Cromwell strolled into Scheffer's shop within the week. When Scheffer saw him coming, he satisfied himself at a glance that the visit was an unsuggested one.
There was only one other person in the world whose appearance within his doors could so much disturb the master of the place as Harry Cromwell's. That one was Josephine. Letherbut come, and it was a day indeed.
But the disturbance created by her presence was very different from that excited by the entrance of this student. He, inadvertently, or otherwise, and it mattered not which, set Scheffer's heart into such a fume of jealousy, as perhaps the heart of philosopher never knew before. For, it was generally supposed among those who were interested in the affairs transacted on the point of space occupied by these people, that Cromwell's ambition was less undefined than that of young men generally. In short, that he was already, though alone in the world, burdened in mind with family cares—looking upon himself, even then, as the oldest son of the widow Mitchell.
He had said frankly, that he could not afford to give so much of his life to preparatory study as would be required if he chose any one of the professions open to him. He must go to work in some direction where the rewards of labor were sooner obtained.
When Cromwell came into the shop, August advanced to wait upon him. Cromwell was in a cheerful mood. He stretched his hand across the counter, and shook hands with his old acquaintance, as if he were thinking of days when the little white house of Daniel Scheffer stood between two cottages, occupied respectively by families of equal poverty and condition—the Cromwells and the Mitchells.
It wasn't often that they met in these days, he said; and he looked about him with a sort of surprise not disagreeable to Scheffer, for there was nothing offensive in it. Scheffer was always ready to make allowance for the little vanities and weaknesses of others. He was not surprised that Cromwell, handsome as he was, and brilliant intellectually, as he was proving himself to be, should overlook old times and old friends. Present times, and cares, and neighbors, would, of course, engage him to the neglect of what was past and gone.
'Prospering as usual!' said Harry, 'How do you manage it, August? for I am going to launch out into the world, and I can't expect to succeed more suddenly than you have.'
August answered, taking the praise as if it were well meant, and he knew it was well earned:
'By sticking to a thing, when I have made up my mind it is best. It's the only way I know of, Harry. I thought, from all I had heard, that you had found that out.'
'Don't trust report. I've done little yet to satisfy a man; got a few prizes; what do you suppose I care for them?'
'You care for what they mean to other folks,' said Scheffer.
'Not much, I assure you. A little praise, like music, is pleasant. But a man can't live on sound. Show me your seven-league boots, Scheffer; I'm going to take a stroll around the world.'
'What do you mean?' asked Scheffer, without moving.
'I'm going over the ocean.'
'India rubber soles?' asked Scheffer, again speaking in his quietest manner, but really feeling great excitement.
Cromwell laughed. 'I suppose they have iron-bound boots, even in Paris; but I thought I'd like to take something out of your shop with me; something of your own make, if possible. Do you know, Scheffer, you've had more to do with me, a vast deal, than you ever supposed? I've had the feeling that you were watching me as often as ever I got into lazy ways, just as if you stood by that window and searched me out across the grounds, no matter where I was lurking. I shall take my time when I am well rid of you. But I'll have the boots for a token; and when I am tired and sick of my work, as I shall be a hundred times, I'll pretend that you put some magic into the soles. Give them to me with a strong squeak.'
Cromwell laughed, but he was at least two thirds in earnest.
Still August did not stir. 'Are you really going away?' he asked.
'If I'm a live man, next week.'
'Going to France?'
'To France. To Paris for one year. In five years I shall be home again, and I mean to bring with me two or three cabinets of minerals, worth thousands of dollars apiece.'
Cromwell's eyes flashed; they fell on Scheffer, who stood silent, motionless, a cold shiver running over him from his head to his feet.
'What, then, brave fellow?' asked August. It was well to know the worst, and Harry seemed to be in a communicative mood.
'Why, what areyouworking for?'
'Because I've nothing else to do,' said Scheffer, with a shrug. 'I hate to be idle.'
'No; you are making your fortune; you'll have a house and a family some day. It's written, a hundred girls would think the chance beyond their desert; or theymightthink so.'
'Yes; well—I don't want a hundred girls.'
'Nor one, I suppose.'
Behind this idle talk the gravest and sharpest scrutiny was bestowed by each man on his fellow. Both were thinking of Josephine, but neither would name her.
'You're a philosopher, Paul says,' continued Cromwell. 'Paul is always talking about you. I don't like to leave that boy; but knowing that you are his friend should make me comfortable. Beside, I couldn't do anything for the lad, if he stood in need of a ten-penny bit.'
Cromwell laughed, but not in recklessness—in pride.
'How can you afford to travel, then?' asked Scheffer.
'Oh, I shall go as some other good fellows have gone—on foot; for I shall work my passage, and get somehow from Havre to Paris.'
'What next?'
'Hard work, you know.'
'Yes; I know what hard work means. But do you? Such hard work as this will be?'
'Do you take me for a dunce? Of course I know; and I shall tell you how I did it, five years from now.'
Then Scheffer said, not hesitating—for anything like a doubtfulness of manner on his part would have defeated his design:
'I want to invest some money, Harry. Take a couple of hundred for me, and buy some of the specimens; or find them, if you like that better. You shall sell them, when you get back, and pay me a percentage, whatever you can afford.'
There was no delay in the answer. It had all the readiness, and the sound, of sincerity.
'Sooner from you, August, than from any other man; but not from any man. I should feel that I was mortgaged. I must begin my own master, as I told Josephine Mitchell. What I bring to her shall be fruit from the tree of my own planting.'
August, for a moment, was like a man struck dumb; but when he spoke, he was the philosopher again.
'That's all foolishness,' he said, in a gentle voice; but there was no tenderness in it: it was but the firmness of self-control that made the voice so mild, and the expostulation, so deliberate. 'It's like using an old tool, when you have a new invention that would save half the labor. You'd laugh at a man for that.'
'Laugh away! But I must go out my own man, Scheffer. You'd do the same thing. Don't talk about it. Have you any of those boots I asked for?'
Scheffer found a pair. He named the price. Cromwell paid for them, and shook his hand when they separated; for, in the press of business, he said, it might be he should not find time to call on his old friend again.
The young men did not meet again. But a fortnight after Cromwell sailed, Scheffer was called upon to pay a note at the bank; a note that bore his own signature, and stated that, for 'value received, I promise to pay to the order of Henry Cromwell, four hundred dollars.'
The demand was made in such a manner, and at such a time, as to vex Scheffer to the utmost.
Cromwell, it seemed, could not consent to accept a favor at his hands; yet he could condescend to make that manner of use of him! He paid the sum due on the note, but at the same time was beset by a sore temptation.
This was the temptation, and this his resistance: If Harry had gone, leaving anywhere, in any woman's heart, a hope in him, should he not dispel it? Should he not convince her that it rested on a foundation looser than the sand? He did not do so! When Paul spoke now and then of Cromwell, and prophesied proudly of him, August took the words as an echo of Josephine's thought, and said to himself:
'Oh! well; it makes no difference.'
But, for all that, he kept on with his studies, and sometimes on Sunday would walk past the college grounds on Monumental square; for that was also walking past the cottage occupied by Josephine.
The college, in those days, could have produced no student more industrious than August.
He advanced with rapid strides through the elementary books, for he chose to begin at the beginning, and he was proud of his progress. But he kept his studies secret. He would risk nothing by reporting his own progress. No man should honor his future to the prejudice of his past. The story of Minerva, born to the prerogatives of wisdom, was more attractive to him than that life which 'grewin grace, and in favor with God and man.'
He had no plans in reference to future studies. His tutor was fairly puzzled; for he was not long in discovering that it was not the delight of knowledge, but the ends which knowledge may serve, that prompted to such industry.
One evening Paul threw himself on one of the red-plush sofas Scheffer had transferred to his private apartment. He was in one of those serious moods that had become frequent since Cromwell went away; or, rather, since he had come into this near relation with a working and prosperous man.
'It's easy enough to be poor for one's self,' said the anxious youngster; 'butwhether oneoughtto be poor, when money is to be honestly made, and at only a trifling risk, though by desperate hard work—that's the question.'
'H'm!' said Scheffer.
'Well,' said Paul, irritated by his seeming indifference, 'a fellow is in a deuced bad plight, if he has to plead poverty, when he ought to be able to help one or two beside himself! I envy you, Scheffer. I envy you every time I come here. You can do so much! You could leap all the college gates in no time, if you were fool enough to try.'
'I'm not,' said Scheffer. 'I know I can't work with many irons in the fire—never could. And I've nothing to complain of. I'm prospering, as you say. That's the chief thing, I suppose. Folks seem to think so. I'm one of the million; I must do as the rest—build a house, and marry a wife some day. But not till I can support her like a lady, I tell you, Paul.'
There was the difference of many years between the man and the boy, but to no other person was Scheffer in the habit of saying such things.
'I'd like to see Madam Scheffer,' said Paul, with a quiet laugh. Scheffer was indulgent toward that mirth; he smiled as he said:
'Be patient, as I am, and you shall see her. There was a Mrs. Scheffer once—my mother that was; if there's another like her—I believe there is!'
'Can't you draw me her portrait?'
'Perhaps I could, if I cared.'
'But you don't care. Well, I can get it out of Josephine; she remembers your mother.'
Paul looked so much like his sister when he named the name of Josephine and of his mother in one breath, that Scheffer could not refuse him.
'Medium size,' he said, 'and built to last. Graceful, as any mother would have been—if—as she was, in spite of hard work—it was her nature, and her nature was a strong one. She has light hair, that curls as if it liked to, and her eyes are blue. It is a fair face, Paul, and she has a kind smile.'
'But tell me her name; for you need not say it's a fancy sketch.'
'May be not; but that, you see, is my secret.'
There was no such thing, in reality, as intruding further on this ground. Still, half embarrassed, Mitchell persisted:
'Where is she, though?'
'Where? I can't tell that.'
'With Cromwell?'
'It may be.'
'Would you trust her with him?'
'Is he not to be trusted?' asked August, so quickly as to startle Paul.
If Paul was to be startled—but he was not. The teller in the bank had told him—(Paul was one of those persons with whom acquaintances of every quality lodge their secrets)—of the note Scheffer had taken up with so little fuss and so much amazement. He saw that August for a moment suspected that he knew the facts, but he was not yet prepared to confess such knowledge; for he knew as well as Scheffer what Harry Cromwell was to Josephine. So he answered:
'I should say so, August—if any man on earth could be.'
'So I supposed,' said Scheffer, quietly; and Paul hurried back to the old queer topic, and said, half in jest: 'You mean to keep house, Scheffer, I'll be bound.'
Scheffer's dark face brightened; he would share with Paul his pleasant dream—the pleasant dream he cherished, though his sober sense denied its possibility, and his consistent realism charged upon him the special folly of fools.
'Aye,' said he; 'there'll be a library in it—but more select than that of the Atheneum you were wishing for! You shall have the freedom of my house, lad—I'll not forget how kind you've been to me. I shall have a flower garden, and a yard deep enough for shade trees like those—but you don't remember the place.'
Scheffer got up and walked away to the window.
'I've not the slightest doubt that you'll do everything you say! I vow I wouldn't like to be the man to stand in your way to anything.'
Scheffer came back, and sat on the sofa beside Paul. His voice had an almost fatherly tenderness in it when he began to speak, and it took no colder tone.
'You were saying something about an improvement you could suggest in some of the tools we use. Here they are. What did you mean?' He pulled out a box from underneath the sofa.
Paul took the box, and looked over its contents; but it was easy to see that he was in search of nothing. He was soon through his investigation, and restored the box to its place. Then he looked at Scheffer, and laughed.
But Scheffer answered the look by one that seemed to say that he expected an explanation; whereupon Paul, now grave enough, stirred by a sudden confidence, pulled from his pocket a box much smaller than that which held August's tools, and passed it into his friend's hands. Scheffer took it, but he did not attempt to loosen the cord that secured the cover. Then Paul said:
'You do not really suppose that I am the only idle person in the world. I have been at work longer than Josephine, though you might not believe it; but what I have done, no one has yet seen. If I had the money, Scheffer! I'd—well—look at the thing! I want you should study it, of course.'
August, however, was in no haste. He was more desirous to learn the meaning of what Paul had said about Josephine. But that could not be asked by him; and so he unfastened the cord, opened the box, and beheld within a miniature machine, whose meaning no one in the world, Paul Mitchell excepted, could explain. That was Paul's thought of pride.
'That'smysecret,' said he. 'That's my beauty! and I'd build a house for it, if I had the money, to be sure, as you are going to do for yours. How do you like it?'
'Explain; then I can tell you.' It was still the father-voice that spoke; but the tone was that of a man whose son has forestalled hope, and justified the most vague of ambitious wishes.
'That, Scheffer, is a contrivance for printing. Will you please to examine it? It's to be used henceforth, for all time, understand! by bankers in their banks, and by all men of great business. See—'
He arose, and brought near to the sofa a small table, on which he placed the machine. Then he set it in motion. 'For numbering notes, and so on. Does it work, August?'
Scheffer, though admiring and amazed, said not a word, but sat down before the machine, and studied it in every part.
His judgment was satisfied when at last he gave it.
'It's worth money to you, Mitchell.'
'Do you believe it, Scheffer? Worth money. Oh, my goodness!'
'Paul, you expected that.'
'I knew it; but to hear you say so, makes me feel like a man. Then I shall do for my mother what you did for yours, and get Josephine out of that school-teaching freak of hers. She has actually gone and done it, Scheffer.... Worth money, eh? Then I shall do some things as well as others, Mr. Scheffer.'
Scheffer smiled. He understood this exultation too well not to share it and to be deeply moved by it.
'I suppose so,' said he. 'I always believed in you.'
'Well, then, look here.'
Paul's voice broke; he looked on the floor, and was a long time in producing the second box. When he had fairly drawn it forth, he gave a sudden and wonderful look at Scheffer, that penetrated like fire to the heart of the man.
'There,' said he, 'that's my pet. That's the Rachel of this Jacob. Look close, and see what you'll do with it, supposing you turn lockpick some day.'
It was a veritable lock. He drew out a chain of keys, a hundred of them.
'Now,' said he, in a low voice, 'you may ransack the town, as I've done, and get all your keys together. I want to see if you can find one, or contrive one with any locksmith's help, that will fit into that lock. I'll give you a month to try it. I'd give another man six. But you'll do the work of six in a sixth of the time. It's a lock on a new principle, and the principle is mine, because I applied it first. Eh? Hang it! If I had the money I wouldn't be so beggarly poor as I am. But I've had to beg and borrow, and almost steal, to get these things, that were in my brain, into a decent shape, as you see them. When I get started, Scheffer, you shall inspect all my inventions.'
'Then you are started,' said August. 'Don't say that again, I'd mortgage my stock but you should have what you need to help you. Have you any tools to work with, my son?'
'Oh, yes; that is, my neighbor has. He keeps a carpenter's shop, you know. I'm a capital hand at borrowing.'
'Have you got a room at home where you can work?'
'Acres of room! You've seen the house.'
'I've walked past it sometimes,' answered Scheffer, with a smile.
'Well, it isn't such a mite of a place as you'd think. There's room enough.'
'It looks pretty and snug. I have often admired those flower beds; the place don't look much like others in the same row: one might know that. Paul, I've seen the time when I'd thought the man who offered me help was an angel. I'm older than you are. Of course you must experiment, and where's the merit of carrying plans about in your head a dozen years, waiting a chance to prove whether they're worth anything or not? Tell me now, do you want any money?'
'No,' Paul answered quickly, yet with inward hesitation. 'I'll come to you, though,' he added, 'when I do. I'll let you know the very day. But I I have something to study out yet. I'm going to get patents, you know.'
Paul returned home, and in a musing mood seated himself under the grapevine that grew on the brick wall in the rear of the cottage, the sole ornament and pride of the narrow yard. He may have been here an hour, when he heard strange noises in the house, then a heavy closing of the street door, and the voice of Josephine calling him. In the lobby stood an open iron-bound chest. A glance at the box explained it to Paul; but he said nothing—not a word—in explanation to Josephine or his mother, who stood expressing surprise and wonder, while he found the key and opened the heavy lid. They saw it was a tool chest.
Paul was the first to speak; for when he exhibited the contents, a deeper silence seemed to fall upon the women.
'It's no mistake,' he said to his mother. 'This belongs to August Scheffer. He has lent it to me. Isn't it kind of him? For I told him I had to borrow when I worked.'
'No,' said Paul's mother. 'It's anything but kind. You could waste time enough in such doings, Paul, without getting a tempter into the house. What do you want of tools? Do you get along with your books so fast you don't know what to do with your time? August Scheffer is just like his father, he never, as long as he lived, found out the use of money; if he had, his wife wouldn't have been left a beggar.'
'And August would never have been himself,' said Paul. 'That would have been a pity.'
'No,' said Josephine; 'he would always have been himself.'
'Don't talk like a simpleton, child. You are old enough to see that August might have been a very different man from what he is, if his father before him hadn't always this same ridiculous way of throwing the money he earned about like dust.'
'Well, mother—' began Paul: he hesitated, but a glance at Josephine decided him. 'I can tell you that if Harry Cromwell comes to any good, you and everyone else will have to thank Scheffer for it.'
Josephine looked at Paul with serious, curious interest; but he saw that she was not greatly excited by what he had said. He looked at his mother, and resolved to say no more. And by that resolution he would have held, but for his mother's words.
'We shall never hear the end of that,' said she. 'Scheffer's father signed for Oliver Cromwell; but what of that? he lost his money. Better men have done as much for worse; but I don't know that it deserved to be talked of to all generations.'
'It was a generous act,' said Paul. 'But August has beat his father at that, I can tell you, if you want to hear.'
'Some slander, I suppose,' said the mother. 'I suppose every young man within fifty miles is jealous of Harry; it's well he has gone far enough to get rid of it all.'
'Well, mother, keep your good opinion of him. It isn't from Scheffer I heard it. You don't want to know what a noble fellow he is;' and he wound up with August's frequent saying, 'it makes no difference.'
'I want to hear what you are going to do with this box, though,' said Mrs. Mitchell. 'There's not a room in the house big enough to hold it.'
Paul plead for a corner of his own room; a startling proposal, indeed, for those who heard it, the 'room' being hardly an apology for a closet. He pleads well, however, for he carried the point, and space was in some way provided; and Mrs. Mitchell, who had hopes of a future for her children that should throw a glory round their unfolding and her closing years, heard the boy say, with, some sort of faith: 'Oh, mother, you don't know yet what a genius you've got in your boy;' and when she left him he was still laughing over the boast. But Josephine saw that as he stooped over the chest there were tears in his eyes.
For that reason she did not leave him to rejoice alone over his treasure. And for the reason that she did not leave him, he said to her, observing with what interest she took up one bright tool after another from its place:
'Scheffer has bought this box for me. You see, don't you, the tools were never used before? Not one of them.'
'Yes,' said Josephine, 'that's easy to be seen.'
'I must keep them and use them, I suppose!'
'You intend to do it, Paul. Are you trying to deceive me? Do you suppose I don't know that of course he had a reason for sending them to you! People are not in the habit of sending such things to boys who don't know how to use them.'
'But, Josephine, I shall pay him for them.'
'Yes, or else I shall, Paul. But let him enjoy the gift; for I know how it pleased him to send it.'
'And I won't serve him as another fellow did, too proud to accept a favor of him till he should get beyond sight and sound, so stingy of his thanks. That's what your Cromwell did! I hate the hateful fellow.'
'My Cromwell? Did he that?' But Josephine neither swooned, nor cried, nor blushed; was not overwhelmed with shame, nor indignation, nor distress. Some such exhibition, that should be as a confession, Paul had looked for, trembling, when the daring deed was done, of exposing a lover's baseness to the woman he loved.
'Yes,' said Paul, cooled somewhat by his sister's calmness. 'I knew I ought to let you know. But I thought I never could. He wouldn't take the money August offered him, but he got it from the bank, on a forged note.'
