Phil observed Sam arrayed in a swallowtail coat of immaculate cut stroll by with his best girl. She was dressed in silk with full hoop-skirts, ruffles, ribbons and flowers.
Sid annoyed Sam by calling loudly:
"Doan yer stay too late ter dat party. Ef ye do I'll hatter sing fur ye—
"Run, nigger, run, de patterole ketch you.
Nigger run, de nigger flew,
De nigger loss his best ole shoe!
Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run."
Sam waved his arm in a long laugh.
"Dey won't git me, chile. I'se er conjur man, I is!"
Phil had supposed the patrol of the mysterious mounted police of the South—the men who rode at night—were to the slave always a tragic terror.
It seemed a thing for joke and ribald song.
After lunch, the negroes entered on the afternoon's fun or work. The industrious ones plied their trades to earn money for luxuries. The boys who loved to fish and hunt rabbits hurried to the river and the fields. There was always a hound at their service for a rabbit hunt on Saturday afternoons. Some were pitching horse shoes. Two groups began to play marbles.
The marketing done for the house, the mistress of Arlington, with medicine case in hand, started on her round of healing for body and mind. Mary offered to go with her but the mother saw Stuart hovering about and quietly answered:
"No. You can comfort poor Jeb. He looks disconsolate."
Into every cottage she moved, a quiet, ministering angel. Every hope and fear of ailing young or old found in her an ear to hear, a heart to pity and an arm to save.
If she found a case of serious illness, a doctor was called and a nurse set to watch by the bedside. Every delicacy and luxury the big house held was at the command of the sufferer and that without stint.
In all these clean flower-set cottages there was not a single crippled servant maimed in the service of his master. No black man or woman was allowed to do dangerous work. All dangerous tasks were done by hired white laborers. They were hired by the day under contract through their boss. Even ditches on the farm if they ran through swamp lands infested by malaria, were dug by white hired labor. The master would not permit his slave to take such risks.
But the most important ministry of the mistress of Arlington was in the medicine for the soul which she brought to the life and character of each servant for whose training she had accepted responsibility.
To her even the master proudly and loyally yielded authority. Her sway over the servants was absolute in its spiritual power. Into their souls in hours of trial she poured the healing and inspiration of a beautiful spirit. The mistress of Arlington was delicate and frail in body. But out of her physical suffering the spirit rose to greater heights with each day's duty and service.
This mysterious power caught the warm imagination of the negroes. They were "servants" to others. They were her slaves and they rejoiced in the bond that bound them. They knew that her body had no rest from morning until far into the hours of the night if one of her own needed care. The master could shift his responsibility to a trained foreman. No forewoman could take her place. To the whole scheme of life she gave strength and beauty. The beat of her heart made its wheels go round.
The young Westerner studied her with growing admiration and pity. She was the mistress of an historic house. She was the manager of an estate. She was the counselor of every man, woman and child in happiness or in sorrow. She was an accomplished doctor. She was a trained nurse. She taught the hearts of men and women with a wisdom more profound and searching than any preacher or philosopher from his rostrum. She had mastered the art of dressmaking and the tailor's trade. She was an expert housekeeper. She lived at the beck and call of all. She was idolized by her husband. Her life was a supreme act of worship—a devotion to husband, children, friends, the poor, the slave that made her a high-priestess of humanity.
The thing that struck Phil with terrific force was that this beautiful delicate woman was the slave of slaves.
As a rule, they died young.
He began to wonder how a people of the intelligence of these proud white Southerners could endure such a thing as Slavery. Its waste, its extravagance, its burdens were beyond belief.
He laughed when he thought of his mother crying over Uncle Tom's Cabin. Yet a new edition of a hundred thousand copies had just come from the press.
Early Sunday morning Custis asked him to go down to the quarters to see Uncle Ben, the butler, who had not yet resumed his duties. He had sent an urgent message to his young master asking him to be kind enough to call on Sunday. The message was so formal and reserved Custis knew it was of more than usual importance.
They found the old man superintending a special breakfast of fried fish for two little boys, neatly served at a table with spotless cloth. Robbie and his friend, John Doyle, were eating the fish they had caught with Uncle Ben the day before. They were as happy as kings and talked of fish and fishing with the unction of veteran sportsmen.
The greeting to Custis was profound in its courtesy and reverence. He was the first born of the great house. He was, therefore, the prospective head of the estate. Jeffersonian Democrats had long ago abolished the old English law of primogeniture. But the idea was in the blood of the Virginia planter. The servants caught it as quickly as they caught the other English traits of love of home, family, kin, the cult of leisure, the habit of Church, the love of country. It was not an accident that the decisions of the courts of the Old South were quoted by English barristers and accepted by English judges as law. The Common Law of England was the law of Southern Seaboard States. It always had been and it is to-day.
"How is you dis mornin', Marse Custis?" Ben asked with a stately bow.
"Fine, Uncle Ben. I hope you're better?"
"Des tolerble, sah, des tolerble—" he paused and bowed to Phil. "An' dis is you' school-mate at Wes' Pint, dey tells me about?"
"Yes, Uncle," Phil answered.
"I'se glad ter welcome yer ter Arlington, sah. And I'se powerful sorry I ain't able ter be in de big house ter see dat yer git ebry thing ter make yer happy, sah. Dese here young niggers lak Sam do pooty well. But dey ain't got much sense, sah. And dey ain't got no unction'tall. Dey do de best dey kin an' dat ain't much."
"Oh, I'm having a fine time, Uncle Ben," Phil assured him.
"Praise de Lord, sah."
"Sam told me you wanted to see me, Uncle Ben," Custis said.
"'Bout sumfin mos' particular, sah—"
"At your service."
The old man waved to his wife to look after the boys' breakfast.
"Pile dem fish up on der plates, Hannah. Fill 'em up—fill'em up!"
"We're mos' full now!" Robbie shouted.
"No we ain't," John protested. "I jis begun."
Ben led the young master and his friend out the back door, past the long pile of cord wood, past the chicken yard to a strong box which he had built on tall legs under a mulberry tree. It was constructed of oak and the neatly turned gable roof was covered with old tin carefully painted with three coats of red. A heavy hasp, staple and padlock held the solid door.
