Peculiar: A Tale of the Great Transition

“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 unbeliever,—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.