcliff, astounded and incredulous,—“Picayune
+Butler?—the contemptible swell-head,—the pettifogging—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Semmes walked away, as if choosing not to be implicated in
+any treasonable talk.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Suddenly recognizing Winslow, Ratcliff impotently shook his
+fists and darted at him an expression of malignant and vindictive
+hate.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_427'>427</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Colonel Delancy Hyde approached, with the view of making
+himself agreeable.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_428'>428</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Our relations must end here, Mr. Ratcliff,” replied the
+lawyer.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So much the better,” said Ratcliff; “it will spare my
+standing the swindle you call professional charges on your
+books.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And taking a pinch of snuff the lawyer walked unconcernedly
+away. “O that I had my revolver here!” thought Ratcliff,
+with an inward groan.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>But here was Madame Josephine. Here was at least <em>one</em>
+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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_429'>429</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Follow me,” said the man, with the dignity of a true soldier.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where to?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To the lock-up, to wait General Butler’s orders.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_430'>430</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLII.<br />HOW IT WAS DONE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,</div>
+      <div class='line'>His high endeavor and his glad success,</div>
+      <div class='line'>His strength to suffer and his will to serve:</div>
+      <div class='line'>But O, thou bounteous Giver of all good,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away!”—<cite>Cowper.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <a id='corr430.24'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='super human'>super</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_430.24'><ins class='correction' title='super human'>super</ins></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_431'>431</span>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 <em>would not
+be paralyzed at the mere thought of such an act</em>!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek shouted his name, and Vance, leaping on shore, threw
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_432'>432</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“There is a black man, Antoine Lafour, confined here.
+Produce him at once.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But, sir,” said the deputy, “this is altogether against civilized
+usage. This is a place for—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I can’t stop to parley with you. Produce the man instantly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall do no such thing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Antoine, and this is Mr. Vance, and here’s the old
+flag, and you’re no longer a slave.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_433'>433</span>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Stop!” cried Peek; “where did you get those last words?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What words?” asked Antoine, showing the whites of his
+eyes with an expression of concern at Peek’s suddenly serious
+manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Those words,—‘high-tone gemmleman.’ Whom did you
+ever hear use them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yah, yah! Wall, Peek, those words I got from Kunnle
+Delancy Hyde.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where,—where and when did you get them?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Bress yer, Peek, jes now,—not two minutes ago,—dar in
+the gallery whar the Kunnle’s walkin’ up and down.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Delancy Hyde. The scoundrel stole the funds given
+to him to pay recruiting expenses.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“For which I desire to thank him. Bring him out.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But, sir, you wouldn’t—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_434'>434</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hyde, don’t you know me?” he said.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What! Mr. Vance? Mr. Vance!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_435'>435</span>“Wall, how in creation—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Berry well,” said Antoine. “Dat’s your choice, is it? Now
+tell me, Vic, hab yer had yer dinner?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The dog barked affirmatively.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Berry well. Now take a good drink.” And, filling a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_436'>436</span>washbowl with water, Antoine gave it to the dog, who lapped
+from it greedily.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hab yer had enough?” asked Antoine.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Victor uttered an affirmative bark.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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’?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I must make the acquaintance of that Charlton,” said
+Vance. “And by the way, Hyde, you must know something
+of the man.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can he read and write?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_437'>437</span>“I’m proud to say he kin, Kunnle. I towt his mother, and
+she towt him and the rest of the childern.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Who is it?” cried Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ratcliff’s lawyer, Semmes. See him crossing the street!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Captain Onslow,” said Vance, “arrest the man at once.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Five minutes did not elapse before Semmes, bland and suave,
+and accompanied by Peek and Onslow, entered the room.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I do know such a young person,” replied Semmes; “I had
+her in my charge after Mr. Ratcliff’s compulsory departure
+from the city.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well. And do you know where she now is?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_438'>438</span>“I certainly do not.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Have you seen her since she left Ratcliff’s house?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>dénouement</i></span>
+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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Darting forward, just as Vance received from Antoine the
+little bundle the dog had been carrying, the lawyer exclaimed:
+“Colonel Vance, I do not <em>know</em>, but I can <em>conjecture</em> where
