A drowsy peace lay over the magnificent woodlands, unravaged then except for firewood; the seared pastures, just beginning to show green again for the second spring; the flashing creek, the seas of still hemp and yellow corn. and Chad saw a wistful shadow cross Miss Lucy's pale face, and a darker one anxiously sweep over he Major's jesting lips.
Guests were arriving, when they entered the yard gate, and guests were coming behind them. General and Mrs. Dean were receiving them on the porch, and Harry and Dan were helping the ladies out of their carriages, while, leaning against one of the columns, in pure white, was the graceful figure of Margaret. That there could ever have been any feeling in any member of the family other than simple, gracious kindliness toward him, Chad could neither see nor feel. At once every trace of embarrassment in him was gone, and he could but wonder at the swift justice done him in a way that was so simple and effective. Even with Margaret there was no trace of consciousness. The past was wiped clean of all save courtesy and kindness. There were the Hunts--Nellie, and the Lieutenant of the Lexington Rifles, Richard Hunt, a dauntless-looking dare-devil, with the ready tongue of a coffee-house wit and the grace of a cavalier. There was Elizabeth Morgan, to whom Harry's grave eyes were always wandering, and Miss Jennie Overstreet, who was romantic and openly now wrote poems for the Observer, and who looked at Chad with no attempt to conceal her admiration of his appearance and her wonder as to who he was. And there were the neighbors roundabout--the Talbotts, Quisenberrys, Clays, Prestons, Morgans--surely no less than forty strong, and all for dinner. It was no little trial for Chad in that crowd of fine ladies, judges, soldiers, lawyers, statesmen--but he stood it well. While his self-consciousness made him awkward, he had pronounced dignity of bearing; his diffidence emphasized his modesty, and he had the good sense to stand and keep still. Soon they were at table--and what a table and what a dinner that was! The dining-room was the biggest and sunniest room in the house; its walls covered with hunting prints, pictures of game and stag heads. The table ran the length of it. The snowy tablecloth hung almost to the floor. At the head sat Mrs. Dean, with a great tureen of calf's head soup in front of her. Before the General was the saddle of venison that was to follow, drenched in a bottle of ancient Madeira, and flanked by flakes of red-currant jelly. Before the Major rested broiled wild ducks, on which he could show his carving skill--on game as well as men. Agreat turkey supplanted the venison, and last to come, and before Richard Hunt, Lieutenant of the Rifles, was a Kentucky ham. That ham! Mellow, aged, boiled in champagne, baked brown, spiced deeply, rosy pink within, and of a flavor and fragrance to shatter the fast of a Pope; and without, a brown-edged white layer, so firm that the lieutenant's deft carving knife, passing through, gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. There had been merry jest and laughter and banter and gallant compliment before, but it was Richard Hunt's turn now, and story after story he told, as the rose-flakes dropped under his knife in such thin slices that their edges coiled. It was full half an hour before the carver and story-teller were done. After that ham the tablecloth was lifted, and the dessert spread on another lying beneath;then that, too, was raised, and the nuts and wines were placed on a third--red damask this time.
Then came the toasts: to the gracious hostess from Major Buford; to Miss Lucy from General Dean; from valiant Richard Hunt to blushing Margaret, and then the ladies were gone, and the talk was politics--the election of Lincoln, slavery, disunion.
"If Lincoln is elected, no power but God's can avert war," said Richard Hunt, gravely.
Dan's eyes flashed. "Will you take me?"
The lieutenant lifted his glass. "Gladly, my boy.""Kentucky's convictions are with the Union; her kinship and sympathies with the South," said a deep-voiced lawyer. "She must remain neutral.""Straddling the fence," said the Major, sarcastically.
"No; to avert the war, if possible, or to act the peacemaker when the tragedy is over.""Well, I can see Kentuckians keeping out of a fight," laughed the General, and he looked around. Three out of five of the men present had been in the Mexican war. The General had been wounded at Cerro Gordo, and the Major had brought his dead home in leaden coffins.
"The fanatics of Boston, the hot-heads of South Carolina--they are making the mischief.""And New England began with slavery," said the lawyer again.
"And naturally, with that conscience that is a national calamity, was the first to give it up," said Richard Hunt, "when the market price of slaves fell to sixpence a pound in the open Boston markets." There was an incredulous murmur.
"Oh, yes," said Hunt, easily, "I can show you advertisements in Boston papers of slaves for sale at sixpence a pound."Perhaps it never occurred to a soul present that the word "slave" was never heard in that region except in some such way. With Southerners, the negroes were "our servants" or "our people"--never slaves. Two lads at that table were growing white--Chad and Harry--and Chad's lips opened first.
"I don't think slavery has much to do with the question, really," he said, "not even with Mr. Lincoln." The silent surprise that followed the boy's embarrassed statement ended in a gasp of astonishment when Harry leaned across the table and said, hotly:
"Slavery has EVERYTHING to do with the question."The Major looked bewildered; the General frowned, and the keen-eyed lawyer spoke again:
