"I don't think they want to, sir. They are opposed to slavery and so are a good many of us. You have a wrong idea of the life at the North, Colonel.
You have never been North, I believe?"
"No, my dear Oliver, and I never intend to. If ever I go it will be with a musket. They have had it all their own way lately with their Harriet Stowes, William Lloyd Garrisons, and John Browns; it is our turn now."
"Who do you want to run through the body, Clayton?" asked Richard, joining the group and laying his hands affectionately on the Colonel's shoulders.
"Anybody and everybody, Richard, who says we are not free people to do as we please."
"And is anybody really saying so?"
"Yes; you see it every day in every Northern editorial --another to-day--a most villainous attack which you must read. These Puritans have been at it for years. This psalm-singing crew have always hated us. Now, while they are preaching meekness and lowliness and the rights of our fellow-men--black ones they mean--they are getting ready to wad their guns with their hymn-books. It's all a piece of their infernal hypocrisy!"
"But why should they hate us, Clayton?" asked Richard in a half-humorous tone. He had no spirit of contention in him to-night, not with Oliver beside him.
"Because we Cavaliers are made of different stuff; that's why! All this talk about slavery is nonsense.
These Nutmeg fellows approved of slavery as long as they could make a dollar out of the traffic, and then, as soon as they found out that they had given us a commercial club with which to beat out their brains, and that we were really dominating the nation, they raised this hue and cry about the downtrodden negro and American freedom and the Stars and Stripes and a lot of such tomfoolery. Do you know any gentleman who beats his negroes? Do you beat Malachi? Do I beat my Sam, whom I have brought up from a boy and who would lay down his life any day for me? I tell you, Richard, it is nothing but a fight for financial and political mastery.
They're afraid of us; they've been so for years. They cried 'Wolf' when the fugitive slave law was passed and they've kept it up ever since."
"No, I don't believe it," exclaimed Richard, with a positive tone in his voice "and neither do you, Clayton. It's largely a question of sentiment. They don't believe one man should hold another in bondage."
"That's where you are wrong. They don't care a fippenny bit about the negro. If they ever succeed in their infernal purpose and abolish slavery, and set the negro adrift, mark my words, they won't live with him, and they won't let him come North and work alongside of their own people. They'll throw him back on us after they have made a beggar and a criminal of him. Only a Southerner understands the negro, and only a Southerner can care for him. See what we have done for them! Every slave that landed on our shores we have changed from a savage into a man. They forget this."
Judge Bowman joined in the discussion--so did Dr. Wallace. The Judge, in his usual ponderous way, laid down the law, both State and National--the Doctor, who always took the opposite side in any argument, asking him rather pointed questions as to the rights of the Government to control the several States as a unit.
Richard held his peace. He felt that this was not the night of all others to discuss politics, and he was at a loss to understand the Colonel's want of selfrestraint. He could not agree with men like Clayton.
He felt that the utterance of such inflammatory speeches only added fuel to the smouldering flame. If the ugly jets of threatening smoke that were creeping out everywhere because of the friction between the two sections were in danger of bursting into flame, the first duty of a patriot, according to his creed, was to stand by with pails of water, not with kegs of gunpowder. So, while Clayton's outspoken tirade still filled the room, he with his usual tact did all he could to soften the effect of his words. Then again, he did not want Oliver's feelings hurt.
Malachi's entrance with his tray, just as the subject was getting beyond control, put a stop to the discussion. The learned group of disputants with the other guests quickly separated into little coteries, the older men taking their seats about an opened card-table, on which Malachi had previously deposited several thin glasses and a pair of decanters, the ladies sitting together, and the younger people laughing away in a corner, where Oliver joined them.
Richard and Nathan, now that the danger was averted (they were both natural born peace-makers), stepped across the room to assist in entertaining Miss Clendenning. The little lady had not moved from the chair in which she sat when Oliver relieved her of her fur boots. She rarely did move when once she had chosen a place for herself in a drawing-room.
She was the kind of woman who could sit in one place and still be surrounded--by half-moons of adorers if she sat against the wall, by full moons if she sat in the open. She had learned the art when a girl.
"If Clayton would go among these people, my dear Lavinia," said Richard, in a deprecating tone, drawing up a chair and seating himself, beside her, "he would find them very different from what he thinks. Some of the most delightful men I have ever met have come from the States north of us.
You know that to be so."
"That depends, Richard, on how far North you go," Miss Clendenning answered, spreading her fan as she spoke, looking in between the sticks as if searching for specimens. "In Philadelphia I find some very delightful houses, quite like our own. In New York--well, I rarely go to New York. The journey is a tiresome one and the hotels abominable.
They are too busy there to be comfortable, and I do not like noisy, restless people. They give me a headache."
"Oliver has met some charming people, he tells me," said Richard. "Mr. Slade took him into his own home and treated him quite like a son."