+the girl is. Seek her at Number 21 Camelia Place.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>were</em> right in your <em>conjecture</em>.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>None but Semmes and Peek noticed the slightly sarcastic
+stress which Vance put on this last word from his lips.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_439'>439</span>“I will trust you with the preliminary reconnoissance, Peek,”
+said Vance, giving up the weapon. “Be quick about it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Peek beckoned to Antoine, and the two went out, followed by
+the bloodhound.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_440'>440</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>This last vehicle must be regarded as the centre of interest,
+for over it the Loves and Graces languishingly hovered.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The Confederate highwaymen had done what Satan recommended
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_441'>441</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”<a id='r44' /><a href='#f44' class='c014'><sup>[44]</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_442'>442</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLIII.<br />MAKING THE BEST OF IT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“O, blest with temper whose unclouded ray</div>
+      <div class='line'>Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!”—<cite>Pope.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>A sound of the prompter’s whistle, sharp and stridulous.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_443'>443</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, <em>born</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_444'>444</span>“His wound seems to be healing, but he’s deplorably low-spirited;
+so Melissa tells me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But he can’t help that. The poor fellow has done his best,
+and I maintain that he has talents of a certain sort.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Perhaps so, but his forte is not imaginative writing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then let him try history.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I repeat it, my dear Albert, imaginative writing is not
+his forte.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is the Major awake?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O yes! Walk in.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! Cecil, my hearty,” exclaimed Pompilard, “how are
+you getting on?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Don’t speak of it, Major. Even if we <em>are</em> inconvenienced
+(which I deny), what then? Oughtn’t <em>we</em>, too, to do something
+for our country? If <em>you</em> can afford to contribute an arm,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_445'>445</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>summer</em> months, has mystified me a little; but the ladies
+know best. Am sorry we couldn’t welcome you at Redcliff
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_446'>446</span>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 <em>remittances</em> again.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ah! my dear father, we men can make light of these
+household inconveniences, but they fall heavy on the women.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>son</em>! 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>him</em>,
+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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What <em>he</em> says, <em>I</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The hero of Fair Oaks was suddenly found to be snivelling.
+He made a movement with his right shoulder as if to get a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_447'>447</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>old blow-hard</em>, as the
+boys here in Lavinia Street have begun to call me.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_448'>448</span>“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. <a id='corr448.5'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='“Do'>Do</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_448.5'><ins class='correction' title='“Do'>Do</ins></a></span> 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!’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The unclean reptile!” exclaimed Pompilard, grinding his
+heel on the floor as if he would crush something. “Don’t mind
+such ribaldry, Major.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I wouldn’t, if I weren’t afraid there’s some truth in it,”
+sighed the unsuccessful author.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>magnum opus</i></span>,—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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.’
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_449'>449</span>Motto: ‘All which I saw and part of which I was.’ Come,
+now! That wouldn’t sound badly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>seventy thousand dollars</em><a id='corr449.18'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='!'>!”</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_449.18'><ins class='correction' title='!'>!”</ins></a></span></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nothing can be plainer,” said Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But the publisher would want the lion’s share of that,”
+interposed Melissa.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Pooh! What do <em>you</em> know about it?” retorted Pompilard.
+“If we get up the work by subscription, we can take an office
+and do our own publishing.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To be sure we can!” exclaimed the Major, reassured.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here Pompilard’s eldest daughter, Angelica Ireton, long a
+widow, and old enough to be a grandmother, entered the room
+with a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What is it, Jelly?” asked the paternal voice.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“News of the surrender of Memphis! And, only think of
+it! Frederick is highly complimented in the despatch.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good for Fred!” said Pompilard. “Make a note of it,
+Major, for the new history.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_450'>450</span>hair, as if to be put out of harm’s way in working hours, was
+combed back into a careless though graceful knot.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Walk in, Netty!” said the wounded man.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Here’s our great <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>artiste</i></span>,—our American Rosa Bonheur!”
+cried Pompilard, patting her on the head.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Hear him,” said the artistic Netty. “All his geese are
+swans. What a ridiculous papa it is!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go back to your easel, girl,” exclaimed Pompilard. “Cecil
+and I are talking business.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And that reminds me,” said Netty, “I came to say that Mr.
+Maloney is in the parlor, and wants to see you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has the rascal found me out so soon?” muttered Pompilard.