'Paul!' exclaimed Josephine. The lad looked again at his sister; but he now saw through her horrified surprise; there was really no danger in continuing this revelation; elated, he went on:
'Forged and paid! so the young fellow told me. That's not Scheffer, understand.Hedon't know that I have got wind of it; he thinks it is safe with him; and you never would have known anything but for me! August thinks too much of you, I've found that out, to tell you, or me either, that Cromwell is a scamp.'
'What have I to do with all this, Paul?' asked his sister, with a well-assumed indifference. She had time now to consider whether she had not betrayed too much interest in the affairs of these young men, the scientific forger and the man of trade.
'Why,' answered Paul, with no less composure, inwardly rejoicing in what he considered his triumph, 'you have to make the best of it, I suppose—satisfy mother—marry Cromwell when he comes back, rich as Croesus, with ship-loads of treasure. That's what the handsome girls are for, to marry off to rich men, isn't it?'
Paul had had his say, but that was his only consolation. Whatever answer Josephine might have made was prevented by the voice of her mother calling from the foot of the stairs. Yet he chose to consider that sufficient confession, in regard to some of his suspicions, was given in her words as she went down; though what she said was merely,
'Paul, if you don't join the detectives, you'll fail of your mission.'
Scheffer's uniform good luck took a sudden turn one day. The fine row of buildings that faced the college grounds took fire one morning, and his shop was burned with the rest. He saved but little of his stock, and it was but recently that he had greatly added to it. His loss was a severe one.
Toward nightfall of that day, Paul looked for Scheffer, and found him in a room to which he had removed the remnants of his goods. He was alone there, and trying to come to an understanding with himself, singing meanwhile, but, it must be said, in not the most straightforward and perfectly musical manner.
Paul came expressly deputed by his mother to bring Scheffer home to tea with him. The news of his disaster had set August before her in a different light from that in which he had stood in the days of his vulgar prosperity. Calamity restored him to his place again—the son of an old neighbor, the son of a good woman—one of the heirs of misfortune: and who might not have expected this event, that knew in August's veins the Scheffer blood was flowing? Yes; the mother of Josephine was this day disposed to compassion, helped, may be, to that gentleness by the letter she had recently received from Cromwell, in which he detailed his successes in a manner that made the heart of the prophetess to rejoice.
Scheffer hesitated for a moment, only one, over that invitation. But he did hesitate. And Paul, the lynx-eyed, saw it. Scheffer might invent whatever excuse seemed best to his own kindliness of heart: Paul was convinced that his friend felt no confidence in the impulse that had obtained for him an open door in the house that he had seen, in spite of Josephine's friendliness, was closed on him all these years.
Paul did not urge the invitation. Instead, he produced a purse—sole purse of the house of Mitchell, that had not, in a generation, held as many bank notes as this now contained. He put this purse into Scheffer's hands, and said, moving back from him a pace:
'That is yours. I knew you fibbed about the tool chest. You had no use for it. So we have bought it. Look if I have counted the money right. I knew you would never tell me the truth about the cost, so I've been to the maker, and asked him a civil question. No dodging, Mr. Scheffer.'
Mr. Scheffer did not 'dodge.' He emptied the purse, counted the bills, put them into his own leather pocket-book; then he handed the purse to Paul.
Paul did not expect this. It was plain that he did not. He thought thatScheffer would have 'stood' against receiving the payment for his gift. He had said so to Josephine; but Josephine had replied, 'You are mistaken, Paul. You don't know him, after all. But, if youareright, insist on his taking the money. Do not go too far, however. If he should seem to be offended, bring it back to me, and I will attend to it.'
Washe offended? Paul was in doubt. The doubt made him desperate, and he exclaimed:
'I meant that for a present. Josephine worked it.'
Scheffer's eye fell on the light and pretty trifle; a change came over him. He would have struggled hard and long before he would have surrendered that little tissue of floss, but now less than vanity to him. 'Josephine worked it.' What are words?
'I suppose,' he began; but he did not conclude what he had on his tongue; he didnotsay to Paul that he supposed it was Josephine's money too—her earnings—that paid for the chest.
There came an awkward silence into the confused and dismal room. Scheffer stood among his ruins, not like a ruined man: he could not talk, however. He could say nothing whatever in continuance, about the fire. It was never his habit to boast; as little his practice to lament.
'Paul,' he said at last, resuming his dismal endeavor to arrange and assort the chaotic remnant of his goods, 'I got your box under weigh last night. There's a friend of mine going to see it; and you needn't be worrying on account of this—this fire; for I shall have money enough to push your business pretty soon; and there are two good fellows standing ready to buy your rights to the patent in this State, on your own terms, I guess, if you are tolerably reasonable. You can have five thousand dollars, if you will be easy with them about the payments. They are as safe as the best in town. I settled all that last night. All you have to do is to come to an agreement.'
Paul's heart beat as fast as any young man's heart beats when the result of secret toil, of wakeful nights, and patient endurance of home misconception, is before him in the form of honorable success. But instead of thanks, these words escaped him in a tumult:
'Scheffer, have you heard the news from Cromwell?'