Ben fumbled in his pocket, drew forth his keys and opened it. The box was his fireproof and ratproof safe in which the old man kept his valuables. His money, his trinkets, his hammer and nails, augur and bits, screwdriver and monkeywrench. From the top shelf he drew a tin can. A heavy piece of linen tied with a string served as a cover.
He carefully untied the string in silence. He shook the can. The boys saw that it was filled with salt of the coarse kind used to preserve meats.
Ben felt carefully in the salt, drew forth a shriveled piece of dark gristle, and held it up before his young master.
"Yer know what dat is, Marse Custis?"
Custis shook his head.
From the old man's tones of deep emotion he knew the matter was serious. He thought at once of the Hoodoo. But he could make out no meaning to this bit of preserved flesh.
"Never saw anything like it."
"Nasah. I spec yer didn't."
Ben pushed the gray hair back from his left ear. He wore his hair drawn low over the tips of his ears. It was a fad of his, which he never allowed to lapse.
"See anything funny 'bout de top o' dat year, sah?"
Custis looked carefully.
"It looks shorter—"
"Hit's er lot shorter. De top ob hit's clean gone, sah. Dat's why I allus combs my ha'r down close over my years—"
He paused and held up the piece of dried flesh.
"An' dat's hit, sah."
"A piece of your ear?"
"Hit sho is. Ye see, sah, a long time ergo when I wuz young an' strong ez er bull, one er dese here uppish niggers come ter our house drivin' a carriage frum Westover on de James, an' 'gin ter brag 'bout his folks bein' de bes' blood er ole Virginia. An' man I tells him sumfin. I tells dat fool nigger dat de folks at Westover wuz des fair ter midlin. Dat our folks wuz, an' allus wuz, de very fust fambly o' Virginy! I tells him, dat Marse Robert's father was General Light Horse Harry Lee dat help General Washington wid de Revolution. Dat he wuz de Govenor o' ole Virginy. Dat he speak de piece at de funeral o' George Washington, dat we all knows by heart, now—
"'Fust in war, fust in peace and fust in de hearts o' his countrymen.'
"I tells him dat Marse Robert's mother wuz a Carter. I tells him dat he could count more dan one hundred gemmen his kin. Dat his folks allus had been de very fust fambly in Virginy. I tells him dat he marry my Missis, de gran' daughter o' ole Gineral Washington his-salf—an' en—"
He paused.
"An' den, what ye reckon dat fool nigger say ter me?"
"Couldn't guess."
"He say General Washington nebber had no children. And den man, man, when he insult me lak dat, I jump on him lak a wil' cat. We fought an' we fit. We fit an' we fought. I got him down an' bit one o' his years clean off smooth wid his head. In de las' clinch he git hol' er my lef year a'fo' I could shake him, he bit de top of hit off, sah. I got him by the froat an' choke hit outen his mouf. And dar hit is, sah."
He held up the dried piece of his ear reverently.
"And what do you want me to do with it, Uncle Ben?" Custis asked seriously.
"Nuttin right now, sah. But I ain't got long ter live—"
"Oh, you'll be well in a few days, Uncle Ben."
"I mought an' den agin I moughtent. I been lyin' awake at night worryin' 'bout dat year o' mine. Ye see hit wouldn't do tall fur me ter go walkin' dem golden streets up dar in Heben wid one o' my years lopped off lake a shoat er a calf dat's been branded. Some o' dem niggers standin' on dat gol' sidewalk would laugh at me. An' dat would hurt my feelin's. Some smart Aleck would be sho ter holler, 'Dar come ole Ben. But he ain't got but one year!' Dat wouldn't do, tall, sah."
Phil bit his lips to keep from laughing. He saw the thing was no joke for the old man. It was a grim tragedy.
"What I wants ter axe, Marse Custis, is dat you promise me faithful, ez my young master, dat when I die you come to me, get dis year o' mine outen dis salt box an' stick hit back right whar it b'long 'fore dey nail me up in de coffin. I des can't 'ford ter walk down dem golden streets, 'fore all dat company, wid a piece er my year missin'. Will ye promise me, sah?"
Custis grasped the outstretched hand and clasped it.
"I promise you, Uncle Ben, faithfully."
"Den hit's all right, sah. When a Lee make a promise, hit's des ez good ez done. I know dat case I know who I'se er talkin' to."
He placed the piece of gristle back into the tin can, covered it with salt, tied the linen cover over it carefully, put it back on the shelf, locked the heavy oak door and handed Custis the key.
"I got annudder key. You keep dat one, please, sah."
Custis and Phil left the old man more cheerful than he had been for days.
CHAPTER VII
As the sun was sinking across the gray waters of the river, reflecting in its silver surface a riot of purple and scarlet, the master of Arlington sat in thoughtful silence holding the fateful Book of the Slave in his hand. He had promised his friend, Edmund Ruffin, to give him an answer early next week as to a public statement.
He was puzzled as to his duty. To his ready protest that he was not a politician his friend had instantly replied that his word would have ten times the weight for that reason. So deep was his brooding he did not notice the two boys in a heated argument at the corner of the house.
Robbie Lee had drawn his barefoot friend, John, thus far. He had balked and refused to go farther.
"Come on, John," Robbie pleaded.
"I'm skeered."
"Scared of what?"
"Colonel Lee."
"Didn't you come to see him?"
"I thought I did."
"Well, didn't ye?"
"Yes."
"Come on, then!"
"No—"
"What you scared of him for?"
"He's a great man."
"But he's my Papa."
"He don't want to be bothered with little boys."
"Yes, he does, too. He hears everything I've got to say to him."
"Ain't you skeered of him?"
"No!"
Robbie seized John's hand again and before he could draw back dragged him to his father's side.
Lee turned the friendliest smile on John's flushed face and won his confidence before a word was spoken.
"Well, Robbie, what's your handsome little friend's name?"
"John Doyle, Papa."
"Your father lives on the farm just outside our gate, doesn't he?"
"Yessir," the boy answered eagerly.
His embarrassment had gone. But it was hard to begin his story. It had seemed easy at first, the need was so great. Now it seemed that he had no right to make the request he had in his heart.
He hung his head and dug his big toe in the gravel.
Robbie hastened to his rescue.
"John wants to tell you something, Papa," he began tenderly.
"All right," Lee cheerfully answered as he drew one boy within each arm and hugged them both. "What can I do for you, Johnnie?"
"I dunno, sir. I hope you can do somethin'."
"I will, if I can. I like to do things for boys. I was a little boy once myself and I know exactly how it feels. What is it?"
Again the child hesitated.
Lee studied the lines of his finely molded face and neck and throat. A handsomer boy of ten he had never seen. He pressed his arm closer and held him a moment until he looked up with a tear glistening in his blue eyes.
"Tell me, sonny—"
"My Ma's been cryin' all day, sir, and I want to do somethin' to help her—"
He paused and his voice failed.
"What has she been crying about?"
"We've lost our home, sir, and my daddy's drunk."
"You've lost your home?"
"Yessir. The sheriff come this mornin'. And he's goin' to put us out.
Ma's most crazy. I ain't been a very good boy here lately—"
"No?"
"No, sir. I've been runnin' away and goin' fishin' and hurtin' my Ma's feelin's and now I wish I hadn't done it. I heard her sayin' this mornin' while she wuz cryin', that you wuz the only man she knowed on earth who could help us. She was afeared to come to see you. And I slipped out to tell ye. I thought if I could get you to come to see us, maybe you could tell Ma what to do and that would make up for my hurtin' her so when I run away from my lessons this week."
The Colonel gently pressed the boys away and rose with quick decision.
"I'll ride right up, sonny, and see your mother."
"Will you, Colonel Lee?" the child asked with pathetic eagerness.
"Just as soon as I can have my horse saddled."
Lee turned abruptly into the house and left the boy dazed. He threw his arms around Robbie, hugged him in a flash and was gone. Up the dusty way to the gate the little bare feet flew to tell glad tidings to a lonely woman.
She stood beside the window looking out on the wreck of her life in a stupor of wordless pain. She saw her boy leap the fence as a hound and rushed from the house in alarm to meet him.
He was breathless, but he managed to gasp his message.
"Ma—Ma—Colonel Lee's comin' to see you!"
"To see me?"
"Yes'm. I told him we'd lost our home and he said he'd come right up.
And he's comin', too—"
The mother looked into the child's flushed face, saw the love light in his eyes and caught him to her heart.
"Oh, boy, boy, you're such a fine young one—my baby—as smart as a whip. You'll beat 'em all some day and make your poor old mother proud and happy."
"I'm going to try now, Ma—you see if I don't."
"I know you will, my son."
"I'll never run away again. You see if I do."
The boy stopped suddenly at the sight of Colonel Lee swiftly approaching.
"Run and wash your face," the mother whispered, "and tell your brothers to put on clean shirts. I want them to see the Colonel, too."
The boy darted into the house.
The woman looked about the yard to see if there were any evidences of carelessness. She had tried to keep it clean. The row of flowers that flamed in the beds beside the door was the finest in the county. She knew that. She was an expert in the culture of the prolific tall cosmos that blooms so beautifully in the Indian summers of Old Virginia.
A cur dog barked.
"Get under the house, sir!" she commanded.
The dog continued to look down the road at the coming horseman.
"Get under the house, I say—" she repeated and the dog slowly obeyed.
She advanced to meet her visitor. He hitched his horse to a swinging limb outside the gate and hurried in.
No introduction was necessary. The Colonel had known her husband for years and he had often lifted his hat to his wife in passing.
He extended his hand and grasped hers in quick sympathy.
"I'm sorry to learn of your great misfortune from your fine boy, Mrs.
Doyle."
The woman's eyes filled with tears in spite of her firm resolution to be dignified.
"He is a fine—boy—isn't he, Colonel?"
"One of the handsomest little chaps I ever saw. You should be proud of him."
"I am, sir."
She drew her figure a bit higher instinctively. The movement was not lost on the keen observer of character. He had never noticed before the distinction of her personality. In a simple calico dress, and forty years of age, she presented a peculiarly winsome appearance. Her features were regular, and well rounded, the coloring of cheeks and neck and hands the deep pink of perfect health. Her eyes were a bright glowing brown. They were large, soulful eyes that spoke the love of a mother. She might scold her husband if provoked. But those eyes could never scold a child. They could only love him into obedience and helpfulness. They were shining mother eyes.
Lee studied her in a quick glance before speaking. He knew instinctively that he could trust her word.
"Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Doyle?"
"Oh, I hope so, sir. My man's gone all to pieces to-day. He's good-hearted and kind if I do have to say it myself. But when the sheriff come to put us out, he just flopped and quit. And then he got drunk. I don't blame him much. If I hadn't been a woman and the mother of three fine boys and two as pretty little gals as the Lord ever give to a woman, I reckon I'd a got drunk, too."
She stopped, overcome with emotion and Lee hastened to ask:
"How did it happen, Mrs. Doyle?"
"Well, sir, you see, we hadn't quite paid for the place. You know it's hard with a big family of children on a little farm o' ten acres. It's hard to make a livin' let alone save money to pay for the land. But we wuz doin' it. We didn't have but two more payments to make when my man signed a note for his brother. His brother got sick and couldn't pay and they come down on us and we're turned out o' house and home. The sheriff's give us till Wednesday to get out and we've nowhere to go—"
A sob caught her voice.
"Don't say that, Madame. No neighbor of mine will ever be without a home so long as I have a house with a roof on it."
"Thank you, Colonel Lee," she interrupted, "but you know I can't let my man be a renter and see my husband and my sons workin' other people's land like nigger slaves. I got pride. I jus' can't do it. I'd rather starve."
"I understand, Madame," Lee answered.
The two older boys came awkwardly out into the yard. One of them was fourteen years old and the other sixteen.
The mother beckoned and they came to her with embarrassed step. Her face lighted with pride in their stalwart figures and well-shaped, regular features.
"Here's my oldest boy, William, Colonel Lee."
The Colonel took the outstretched hand with cordial grasp.
"I'm glad to know you, young man."
"And glad to see you, sir," he stammered, blushing.
"My next boy Drury, sir. He ain't but fourteen but he's a grown man."
Drury flushed red but failed to make a sound.