+“I supposed I had dodged him.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dodged Mr. Maloney, dear? What harm has he ever
+committed?” asked Mrs. Pompilard, in surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“No harm, perhaps; but he’s the most persistent of duns.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is he dunning you now, my love?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, all the time.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you owe him much?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Not a cent, confound him!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then what is he dunning you for?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, he’s dunning me to get me to borrow money of him,
+and I know he can’t afford to lend it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Go and see him, my dear, and treat him civilly at least.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_451'>451</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What’s the bother now, Pat? Whose mare’s dead?”
+said Pompilard.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, what of it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Maloney, leave the house.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, it’s that game yez thinkin’ to come on me, is it? Ha!
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_452'>452</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I don’t choose to keep up the acquaintance, Mr. Maloney,
+now that you are poor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That’s the biggest lie ye iver tould in yer life, yer ould
+chate!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You lie, Pat Maloney. My next-door neighbors are decent
+folks,—much decenter than you are, you foul-mouthed
+Paddy.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And Pompilard began pulling up his sleeves, as if for action.
+Maloney was not behind him in his pugilistic demonstrations.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_453'>453</span>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>She found her father with his fists doubled, and his breast
+thrown back, knocking down an imaginary Irishman in dumb
+show.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has that brute left the house?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, father. What did he want?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And in borrowing from me, you merely take back your
+own,” interposed Angelica.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_454'>454</span>“Certainly, father,” said Angelica; and going down-stairs
+into the basement, she found the persevering Maloney waiting
+her coming.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Make it a thousand, and I’ll say yes,” said Pat.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well, I’ll not haggle with you, Mr. Maloney,” replied
+Angelica.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!’”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_455'>455</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLIV.<br />A DOMESTIC RECONNOISSANCE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“O Spirit of the Summer time!</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Bring back the roses to the dells;</div>
+      <div class='line'>The swallow from her distant clime,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The honey-bee from drowsy cells.</div>
+      <div class='line'>Bring back the singing and the scent</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of meadow-lands at dewy prime;—</div>
+      <div class='line'>O, bring again my heart’s content,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Thou Spirit of the Summer time!”</div>
+      <div class='line in26'><cite>W. Allingham.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mrs. Pompilard glided into the room, and, putting her hands
+over his eyes from behind, said, “What’s the matter, my
+love?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Matter? Nothing, wife! Leave me to my novel.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Always of late,” she replied, “when I see you with one of
+these sensation novels, I know that something has gone wrong
+with you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Nonsense, you silly woman! I know what you want. It’s
+a kiss. There! Take it and go.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You’ve lost money!” said Madam, receiving the kiss, then
+shaking her finger at him, and returning to her household
+tasks.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_456'>456</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <span class='sc'>Charlton</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Am delighted to see you, Mr. Pompilard!” quoth he. “How
+fresh and young you’re looking! Your family are all well, I
+trust.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“All save my son-in-law, Major Purling. He, having been
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_457'>457</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here Charlton, who had received one of the papers from
+Pompilard, and glanced at it, handed it back to the old man.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Impossible! Who could have believed it? And you are
+now Mrs. Charlton!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, he’s a good boy, is Fred. Do you know he was a
+great admirer of yours?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The lady was suddenly absorbed in looking for a certain
+advertisement of a Soldier’s Relief Meeting. Pompilard took
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_458'>458</span>up his Prospectus, began folding it, and rose from his chair as
+if to go.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me look at that Prospectus a moment,” said Mrs.
+Charlton, taking up a pen.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I have put down my name for thirty copies,” said Mrs.
+Charlton, returning to Pompilard his Prospectus.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But this is munificent, Madam!” exclaimed the old man.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton gnawed his lips in helpless anger.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Do you wish to pay in advance, Madam?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Husband and wife were left alone.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You speak of the money as yours, sir. You forget. By
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_459'>459</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Those allowances, Mrs. Charlton, must be cut down to
+meet the state of the times. I can’t afford them any
+longer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>affording</em> the miserable pittance you allow me and my
+daughter!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“A miserable pittance! O yes! Ten thousand a year for
+pin-money is a very miserable pittance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>me</em> 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“This is the woman that promised to love, honor, and
+obey!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton was cowed and nonplussed, as usual in these altercations.
+“There, go!” said he. “Go and make ducks and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_460'>460</span>drakes of your money in your own way. That old Pomposity
+has left his damned Prospectus here on the table.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Miss Lucy wants to know if you’re ever coming?” said a
+servant.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes!” replied Mrs. Charlton. “’T is too bad to keep her
+waiting so!” And the next moment she joined her daughter
+in the carriage.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did I hear the name Pompilard?” inquired Vance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That is my name, sir,” replied the old man.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Is it he whose wife was a Miss Aylesford?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The same, sir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_461'>461</span>“Certainly, sir.” And Pompilard went out.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Claimed by a rebel and a traitor, Colonel Vance. I’m
+delighted to see you, sir. Will you be seated?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I shall be obliged to you for the interview, Colonel Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It would be proper that your confidential lawyer should
+be present; for it may be well to cross-question some of the
+witnesses.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you for the suggestion, Colonel Vance. I shall
+avail myself of it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“As there will be ladies in the party, I hope your wife and
+daughter will be present.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I will give them your message.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“That would suit me precisely, Colonel Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Then I will bid you good day, sir, for the present.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton put out his hand, but Vance bowed without seeming
+to notice it, and passed out of the house into the carriage.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>me</em>, for I am
+shorn close already. Besides, you carry the right signet on
+your front. Yes, I <em>will</em> trust you, Mr. Vance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you, sir. Your wife is living?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_462'>462</span>“I left her alive and well some two hours ago.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Has she any children of her own?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_463'>463</span>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_464'>464</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLV.<br />ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“Those flashes of marvellous light point to the existence of dormant faculties, which,
+unless God can be supposed to have <em>over-furnished</em> the soul for its appointed field of
+action, seem only to be awaiting more favorable circumstances, to awaken and disclose
+themselves.”—<cite>John James Tayler.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>femme de chambre</i></span>, though the post was also claimed by the
+unyielding Esha.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The gentlemen of the party included Mr. Winslow, Mr.
+Semmes, Mr. Ripper, Captain Onslow, Colonel Delancy Hyde,
+and a youth not yet introduced.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_465'>465</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_466'>466</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, uncle,” said Delancy junior, deeply impressed.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Fust, have yer got them air letters?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, uncle, they’re sewed inter my side-pocket, right
+here.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wal an’ good. Now tell me how’s yer mother an’ all the
+family.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Did she? Did she, Delancy? Tell it over to me again.
+Did she raally pray?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I reckon she didn’t do nothin’ else.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Try ter think what she said, Delancy. Try ter think.
+It’s important.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Yes! the old sinner had boo-hooed outright; and then, <a id='corr466.34'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='coving'>covering</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_466.34'><ins class='correction' title='coving'>covering</ins></a></span>
+his face with his hands, he wept as if he were making up
+for a long period of drought in the lachrymal line.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_467'>467</span>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,
+<em>First</em>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Here was a test in which there was no room left for deception.
+The <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>savans</i></span> can only explain it by denying it; and there
+are in America more than three millions of men and women
+who <em>khow</em> 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, “<span lang="la" xml:lang="la"><i>Si divinatio est, dii
+sunt</i></span>.”<a id='r45' /><a href='#f45' class='c014'><sup>[45]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c001'><em>Secondly</em>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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, <em>pardon</em>;
+and he could dimly see the preciousness of Christ’s revelations
+of the Father’s compassion.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Return we to the interview between uncle and nephew.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_468'>468</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What, Uncle D’lancy! Can’t I swar when I grow up?
+<em>You</em> swar, Uncle D’lancy!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Can’t I say <em>hell</em>, Uncle D’lancy, nor <em>damn</em>?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wall, Uncle D’lancy, I promised the old woman—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Stop! Say you promised mother.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Wall, I promised mother I wouldn’t drink, and I haven’t.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Good! Now, nevvy, yer spoke jest now of the Yankees.
+What do yer mean by Yankees?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I reckon not.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What! Not ef the Suth’n man’s Virginia-born?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Ain’t we down South the master race, Uncle D’lancy?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_469'>469</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Delancy Hyde Rusk, them sentiments must be nipped in
+the bud.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Uncle D’lancy. I woan’t do nothin’ else.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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,—<em>Ab-o-litionist!</em>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_470'>470</span>“What, uncle! a d-d-da—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The boy’s utterance subsided into a whimper of expostulation
+as he saw the Colonel take up the strap.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_471'>471</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLVI.<br />THE NIGHT COMETH.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud!”—<cite>Young.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span class='sc'>My dear little Granddaughter</span>: This comes to you
+from one to whom you seem nearer than any other she leaves
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_472'>472</span>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.</p>
+
+<div class='c015'>E. B. C.”</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>after</em> the mother and <em>before</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Let me suggest,” said Semmes, “the importance of having
+Charlton recognize Hyde in the presence of witnesses.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_473'>473</span>“Yes, I had thought of that, and arranged for it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And there was a vehement shaking of hands between them.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_474'>474</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We are assembled, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “on
+business in which Mr. Charlton here present is deeply interested.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Charlton, who occupied an arm-chair, and had Detritch
+on his right, bowed his acknowledgments.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Charlton and Detritch looked at each other inquiringly,
+and the look said, “What is he driving at?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The amiable bride (Mrs. Ripper) touched Pompilard coquettishly
+with her fan, and, pointing to Charlton, whispered, “O,
+won’t he be come up with?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What has all this to do with my property in New Orleans?”
+exclaimed Charlton, thoroughly mystified.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_475'>475</span>“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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<em>after</em> the father!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_476'>476</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“With interest! Ha, ha, ha!” cried Charlton, with a frightful
+attempt at a merriment which his pale cheeks belied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_477'>477</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Even on this point, sir,” replied Vance, “we are not weak.
+Here are five original letters, with their envelopes, postage-marks,
+&amp;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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly, madam,” he replied.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_478'>478</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And then, escorted by Captain Onslow, she and her daughter
+took their leave, and the company broke up.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>robe de chambre</i></span>, 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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>But why did not Charlton come up?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_479'>479</span>Why does he not come up?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Why not go down and see?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>At last she stood on one of the spacious square landings.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_480'>480</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLVII.<br />AN AUTUMNAL VISIT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart?</div>
+      <div class='line'>Thy hopes have gone before: from all things here</div>
+      <div class='line'>They have departed; thou shouldst now depart.”—<cite>Shelley.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>It was on a warm, pleasant day in the last week of September,
+1862, that he called to take leave of her.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, Massa Vance; she’ll be powerful glad to see yer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>While Vance is waiting in a large and lofty drawing-room
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_481'>481</span>for her appearance, let us review some of the incidents that
+have transpired since we encountered her last.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_482'>482</span>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”<a id='r46' /><a href='#f46' class='c014'><sup>[46]</sup></a> 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.</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>The philosophical editor, in his comments, endeavored to
+shield his beloved slavery from inferential prejudice, and said:</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”<a id='r47' /><a href='#f47' class='c014'><sup>[47]</sup></a></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>Could even Mr. Carlyle have put it more cogently?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>he was not captured in the capacity of a spy</em>; and
+every one acquainted with the usages of civilized warfare will
+recognize the atrocity of hanging a man on the ground that he
+had <em>formerly</em> acted as a spy. The Richmond papers palliated
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_483'>483</span>the murder by saying Ireton had “<em>confessed</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.<a id='r48' /><a href='#f48' class='c014'><sup>[48]</sup></a> It reminded them unpleasantly
+of old John Brown.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Whether on the gallows high</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Or in the battle’s van,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The fittest place for man to die</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Is where he dies for man.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_484'>484</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>The Colonel did not faint, but he came nearer to it than