Scheffer considered ere he answered; he was puzzled, looking at Paul, such a contradiction and confusion of signs he read in the lad's face.
'I heard that your family had great tidings from him,' he answered finally.
'He is dead!'
'Poor Josephine!'
What was it that brought so low the head of the man who had stood all day bravely erect, enduring the condolence of people, sustaining himself in the shock of integrity? Scheffer sat down when he heard this news, and wept.
And Paul wept with him. There, in that chamber of ruins, they deplored the loss of the proud, ambitious, brilliant, and dishonest wordling, who had long ago gone out oftheirworld with a lie on his soul.
Then Paul produced the foreign letter he had brought with him from the mail, as he came in his search for Scheffer. The letter he read aloud. It was written by one of Harry's fellow students, his companion in that notable journey Cromwell made to the Ural, and the Zavods of Siberia. He had returned to Paris, and thence had written of his various successes to his friends: they knew it was his purpose to sail at once for Alexandria. His preparations, wrote this correspondent, were complete; but, on the day when the vessel sailed, he died—sickened and died in one morning; his disease was of the heart.
'Poor Josephine!' groaned August again; this time his pity had comment.
'It's awful!' said Paul. 'Josephine cried when she heard of your misfortune. She won't do more when she sees this letter.' Paul was entirely reckless of consequences. He was determined Scheffer's fire should serve a private purpose of illumination, 'It is so rare a thing, her crying,' he continued, 'I should have thought the fire would have been put out by it.'
Scheffer's tears ceased falling. But he spoke in a low voice, somewhat broken, too:
'It's enough to wipe outmyregrets. If she cared that much, I don't consider it a misfortune. Tell her so, Paul.'
'I will, after you have told her yourself, Scheffer,' said Paul. Then casting all their fortunes on a word, speaking hurriedly, impetuously, driven on by admiration and gratitude toward Scheffer, and a determination to end all misunderstandings at once and forever, he continued: 'I found it all out, myself, without prying. The young fellow in the bank told me. I knew that you never would. It made me love you, that did. I told Josephine, but not till I thought I might safely. He didn't get that money from the bank till Josephine had told him she could not promise herself to him before he went away. Poor fellow! It made him mad, I think.'
'Paul,' said Scheffer, with reproof, and yet the mildest, in his voice, 'he is dead. That was an ugly twist, but it wasn't his nature to grow in a crooked fashion. Harry will come out straight yet. He is in better circumstances now than ever before. I could forgive a man for worse things than he had the wit to do, if he loved Josephine.'
'There! I'm glad we are back on that ground! I hate mysteries,' exclaimed Paul.
'Except in locks,' said Scheffer.
'Whywouldn'tshe promise Harry? It is what mother expected. And I was fool enough to wonder. You are wiser than we; so tell me, Scheffer, did anything ever happen in old times that binds her yet? Do you suppose she ever loved a lad when she was a child?'
'I know she did,' said Scheffer, looking not away from Paul, neither busying himself any longer with the endeavor to bring order out of chaos. 'I know she did.'
Then Paul laughed again, as he had not laughed in many a day; but it was laughter that did not jar the silence of the room—such laughter as formed a fit prelude for words like these:
'Find out if the lad is alive yet. There is a piece of business worthy of Scheffer himself! I'm tired of hunting out secrets. Promise me, August—promise before you leave this room—before you breathe again.'
Scheffer did.
Mrs. Mitchell waited tea that evening for at least an hour. Josephine was sure that if August could be found, Paul would bring him home. At last they came. Home at last! The darkness might besiege the house, it could not enter the hearts there; rain might fall on Scheffer's ruins, it could not prevent the rising of the Phoenix. Not recognized altogether as the household's eldest son, he stood under the roof of the little house on Cottage Row. But enough! he was satisfied: he saw two women smiling on him—one from her heart. And from the circle that night Paul, triumphant and joyful, excluded the vision of death.
I moved among the moving multitudeIn old Manila, when the afternoonReleases labor, and the scorching skiesAre tempered with the coming on of night.Above the 'ever loyal city,' roseThe surging sound of unloosed tongues and feet,As the encompassed town and suburbs vast,The boated river and the sentinelled bridgeSwarmed, parti-colored, with the populace.The sovereign sun, that through the toilsome dayNo eye had seen for brightness, now subdued,Stepping, like Holy Pontiff, from his throne,Neared to the people, and, with level rays,As hands outstretching, benedictions shed.Full the effulgence flashed upon the wallsWhich girt the city with a strength renowned,Rimming them with new glory: bright it gleamedUpon the swarthy soldiery, as they filedA dazzling phalanx through the gaping crowdWith martial intonation, and it playedSoftly upon the evening-breathing throngOn the Calsada's broad and dashing drive,On gay, armorial equipage, whereinDozed dowagers: on unbonneted damesIn open chariots, toying daintilyWith dark hidalgos, as they sipped the sceneIn languishing contentment, and betweenResponsive glances, showing hidden fire,With fluent breath of Spanish repartee.There lounged senoras, fat officials' wives,From their soft cushions casting cool disdainOn the mestiza, who, in hired hack,Blooming in beauty of commingled blood,And robed in slippery tissue, rainbow-bright,Sat, in her sandal-footed grace, a queenAmong her fellows, they who yesterdayWhirled her lithe figure in the tireless dance,And now, with airy compliment, kept brightThe flame she yet may quench in wedlock dull.Thus rolled the wealthy in their liveried ease,'Mid walking peasantry and pale Chinese,And curious-shirted Creole; while, tight swathedUp to their shrivelled features, mummy like,The Indian women filled the motley scene.Meanwhile, the sovereign sun had crowned the palmsStanding in stately clusters; and from thenceScaled the high walls and climbed the citadel,Pouring a parting radiance on the towerOf San Sebastian: mounting to its goal,It swept the public dial plate and lay,E'en in the face of stern recording timeSmiling significance; thence slowly creptUp to the turret, blazing, momently,Thence reached the dizzy ball; and, last of all,Kissed with its dying lips the sacred cross.Then pealed the solemn vesper bell to prayer,And suddenly—completely—with a hush,As if a god-like voice had stricken it dead,Stood still the city!Motionless the lifeThat but an instant off stirred the warm airWith murmurs multifarious, and the wavesOf great humanity, sunk silenced there,With stillness so supreme, that pulses beatMore quickly from the contrast, and the soulHearkened to listen, humbled and subduedAs when the Saviour uttered 'Peace, be still.'The tardy laborer, walled within the town,Brought the uplifted hammer noiseless down,And stood in meek confession, tool in hand.The mother hushed the baby lullaby,And o'er her sleeping innocence exhaledVoiceless thanksgiving. Children ceased to play,Feeling an awe they comprehended not,And stood, unconscious of their beauty's pose,As those Murillo's pencil glorifies.Upon the airy esplanade the steedNo longer pawed the air in wantonness,But, like his compeer of the fabled song,Stood statued with his rider, while belowThe beggar ceased his cry importunate,And to a Higher Almoner than manSent up a dumb appeal. In folly's courtThe laugh was hushed, and the half-uttered jestFell witless into air, and burning thoughtCooled, as it flowed, unmoulded into speech.As throbbed the distant bell with serious pause,—Standing bareheaded in the dewless air,Or prostrate in their penitence to earth,Or bending with veiled lids,—the people prayed.Then was that moment, in its muteness, worthThe laboring day that bore it, for all senseSeemed filtered of its grossness; what was earthSunk settling with the dust to earth again,As through the calm, pure atmosphere, aroseOne mingling meditation unto Heaven.Oh, beautiful is silence, when it fallsOn housed assemblies bowed in voiceless prayer:But when it lays its finger on the heartOf a great city, stilling all the wheelsOf life's employment, that to Heaven may turnIts many thousand reverend breathing soulsWith gesture simultaneous; when proud manLike multitudinous marble, moveless standsWith God communing, then does silence seem,In its unworded eloquence, sublime.Therein, doth Romish worship point rebukeTo him who doth ignore it, for thereinIt rises to a majesty of praiseO'erspanning huge cathedrals, for it makesThe censer, candle, rosary, and bookBut senseless mockeries.So sunk the sunTill on its amber throne, like drapery doffed,Lay piled th' imperial purple. Then the stirOf an awakened world swept through the crowd,As forest leaves are wind-swept after lulls,And, with the sense of a renewing joy,The murmurous people turned them to their homes.Manila, 1856.
They took thy boots, they took thy coats,My Maryland!And paid for them in 'Confed' notes,My Maryland!They gobbled down thy corn like goats,And rooted up thy truck like shoats,But then—they didn't get thy votesOr volunteers—my Maryland!
'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'
On the cleared plot in front of the store were assembled, as I have said, about a hundred men, women, and children, witnessing a 'turkey match.' It was a motley gathering. All classes and colors and ages were there. The young gentleman who boasted his hundred darkies, and the small planter who worked in the field with his five negroes; the 'poor trash' who scratched a bare subsistence from a sorry patch of beans and 'collards,' and the swearing, staggering bully who did not condescend to do anything; the young child that could scarcely walk alone, and the old man who could hardly stand upright; the brawny field hand who had toiled over night to finish his task in time for 'de shootin;' and the well-dressed body servant who had roused 'young massa oncommon airly' for the same purpose; all, white, black, and yellow—and some neither white, black, nor yellow—were there; scattered over various parts of the ground, engaged in lounging, playing, drinking, smoking, chewing, chatting, swearing, wrangling, and looking on at the turkey match.
A live turkey was fastened to an ordinary bean pole, in a remote quarter of the ground, and when I emerged from the cabin, seven or eight 'natives' had entered for 'a shot.' The payment of a 'bit,' 'cash down,' to Tom, who officiated as master of ceremonies, secured a chance of hitting the turkey's head with a rifle bullet at 'long distance.' Any other 'hit' was considered 'foul,' and passed for nothing. Whoever shot the mark took the prize, and was expected to 'treat the crowd.' As 'the crowd' seemed a thirsty one, it struck me that turkey would prove expensive eating to the fortunate shots; but they were oblivious to expense, and in a state of mind that unfitted them for close financial calculations.