When they had moved away and leaned against the fence watching the scene out of the corner of an eye, the mother turned to the Colonel and asked:
"Do you blame me if I'm proud of my boys, Colonel?"
"I do not, Madame."
"The Lord made me a mother. All I know is to raise fine children and love 'em. My little gals is putty as dolls."
John suddenly appeared beside her and pulled her skirt.
"What's the matter?" she whispered.
"Pa's waked up. I told him Colonel Lee's here and he's washed his face and walks straight. Shall I fetch him out, too?"
"Yes, run tell him to come quick."
The boy darted back into the house.
"Johnnie's father wants to see you, Colonel Lee," the woman apologized.
"I'll be glad to talk to him, Madame."
"He'll be all right now. Your comin' to see us'll sober him. He'll be awful proud of the honor, sir."
Doyle emerged from the house and walked quickly toward the Colonel. His head was high. He smiled a welcome to his guest and his step was straight, light and springing, as if he were not quite sure he could rest his full weight on one foot and tried to get them both down at the same time.
Lee's face was a mask of quiet dignity. The tragedy in the woman's heart made the more pathetic the comedy of the half-drunken husband. Besides, he was philosopher enough to know that more than half the drunkenness of the world was the pitiful effort to smother a heartache.
The man's smile was a peculiarly winning one. His face was covered with a full growth of blond beard cut moderately long. He never shaved. His wife trimmed his beard in the manner most becoming to the shape of his head, the poise of his neck and evenly formed shoulders. He wore his hair full long and it curled about his neck in a deep blond wave. He might have posed for the model of Hoffman's famous picture of Christ. His eyes, a clear blue, were the finest feature of his personality. In spite of his lack of education, in spite of his shabby clothes, in spite of the smell of liquor he was a personality. His clean, high forehead, his aquiline nose, his straight eyebrows, his fair skin, his tall figure spoke the heritage of the great Nordic race of men. The race whose leaders achieved the civilization of Rome, conquered Europe and finally dominated civilization.
The difference between this man and the leader who wore the uniform of a Colonel was not in racial stock. It was purely an accident of the conditions of birth and training. Behind Lee lay two hundred years of wealth and culture. The poorer man was his kinsman of the centuries. The world had not been kind to him. He had lost the way of material success. Perhaps some kink in his mind, a sense of comedy, a touch of the old wanderlust of the ages.
Lee wondered what had kept him poor as he looked at the figure approaching. It was straight and fine in spite of the liquor.
Doyle's brain was just clear enough to realize that he had been highly honored in a call from the foremost citizen of Virginia. His politeness was extreme. And it was true. It was instinctive. It leaped from centuries of racial inheritance.
"We're proud of the honor you've done us, Colonel Lee," he announced.
He grasped the extended hand with a cordial, dignified greeting.
"I only hope I can be of some service to you and your family, Mr.
Doyle."
"I'm sure you can, sir. Won't you come in, Colonel?"
"Thank you, it's so pleasant outside, we'll just sit down by the well, if you don't mind."
"Yessir. All right, sir."
Lee moved slowly toward the platform of the well with its old oaken bucket and tall sweep.
His wife threw a warning at her husband under her breath.
"Don't you say nothin' foolish now—"
"I won't."
"Your tongue's too long when it gets to waggin'."
"I'll mind, Ma," he smiled.
The woman called softly to her distinguished guest:
"You'll excuse me, Colonel, while I look after the supper. I'll be back in a minute."
"Certainly, Madame."
He could not have bowed with graver courtesy to the wife of Stephen A.
Douglas.
"Have a seat here on the well, Colonel," Doyle invited.
Lee took his seat on the weather-beaten oak boards.
Doyle turned his foot on a rounded stone and set down a little ungracefully in spite of his effort to be fully himself. He saw at once his misstep and hastened to apologize.
"I'm sorry, Colonel, you've caught me with the smell of liquor, sir—"
He paused and looked over his garden in an embarrassed way.
"I know what has happened to you, Mr. Doyle, and you have my deepest sympathy."
"Thank you, sir."
"I might have done the same thing if I'd been in your position. Though, of course, liquor won't help things for you."
Doyle smiled around the corners of his blue eyes.
"No, sir, except while it's a swimmin' in the veins. Then for a little while you're great and rich and you don't care which a way the wind blows."
"The farm is lost beyond hope?"
"Yessir, clean gone—world without end."
"You had a lawyer?"
"The best in the county, old Jim Randolph. I didn't have no money to pay him. He said we'd both always voted the Whig ticket and he'd waive his retainer. I didn't know what he was wavin', but anyhow he tuck my case. And I will say he put up a nasty fight for me. He made one of the greatest speeches I ever heared in my life. Hit wuz mighty nigh worth losin' the farm ter hear him tell how I'd been abused and how fine a feller I wuz. An' when he los' the case, he cussed the Judge, he cussed the jury, he cussed the lawyers. He swore they was all fools and didn't know the first principles er law nohow. I sho enjoyed the fight, ef I did lose it. I couldn't pay him nothin' yet. But I did manage to get him a gallon of the best apple brandy I ever tasted."
"What do you think of doing?"
"I ain't had time ter think, sir. I don't think fast nohow and the first thing I had to do when I come home and tole the ole 'oman and she bust out cryin'—wuz ter get drunk. Somehow I couldn't stand it."
"You've never learned a trade?"
"No sir—nothin' 'cept farmin'. I said to myself—what's the use? These damned nigger slaves have learned all the trades. They say in the old days, they wuz just servants in the house and stables, and field hands. Now they've learnt all the trades. They're mechanics, blacksmiths, carpenters, wagon makers and everything. What chance has a poor white man got agin 'em? They don't have to worry about nothin'. They have everything they need before they lift their hands to do anything. They got plenty to eat for themselves and their families, no matter how many children they have. All they can eat, all they can wear, a warm house and a big fire in the winter. I have to fight and scratch to keep a roof over my head, wood in my fireplace, clothes on my back and somethin' to eat on my table. How can I beat the slave at a trade? Tain't no use to try. Ef you want to build a house, your own carpenters can do it. And if you haven't enough slave carpenters of your own, your neighbors have. They can hire 'em to you cheaper than I can work and live. They're goin' to live anyhow. That's settled because they're slaves. They're worth twelve hundred dollars apiece. Their life is precious. Mine don't count. I got to look after that myself and I got to look after my wife and children, too. Hit ain't right, Colonel, this Slavery business. You know that as well as I do. I've heard you say it, too—"
"I agree with you, Mr. Doyle. But if we set them all free to-morrow, and you had to compete with their labor, you couldn't live down to their standard of wages, could you?"