+ever before in his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Semmes was glad to receive, as the recompense for his
+services, the exemption of certain property from confiscation.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_485'>485</span>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 <em>do</em>,” said Vance; “good by, sir!” And that was
+the end of their acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The promenaders sat down on a rustic bench.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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 <em>see</em> the promised land with my eyes, but not
+to ‘go over thither.’”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To what do you allude?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“To-morrow President Lincoln issues a proclamation of
+prospective emancipation to the slaves of the Rebel States.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_486'>486</span>“Good!” cried Clara, giving him her hand for a grasp of
+congratulation.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Thank you,” said Vance, not wholly deceived by her calm,
+assured manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“So you really mean to leave us?” she said, smiling and
+looking him full in the face. “I’m very sorry for it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes; her mother is dead, and her father has failed. They
+are quite poor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_487'>487</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“We must think of each other often,” sighed Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You must write me” said Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m a poor correspondent,” replied Vance; “but I shall
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_488'>488</span>obey. And now my watch tells me I must go. I start in a
+few hours for Washington.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“It was the bracelet, not the wrist, he kissed,” sighed Clara.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_489'>489</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLVIII.<br />TIME DISCOVERS AND COVERS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c009'>“<i>Crito.</i> How and where shall we bury you?</p>
+
+<p class='c022'>”<i>Socrates.</i> 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.’”—<cite>Plato.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Suddenly there rose up in their path, as if from the soil, two
+hundred and fifty black soldiers. They belonged to the Eleventh
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_490'>490</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><i>hors de combat</i></span> twice that number of Rebels. The gunboat
+Choctaw finally came up to drive off the enemy.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_491'>491</span>“Is your name Sterling?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Yes, sir.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Where were you born?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“In Montreal.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“And your mother’s name was Flora Jacobs, and your
+father’s—Sterling! <em>I</em> am your father!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“’T is all right,—all just as it should be,” murmured Peek.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_492'>492</span>“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 <em>you</em>. 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! <em>Your</em> mother—<em>my</em>
+mother—and beyond there, high up there—one—Ah, God!
+Tell Mr. Vance—tell him—his—his—”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_493'>493</span>
+  <h2 class='c004'>CHAPTER XLIX.<br />EYES TO THE BLIND.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c011'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Farewell! The passion of long years I pour</div>
+      <div class='line'>Into that word!”—<cite>Mrs. Hemans.</cite></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c020'>“Heureux l’homme qu’un doux hymen unira avec elle! il n’aura à craindre que de la
+perdre et de lui survivre.”—<cite>Fenelon.</cite></p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_4_0_4 c010'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Such was Lee’s plan. Its success depended on his defeating
+the Union army; and of that he felt certain.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>On the morning of that eventful Fourth of July, the ringing
+of bells and the firing of cannon roused her from slumber
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_494'>494</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“The President will soon call for three hundred thousand
+more volunteers. O women of the North!—ye whose heart-wisdom
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_495'>495</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A venerable clergyman present, the Rev. Mr. Beitler, now
+rose and gave “The memory of our fallen brave!” This was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_496'>496</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>What was the matter?</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_497'>497</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Clara recognized in it the face of <a id='corr497.11'></a><span class='htmlonly'><ins class='correction' title='Clarles'>Charles</ins></span><span class='epubonly'><a href='#c_497.11'><ins class='correction' title='Clarles'>Charles</ins></a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Certainly,” said she; “and my friend here shall hold the
+ink while I write.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I’m ready,” said Lucy. And he dictated as follows:—</p>
+
+<div class='quote'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Cousin</span>: I received last night your letter from
+Meade’s headquarters. ’T was a comfort to be assured you
+escaped unharmed amid your many exposures.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_498'>498</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I said the <em>one</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c023'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Farewell,</div>
+      <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>Charles Kenrick</span>.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c024'>“<span class='sc'>To William C. Vance.</span>”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_499'>499</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<hr class='c019' />
+
+<p class='c001'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'><span class='pageno' id='Page_500'>500</span>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, you’ve got a situation, have you?” returned Clara.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>The tears sprang to her eyes; but, alas for human frailty!