"No, I couldn't. They would kill me at that game, too. That's why I hate a free nigger worse than a slave—"
He paused and his face knotted with fury.
"Damn 'em all—why are they here anyhow?"
"Come, come, my friend," Lee protested. "It doesn't help to swear about it. They are here. Not by any wish of mine or of yours. We inherited this curse from the past. We have clung to old delusions while our smart Yankee friends have shifted the responsibilities on others."
"What can I do, Colonel?" Doyle asked desperately. "I don't know how to do anything but farm. I can't go into the fields and work with slaves as a field hand. And I couldn't get such work to do if I'd do it. I'll die before I'll come down to it. I might rent a little farm alongside of a free nigger. But he can beat me at that game. He can live on less and work longer hours than I do. He'll underbid me as a cropper. He can live and pay the owner four-fifths of the crop. I'd starve. What am I goin' to do?"
"Had you thought of moving West into one of the new Territories just opening?"
"Yessir. I'd thought of it. But how am I goin' to get there with a wife and five children?"
Lee rose and looked about the place thoughtfully.
"How much could you realize from the sale of your things?"
Doyle scratched his head doubtfully.
"I ain't got no idee, sir. I'm afraid not much. Ye see it's just home stuff. The old 'oman's awful smart. She raises enough chickens and turkeys and ducks and guineas to eat, and she sells a few eggs and young chickens and turkeys when they brings anything in the market. I got six sheep, a cow, a calf, a mule, a couple o' pigs in the pen. But they won't bring much money. Ye see I never felt so poor ez long ez I had a home where I can live independent like. That house ain't much, sir. But you ain't no idea how deep down in my heart it's got."
He paused and looked at it. The Colonel followed his gaze. It was a small frame structure standing in a yard filled with trees. A one-story affair with a sharp, gabled attic. Two dormer windows projected from the high roof and a solid brick chimney at each end gave it dignity. A narrow porch came straight out from the front door. On either side of the porch were built wooden benches and behind them on a lattice grew a luxuriant rambler rose. It was still blooming richly in the warm September sun.
"Ye see, sir," Doyle went on, "what we've got that's worth havin' can't be sold. I love the smell o' them roses. I wake up in the night and the breeze brings it in the window and it puts me to sleep like an old song my mother used to sing when I was a little shaver—"
He stopped short.
"I didn't mean to snivel, sir."
"I understand, my friend. No apologies are necessary."
"And that big scuppernong grape vine out there in the garden—I couldn't sell that. I planted it fifteen years ago. Folks told us we was too fur north here fur it to grow good. But I knowed better. You can see its covered a place as big ez the house. And you can smell them ripe grapes a hundred yards before ye get to the gate. I make a little wine outen 'em. We have 'em to eat a whole month. That garden keeps us goin' winter and summer. You see them five rows of flat turnips and the ruttabaggers beside 'em? I've cabbage enough banked under them pine tops to make a fifty-gallon barrel o' kraut and give us cabbage with our bacon all winter. We've got turnip greens, onions and collards. I've got corn and wheat in my crib and bacon enough to last me till next year. I raise the finest watermelons and mushmelons in the county and it ain't much trouble to live here. I never knowed how well off I wuz till the Sheriff come and told me I had to go."
"You're in the prime of life. You can go to a new country and begin over again. Why not?"
"If I could get there. I reckon I could."
He stopped short as his wife appeared by his side. She had heard Colonel
Lee's last question.
"Of course, you can begin over again. Haven't we got three of the finest boys the Lord ever give a mother? They ain't got no chance here nohow. My baby boy's one o' the smartest youngsters in the county. Ef old Andy Jackson wuz a poor boy an' got ter be President, he might do the same thing ef we give him a chance—"
"Yes, I reckon we could, ef we had a chance," Doyle agreed doubtfully. "But it would be a hard pull to leave my ole Virginy home. You know that would pull you, Colonel—now wouldn't it?"
"Yes, it would," was the earnest answer.
"You see I wuz born in this country an' me daddy before me. I like it here. I like the feel of the air in the fall. There's a flock o' ducks now circlin' over that bend o' the river. The geese are comin'. I heard 'em honk high up in the sky last night. I like my oysters and terrapin. I like to shoot ducks and geese, rabbits and quail. I like the smell o' the water. I like the smell o' these fields. I like the way the sun shines and the winds blow down here. It's in my blood."
"But you'll go if you can get away," his wife interrupted cheerfully.
Two little girls timidly drew near. Their faces were washed clean and their shining blonde hair gleamed in circles of golden light as the rays of the setting sun caught it.
Lee smiled, took them both in his arms and kissed them.
A tear softened his eyes as he placed them on the ground.
"You're darling little dolls. No wonder your mother loves you."
"Run back in the house now, honeys," the mother said.
The children slowly obeyed, glancing back at the great man who had kissed them. They wondered why their daddy hadn't kissed them oftener.
"What do you think we ought to do, Colonel Lee?" the woman asked eagerly.
"I can tell you what I would do, Madame, in your place—"
"What?"
The husband and wife spoke the word in chorus.
"I'd go West and begin again."
"But how'm I goin' to get away, sir?" the man asked blankly.
"Sell your things for the best price you can get and I'll loan you the balance of the money you'll need."
"Will you, sir?" the woman gasped.
"I ain't got no security for ye, Colonel—" Doyle protested.
"You are my friend and neighbor, Mr. Doyle. You're in distress. You don't need security. I'll take your note, sir, without endorsement."
"Glory to God!" the mother cried with face uplifted in a prayer of thanksgiving.
Doyle couldn't speak for a moment. He looked out over the roadway and got control of his feelings before trying. There was a lump in his throat which made his speech thick when at last he managed to grasp Lee's hand.
"I dunno how to thank you, sir."
"It will be all right, Mr. Doyle. Look after the sale of your things and
I'll find out the best way for you to get there and let you know."
He mounted his horse and rode away into the fading sunset as they watched him through dimmed eyes.
CHAPTER VIII
Lee had promised Edmund Ruffin his answer early in the week. Ruffin had just ridden up the hill and dismounted.
Mrs. Marshall, the Colonel's sister, on a visit from Baltimore, fled at his approach.
"Excuse me, Mary," she cried to Mrs. Lee. "I just can't stand these ranting fire-eating politicians. They make me ill. I'll go to my room."
She hurried up the stairway and left the frail mistress of the house to meet her formidable guest.
Ruffin was the product of the fierce Abolition Crusade. Hot-tempered, impulsive, intemperate in his emotions and their expression, he was the perfect counterpart of the men who were working night and day in the North to create a condition of mob feeling out of which a civil conflict might grow. Uncle Tom's Cabin had set him on fire with new hatreds. His vocabulary of profanity had been enlarged by the addition of every name in the novel. He had been compelled to invent new expressions to fit these characters. He damned them individually and collectively. He cursed each trait of each character, good and bad. He cursed the good points with equal unction and equal emphasis. In fact the good traits in Mrs. Stowe's people seemed to carry him to greater heights of wrath and profanity than the bad ones. He dissected each part of each character's anatomy, damned each part, put the parts together and damned the collection. And then he damned the whole story, characters, plot and scenes to the lowest pit and cursed the devil for not building a lower one to which he might consign it. And in a final burst of passion he always ended by damning himself for his utter inability to express anything which he really felt.
With all his ugly language, which he reserved for conversation with men, he was the soul of consideration for a woman. Mrs. Lee had no fear of any rude expression from his lips. She didn't like him because she felt in his personality the touch of mob insanity which the Slavery question had kindled. She dreaded this appeal to blind instinct and belief. With a woman's intuition she felt the tragic possibility of such leadership North and South.
She saw his leonine head and shaggy hair silhouetted against the red glow of the west with a shiver at its symbolism, but met him with the cordial greeting which every Southern woman gave instinctively to the friend of her husband.
"Come in, Mr. Ruffin," she welcomed.
He bowed over her hand and spoke in the soft drawl of the Southern planter.
"Thank you, Madame. I'm greatly honored in having you greet me at the door."
"Colonel Lee is expecting you."
The planter drew himself up with a touch of pride and importance.
"Yes'm. I sent him word I would be here at three. I was detained in Washington. But I succeeded in convincing the editor of The Daily Globe that my mission was one of grave importance. I not only desire to wish Colonel Lee God-speed on his journey to West Point and congratulate him on the honor conferred on Virginia by his appointment to the command of our Cadets—but—"
He paused, smiled and glanced toward the portico, as if he were holding back an important secret.
Mrs. Lee hastened to put him at his ease.
"You can trust my discretion in any little surprise you may have for the
Colonel."
Ruffin bowed.
"I'm sure I can, Madame. I'm sure I can."
He dropped his voice.
"You know perhaps that I sent him a few days ago a scurrilous attack on the South by a Yankee woman—a new novel?"
"He received it."
"Has he read it?"
"Carefully. He has read it twice."
"Good!"
The planter breathed deeply, squared his shoulders and paced the floor with a single quick turn. He stopped before Mrs. Lee and spoke in sharp emphasis.
"I'm going to spring a little surprise on the public, Madame! A sensation that will startle the country, and God knows we need a little shaking just now—"
He paused and whispered.
"I'm so sure of what the Colonel will say that I've brought a reporter from the Washington Daily Globe with me—"
Mrs. Lee lifted her hand in dismay.
"He is here?"
"He is seated on the lawn just outside, Madame," Ruffin hastened to reassure her. "I thought at the last moment I'd better have him wait until I received Colonel Lee's consent to the interview."
"I'm glad you did."
"Oh, it will be all right, I assure you!"
"He might not wish to see a reporter—"
"So I told the young man."
"I'm afraid—"
"I'll pave the way, Madame. I'll pave the way. Colonel Lee and I are life-long friends. Will you kindly announce me?"
"The Colonel has just ridden up to the stables to give some orders about his horses. He'll be here in a moment."
Lee stepped briskly into the room and extended his hand.
"It's you, Ruffin. My apologies. I was called out to see a neighbor. I should have been here to receive you."
"No apologies, Colonel, Mrs. Lee has been most gracious."
The mistress of the house smiled.
"Make yourself at home, Mr. Ruffin. I shall hope to see you at dinner."
Ruffin stood respectfully until Mrs. Lee had disappeared.
"Pray be seated," Lee invited.
Ruffin seated himself on the couch and watched his host keenly.
Lee took a cigar from the mantel and offered it.
"A cigar, Ruffin?"
"Thanks."
"Now make yourself entirely at home, my good friend."
The planter lighted the cigar, blew a long cloud of smoke and settled in his seat.
"I'm glad to learn from Mrs. Lee that you have read the book I sent you—the Abolitionist firebrand."
"Yes."
Lee quietly walked to the mantel and got the volume.
"I have it here."
He turned the leaves thoughtfully.
Ruffin laughed.
"And, what do you think of it?"
The Colonel was silent a moment.
"Well, for those who like that kind of book—it's the kind of book they will like."
"Exactly!" Ruffin cried, slapping his knee with a blow that bruised it. "And you're the man in all the South to tell the fool who likes that sort of book just how big a fool he is!"
Lee opened the volume again and turned the pages slowly.
"Ruffin, I don't read many novels—"
He paused as if in deep study.
"But this one I have read twice."
"I'm glad you did, sir," the planter snapped.
"And I must confess it stunned me."
"Stunned you?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"When I finished reading it, I felt like the overgrown boy who stubbed his toe. It hurt too bad to laugh. And I'm too big to cry."
"You amaze me, sir."
"That's the way I feel, my friend."
He paused, walked to the window, and gazed out at the first lights that began to flicker in the windows of the Capitol across the river.
"That book," he went on evenly, "is an appeal to the heart of the world against Slavery. It is purely an appeal to sentiment, to the emotions, to passion, if you will—the passions of the mob and the men who lead mobs. And it's terrible. As terrible as an army with banners. I heard the throb of drums through its pages. It will work the South into a frenzy. It will make millions of Abolitionists in the North who could not be reached by the coarser methods of abuse. It will prepare the soil for a revolution. If the right man appears at the right moment with a lighted torch—"
"That's just why, sir, as the foremost citizen of Virginia, you must answer this slander. I have brought a reporter from the Globe with me for that purpose. Shall I call him,"
"A reporter from a daily paper with a circulation of fifteen thousand?"
"Your word, Colonel Lee, will be heard at this moment to the ends of the earth, sir!"
"In a newspaper interview?"
"Yes, sir."
"Nonsense."
"It's your character that will count."
"Such an answer would be a straw pitched against a hurricane. I am told that this book has already reached a circulation of half a million copies and it has only begun. That means already three million readers. To answer this book my pen should be better trained than my sword—"
"It is, sir, if you'll only use it."
"The South has only trained swords. And not so many of them as we think. We have no writers. We have no literature. We have no champions in the forum of the world's thought. We are being arraigned at the judgment bar of mankind and we are dumb. It's appalling."
"That's why you must speak for us. Speak in our defense. Speak with a tongue of flame—"
"I am not trained for speech, Ruffin. And the pen is mightier than the sword. I've never realized it before. The South will soon have the civilized world arraigned against her. The North with a thousand pens is stirring the faiths, the prejudices and the sentiments of the millions. This appeal is made in the face of History, Reason and Law. But its force will be as the gravitation of the earth, beyond the power of resistance, unless we can check it in time."
"When it comes to resistance," Ruffin snapped, "that's another question. The Yankees are a race of damned cowards and poltroons, sir. They won't fight."
Lee shook his head gravely.
"I've been in the service more than a quarter of a century, my friend. I've seen a lot of Yankees under fire. I've seen a lot of them die. And I know better. Your idea of a Yankee is about as correct as the Northern notion of Southern fighters. A notion they're beginning to exploit in cartoons which show an effeminate lady killer with an umbrella stuck in the end of his musket and a negro mixing mint juleps for him."
"We've got to denounce those slanders. I'm a man of cool judgment and I never lose my temper—"
He leaped to his feet purple with rage.
"But, by God, sir, we can't sit quietly under the assault of these narrow-minded bigots. You must give the lie to this infamous book!"
"How can I, my friend?"
"Doesn't she make heroes of law breakers?"
"Surely."
"Is there no reverence for law left in this country?"
"In Courts of Justice, yes. But not in the courts of passion, prejudice, beliefs, sentiment. The writers of sentiment sing the praises of law breakers—"
"But there can be no question of the right or wrong of this book. It is an infamous slander. I deny and impeach it!"
"I'm afraid that's all we can do, Ruffin—deny and impeach it. When we come down to brass tacks we can't answer it. From their standpoint the North is right. From our standpoint we are right, because our rights are clear under the Constitution. Slavery is not a Southern institution; it is a national inheritance. It is a national calamity. It was written into the Constitution by all the States, North and South. And if the North is ignorant of our rights under the laws of our fathers, we have failed to enlighten them—"
"We won't be dictated to, sir, by a lot of fanatics and hypocrites."
"Exactly, we stand on our dignity. We deny and we are ready to fight. But we will not argue. As an abstract proposition in ethics or economics, Slavery does not admit of argument. It is a curse. It's on us and we can't throw it off at once. My quarrel with the North is that they do not give us their sympathy and their help in our dilemma. Instead they rave and denounce and insult us. They are even more responsible than we for the existence of Slavery, since their ships, not ours, brought the negro to our shores. Slavery is an outgrown economic folly, a bar to progress, a political and social curse to the white race. It must die of its own weakness, South, as it died of its own weakness, North. It is now in the process of dying. The South has freed over three hundred thousand slaves by the voluntary act of the master. If these appeals of the mob leader to the spirit of the mob can be stopped, a solution will be found."
"It will never be found in the ravings of Abolitionists."
"Nor in the hot tempers of our Southern partisans, Ruffin. Look in the mirror, my good friend. Chattel Slavery is doomed because of the superior efficiency of the wage system. Morals have nothing to do with it. The Captain of Industry abolished Chattel Slavery in the North, not the preacher or the agitator. He established the wage system in its place because it is a mightier weapon in his hand. It is subject to but one law. The iron law of supply and demand. Labor is a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder is at liberty to bid lower than the price of bread, clothes, fuel and shelter, if he chooses. This system is now moving Southward like a glacier from the frozen heart of the Northern mountains, eating all in its path. It is creeping over Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri. It will slowly engulf Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee and the end is sure. Its propelling force is not moral. It is soulless. It is purely economic. The wage earner, driven by hunger and cold, by the fear of the loss of life itself—is more efficient in his toil than the care-free negro slave of the South, who is assured of bread, of clothes, of fuel and shelter, with or without work. Slavery does not admit of argument, my friend. To argue about it is to destroy it."
"I disagree with you, sir!" Ruffin thundered.
"I know you do. But you can't answer this book."
"It can be answered, sir."
Lee paced the floor, his arms folded behind his back, paused and watched
Ruffin's flushed face. He shook his head again.
"The book is unanswerable, because it is an appeal to emotion based on a study of Slavery in the abstract. If no allowance be made for the tender and humane character of the Southern people or the modification of statutory law by the growth of public sentiment, its imaginary scenes are within the bounds of the probable. The story is crude, but it is told with singular power without a trace of bitterness. The blind ferocity of Garrison, who sees in every slaveholder a fiend, nowhere appears in its pages. On the other hand, Mrs. Stowe has painted one slaveholder as gentle and generous. Simon Legree, her villain, is a Yankee who has moved South and taken advantage of the power of a master to work evil. Such men have come South. Such things might be done. It is precisely this possibility that makes Slavery indefensible. You know this. And I know it."
"You astound me, Colonel."
"Yes, I'm afraid I do. I'd like to speak a message to the South about this book. I've a great deal more to say to my own people than to our critics."
Ruffin rose, thrust his hands in his pockets, walked to the window, turned suddenly and faced his host.
"But look here, Colonel Lee, I'm damned if I can agree with you, sir! Suppose Slavery is wrong—an economic fallacy and a social evil—I don't say it is, mind you. Just suppose for the sake of argument that it is. We don't propose to be lectured on this subject by our inferiors in the North. The children of the men who stole these slaves from Africa and sold them to us at a profit!"
Lee laughed softly.
"The sins of an inferior cannot excuse the mistakes of a superior. The man of superior culture and breeding should lead the world in progress. What has come over us in the South, Ruffin? Your father and mine never defended Slavery. They knew it was to them, their children and this land, a curse. It was a blessing only to the savage who was being taught the rudiments of civilization at a tremendous cost to his teacher. The first Abolition Societies were organized in the South. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, all the great leaders of the old South, the men whose genius created this republic—all denounced Slavery. They told us that it is a poison, breeding pride and tyranny of character, that it corrupts the mind of the child, that it degrades labor, wears out our land, destroys invention, and saps our ideal of liberty. And yet we have begun to defend it."
"Because we are being hounded, traduced and insulted by the North, yes—"
"Yes, but also because we must have more land."
"We've as much right in the West as the North."
"That's not the real reason we demand the right of entry. We are exhausting the soil of the South by our slipshod farming on great plantations where we use old-fashioned tools and slave labor. We refuse to study history. Ancient empires tried this system and died. The Carthagenians developed it to perfection and fell before the Romans. The Romans borrowed it from Carthage. It destroyed the small farms and drove out the individual land owners. It destroyed respect for trades and crafts. It strangled the development of industrial art. And when the test came Roman civilization passed. You hot-heads under the goading of Abolition crusaders now blindly propose to build the whole structure of Southern Society on this system."
"We've no choice, sir."
"Then we must find one. Slowly but surely the clouds gather for the storm. We catch only the first rumblings now but it's coming."
Ruffin flared.
"Now listen to me, Colonel. I'm a man of cool judgment and I never lose my temper, sir—"
He choked with passion, recovered and rushed on.
"If they ever dare attack us, we won't need writers. We'll draw our swords and thrash them! The South is growing rich and powerful."
Lee lifted his hand in a quick gesture of protest.
"A popular delusion, my friend. Under Slave labor the South is growing poorer daily. While the Northern States, under the wage system, ten times more efficient, are draining the blood and treasure of Europe and growing richer by leaps and bounds. Norfolk, Richmond and Charleston should have been the great cities of the Eastern Seaboard. They are as yet unimportant towns in the world commerce. Boston, Philadelphia and New York have become the centers of our business life, of our trade, our culture, our national power. While slavery is scratching the surface of our soil with old-fashioned plows, while we quit work at twelve o'clock every Saturday, spend our Sundays at church, and set two negroes to help one do nothing Monday morning, the North is sweeping onward in the science of agriculture. While they invent machines which double their crops, cut their labor down a hundred per cent, we are fighting for new lands in the West to exhaust by our primitive methods. The treasures of the earth yet lie in our mines untouched by pick or spade. Our forests stand unbroken—vast reaches of wilderness. The slave is slow and wasteful. Wage labor, quick, efficient. Our chief industry is the breeding of a race of feverish politicians."
"You know, Colonel Lee, as well as I do that Slavery in the South has been a blessing to the negro."
Lee moved his head in quick assent.
"I admit that Slavery took the negro from the jungle, from a slavery the most cruel known to human history, that it has taught him the use of tools, the science of agriculture, the worship of God, the first lessons in the alphabet of humanity. But unless we can now close this school, my friend, somebody is going to try to divide this Union some day—"
Ruffin struck his hands together savagely.
"The quicker the better, I say! If the children of the men who created this republic are denied equal rights under its laws and in its Territories, then I say, to your tents, oh, Israel!"
"And do you know what that may mean?"
"A Southern and a Northern Nation. Let them come!"
"The States have been knit together slowly, but inevitably by steam and electricity. I can conceive of no greater tragedy than an attempt to-day to divide them."
"I can conceive of no greater blessing!" Ruffin fairly shouted.
"So William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of Abolition, is saying in his paper The Liberator. And, Ruffin, unless we can lock up some hot-heads in the South and such fanatics as Garrison in the North, the mob, not the statesman, is going to determine the laws and the policy of this country. Somebody will try to divide the Union. And then comes the deluge! When I think of it, the words of Thomas Jefferson ring through my soul like an alarm bell in the night. 'I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these black people shall be free—'"
Ruffin lifted his hand in a commanding gesture.
"Don't omit his next sentence, sir—'nor is it less certain, that the two races, equally free, cannot live under the same government—'"
"Exactly," Lee answered solemnly. "And that is the only reason why I have ever allowed myself to own a slave for a moment—the insoluble problem of what to do with him when freed. The one excuse for Slavery which the South can plead without fear before the judgment bar of God is the blacker problem which their emancipation will create. Unless it can be brought about in a miracle of patience, wisdom and prayer."
He paused and smiled at Ruffin's forlorn expression.
"Will you call your reporter now to take my views?"
"No, sir," the planter growled. "I've changed my mind."
The Colonel laughed softly.
"I thought you might."
Ruffin gazed in silence through the window at the blinking lights in Washington, turned and looked moodily at his calm host. He spoke in a slow, dreamy monotone, his eyes on space seeing nothing:
"Colonel Lee, this country is hell bent and hell bound. I can see no hope for it."
Lee lifted his head with firm faith.
"Ruffin, this country is in God's hands—and He will do what's right—"
"That's just what I'm afraid, sir!" Ruffin mused. "Oh, no—I—don't mean that exactly. I mean that we must anticipate—"
"The wisdom of God?"
"That we must prepare to meet our enemies, sir."
"I agree with you. And I'm going to do it. I've been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching since you gave me this troublesome book to read—"
He stopped short, rose and drew the old-fashioned bell cord.
Ben appeared in full blue cloth and brass buttons, on duty again as butler.
"Yassah—"
"I'm glad to see you, Ben. You're feeling yourself again?"
"Yassah. Praise God, I'se back at my place once mo', sah."
The master lifted his hand in warning.
"Take care of yourself now. No more risks. You're not as young as you once were."
"Thankee, sah."
"Ask Mrs. Lee to bring me the document on my desk. Find Sam and fetch him here."