+this time they were tears of vexation.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>There was silence for almost a minute. Then Kenrick said,
+“Do you know I’ve been with you more than three months?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Well,” replied Clara, pettishly, “is there anything so very
+surprising or disagreeable in that?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“But I fear Onarock will prove my Capua,—that it will
+unfit me for the sterner warfare of life.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“O, go to your sterner warfare, since you desire it!”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>And with a desperate effort at nonchalance she swung her
+hat by its ribbon, and sang that little air from “La Bayadère”
+by Auber,—<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">“Je suis content,—je suis heureux.”</span></p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Clara, dear friend, you seem displeased with me. What
+have I done?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“You want to humiliate me!” exclaimed Clara, reproachfully,
+and bursting into a passion of tears.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Want to humiliate you? I can’t see how.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“I suppose not,” returned Clara, ironically. “There are
+none so blind as those who don’t choose to see.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“What do you mean, dear friend?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“Dear <em>friend</em> 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c008'>
+    <div>THE END.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c003'>
+    <div>Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, &amp; Co.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c000' />
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>Footnotes</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='c025' />
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. See James Sterling’s “Letters from the Slave States.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. This last paragraph embodies the actual words of Mr. Sterling, published
+in 1856.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. 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
+<em>felt</em>, though he has not <em>seen</em>, 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 <em>seen</em> and <em>felt</em> the phenomenon,
+and tested it as thoroughly as Peek is represented to have done.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. The phenomenon of <em>stigmata</em> 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. Author of “The Uprising of a Great People,” “America before Europe,”
+&amp;c.; also of two large volumes on Modern Spiritualism.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f9'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. See Alexander Humboldt’s Letters to Varnhagen.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f10'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. See Edouard Laboulaye, “De la Personnalité Divine.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f11'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. Tertullian, a devout Christian, when he wrote the following, would seem
+to have believed there could be no spirit independent of substance and
+form: <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“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;”</span>—“For
+there is nothing, if not body. All that is, is body after its kind;
+nothing is incorporeal except what is <em>not</em>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f12'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. 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.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f13'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. 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 <em>gentlemen by birth</em> 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 <em>their</em> ancestors were gentlemen, and <em>ours</em> clodhoppers,
+show the genuine spirit of the upstart and the <em>parvenu</em>. The true
+gentleman is content to have his gentility appear in his acts.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Mr. Clay of the Confederate Congress has introduced a resolution proposing
+that the coat of arms of the Slave Confederacy shall be <em>the figure of a
+cavalier</em>! Would not a beggar on horseback, riding in a certain familiar
+direction, be more appropriate?</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f14'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r14'>14</a>.  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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f15'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. Afterwards the notorious proslavery guerilla leader in Virginia.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f16'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f17'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. This prediction was merely one among many hundred such which every
+reader of newspapers will remember.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f18'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. We subjoin one of the various translations:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Yes, it comes at last!</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>And from a troubled dream awaking,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Death will soon be past,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>And brighter day around me breaking!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Hark! methinks I hear celestial voices say,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Soon thou shalt be free, child of misery,—</div>
+      <div class='line'>Rest and perfect joy in heaven are waiting thee;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Spirit, plume thy wings and flee!</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Yes! the strife is o’er,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>With all its pangs, with all its sorrow;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Hope shall droop no more,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>For heavenly day will dawn to-morrow!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Proud Oppression, vain thy utmost tyranny!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Come and thou shalt see, I can smile at thee!</div>
+      <div class='line'>Mine shall be the triumph, mine the victory,—</div>
+      <div class='line'>Death but sets the captive free!”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f19'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. The line is from the following prayer, attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">“O domine Deus, speravi in Te;</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Carissime Jesu, nunc libera me!</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">In dura catena, in misera pœna,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Desidero Te!</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo,</span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me.”</span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f20'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f21'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. 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, &amp;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 <em>proven</em> fact.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f22'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. “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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f23'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. By Dsheladeddin, a famous Mahometan mystic.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f24'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. On the contrary, Mrs. Kemble says they are cruelly treated, and that
+the forms of suffering are “manifold and terrible” in consequence.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f25'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f26'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. </p>
+<div class='lg-container-b c017'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“Beloved eye, beloved star,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Thou art so near, and yet so far!”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f27'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. 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 <em>not one in fifteen</em> 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.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f28'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f29'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. 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, <em>nineteen were
+of females</em>. We give a few extracts from this precious and authentic
+document:—</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>A United States officer from Cambridge, Mass., sent home this stray leaf,
+and it was originally published in the Cambridge Chronicle.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f30'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. See Chapter XII. page 112.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f31'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. The names and the facts are real. See Harper’s Weekly, July 4, 1868.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f32'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. 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. <em>Loss of liberty is
+no disgrace.</em>”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f33'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. Testimony of Mrs. Fanny Kemble to facts within her knowledge.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f34'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>It is estimated by a writer in the New Orleans Crescent (June, 1863), that
+at least <em>twenty-five hundred</em> persons had been hung in Texas during the preceding
+two years <em>for fidelity to the Union</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>their bones are bleaching
+in the sun</em>, and in the counties of Wire and Denton <em>their bodies are
+suspended by scores</em> from black-jacks.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>Such are the shameless butchers and hangmen that Slavery spawns!</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f35'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. “Marriage,” says a Catholic Bishop of a Southern State, quoted in the
+Cincinnati Catholic Telegraph, “is scarcely known amongst them (the
+slaves); the masters <em>attach no importance to it</em>. In some States those who
+teach them (the slaves) to read <em>are punished with death</em>.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f36'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r36'>36</a>. Our experience in South Carolina and Louisiana proves that there would
+be no danger, but, on the contrary, great good in instant emancipation.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f37'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r37'>37</a>. 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 <em>certainty</em>, not merely a <em>belief</em>.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f38'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r38'>38</a>. The parallel facts are too numerous and notorious to need specification.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f39'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r39'>39</a>. 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f40'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r40'>40</a>. The actual definition given by E. A., one of the Rev. Chauncy Hare
+Townshend’s mesmerized subjects.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f41'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r41'>41</a>. Mr. Davis’s father was a “cavalier.” He dealt in horses.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f42'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r42'>42</a>. “Reverently, we feel that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to
+the nations, with great truths to preach.”—<cite>Richmond Enquirer.</cite></p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f43'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r43'>43</a>. 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,” &amp;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—<em>she
+runned away!</em>’ 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. <em>She
+had this iron torture riveted about her neck, where it had rusted through the skin, and
+lay corroding apparently upon the flesh.</em> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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 <em>high-toned gentleman</em>, 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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f44'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r44'>44</a>. Actual words of a negro preacher, taken down on the spot by a hearer.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f45'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r45'>45</a>. If there is divination (clairvoyance), there must be gods (spirits).</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f46'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r46'>46</a>. See Mr. Jefferson Davis’s proclamation for a fast, March, 1863.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f47'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r47'>47</a>. These quotations are genuine, as many newspaper readers will recollect.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f48'>
+<p class='c001'><a href='#r48'>48</a>. 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
+“<em>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</em>.” 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.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c000' />
+</div>
+<p class='c001'><a id='endnote'></a></p>
+<div class='tnotes'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='large'>Transcriber’s Note</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c001'>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.</p>
+
+<table class='table1' summary=''>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='12%' />
+<col width='69%' />
+<col width='18%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_32.33'></a><a href='#corr32.33'>32.33</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>You have fe[e]d him, I suppose?</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Removed.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_66.13'></a><a href='#corr66.13'>66.13</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>[“]Iverson stepped forward</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Removed.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_77.19'></a><a href='#corr77.19'>77.19</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>Tender thought[t/s] of the sufferings</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Replaced.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_98.39'></a><a href='#corr98.39'>98.39</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>as high a civilization as the whites[.]”</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Added.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_199.26'></a><a href='#corr199.26'>199.26</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>know[l]edge of many good men and women</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Inserted.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_272.1'></a><a href='#corr272.1'>272.1</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>[“]She dashed into a medley</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Removed.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_355.18'></a><a href='#corr355.18'>355.18</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>“But you say nothing of confiscation,[” Mr. Vance./ Mr. Vance”]</td>
+    <td class='c026'>” moved.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_395.29'></a><a href='#corr395.29'>395.29</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>to the Emperor’s predispositions[.]</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Added.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_430.24'></a><a href='#corr430.24'>430.24</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>super[ ]human and supercanine</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Removed.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_448.5'></a><a href='#corr448.5'>448.5</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>[“]Do you know,” he continued,</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Removed.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_449.18'></a><a href='#corr449.18'>449.18</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'><i>seventy thousand dollars</i>![”]</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Added.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_466.34'></a><a href='#corr466.34'>466.34</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>and then, cov[er]ing his face</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Inserted.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'><a id='c_497.11'></a><a href='#corr497.11'>497.11</a></td>
+    <td class='c006'>the face of C[l/h]arles> Kenrick</td>
+    <td class='c026'>Replaced.</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
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