Nearly every marksman present had 'carried off his poultry,' and Tom had already reaped a harvest of dimes from the whiskey drinking. 'Why, bless ye,' he said to me, 'I should be broke, clean done up, if it warn't fur the drinks; I haint got more'n a bit, or three fips, fur nary a fowl; the fust shot allers brings down the bird; they're all cocksure on the trigger—ary man on 'em kin hit a turkey's eye at a hundred paces.' This was true; and in such schools were trained the unerring marksmen who are now 'bringing down' the bravest youth of our country, like fowls at a turkey match.
A disturbance had broken out on a remote part of the ground, and, noticing about twenty negro men and women seated on a log near by, I went in that direction, in hopes of meeting the negro trader. It was a dog fight. Inside an imaginary ring about ten feet in diameter, two dogs were clenched in what seemed a life-and-death struggle. One was holding the other down by the lower jaw, while a man, evidently the owner of the half-vanquished brute, was trying to separate them. Outside this ring about twenty other brutes—men, women, and children—were cheering the combatants, and calling on the meddler to desist. It was strange how the peacemaker managed to stand up against the volleys of oaths they showered on him; he did, however, and persisted in his laudable efforts, till a tall, rawboned, heavy-jawed fellow stepped into the ring, and, taking him by the collar, pulled him away, saying: 'Let 'em be—it's a fair fight; d—— yer pictur—let 'em alone.'
'Take thet! you whelp,' said the other, planting a heavy blow betweenthe intruder's eyes. Blow followed blow; they clenched; went down; rose up; fought on—at one end of the ring the canines, at the other the humans; while the rest looked on, shouting, 'Let 'er rip! Go in, Wade! Hit 'im agin! Smash his mug! Pluck the grizzly! Hurrah fur Smith! Drown his peepers! Never say die! Go in agin!' till the blood flowed, and dogs and men rolled over on the ground together.
Disgusted with this exhibition of nineteenth-century civilization, I turned and walked away. As I did so, I noticed, following me at a short distance, a well-dressed man of about thirty-five. He wore a slouched hat, a gray coat and lower garments, and enormous high-top boots, to one of which was affixed a brass spur. Over his shoulder, holding the two ends in his hands, he carried a strong, flexible whip, silver mounted, and polished like patent leather. He was about six feet high, stoutly built, with a heavy, inexpressive face, and a clear, sharp gray eye. One glance satisfied me that he was the negro trader.
As he approached he held out his hand in a free, hearty way, saying: 'Cunnel, good evenin'.'
'Good evenin',' I replied, intentionally adopting his accent; 'but yer wrong, stranger; I'm nary cunnel.'
'Well, Major, then?'
'No, Gin'ral; not even a sargint.'
'Then ye'reSquire——,' and he hesitated for me to fill up the blank.
'No; not even Squire——,' I added, laughing. 'I've nary title; I'm plainMisterKirke; nothin' else.'
'Well,MisterKirke, ye're the fust man I've met in the hull Suthern country who wus jest nobody at all; and drot me ef I doan't like ye for't. Ev'ry d——d little upstart, now-a-days, has a handle ter his name—they all b'long ter the nobility, ha! ha!' and he again brought his hand down upon mine with a concussion that made the woods ring.
'Come,' he added; 'let's take a drink.'
'Glad ter drink with ye, stranger; but I karn't go Tom's sperrets—it's hard ter take.'
'That's a fact, but I keeps the raal stuff. That's the pizen fur ye;' he replied, holding up a small willow flask, and starting toward the bar. Entering a cloud of tobacco smoke, and groping our way over groups of drunken chivalry, who lay 'loosely around,' we approached the counter.
'Har, you lousy sorrel-top,' said the trader to the red-faced and red-headed bar tender; 'har, give us some mugs.'
'Sorrel-top' placed two glasses on the counter, and my new acquaintance proceeded to rinse them thoroughly. They were of a clear grass-green color, and holding one up to the light, the trader said: 'Now luk a' them. Them's 'bout as green as the fellers that drink out on 'em—a man's stumac's got ter be of cast iron ter stand the stuff they sell har.'
'It's better'n you kin 'ford ter drink,' exclaimed the bar tender, in high dudgeon.
'Who spoke ter ye—take thet!' rejoined the trader, discharging the contents of the glass full in the man's face. The sorrel-crowned worthy bore the indignity silently, evidently deeming discretion the better part of valor.
'Buy'n ony nigs, Kirke?' said the trader, inserting his arm in mine, and leading me away from the shanty: 'I've got a prime lot—prime;' and he smacked his lips together at the last word, in the manner that is common to professional liquor tasters. He scented a trade afar off, and his organs of taste, sympathizing with his olfactories, gave out that token of satisfaction.
'Well, I doan't know. What ye got?'
'Some o' the likeliest property ye ever seed—men and wimmin. All bought round har; haint ben ter Virginny yit. Come 'long, I'll show ye;' and he proceeded toward the group of chattels. He was becoming altogether too familiar, but I called to mind a favorite maxim of good old Mr. Russell—Necessitus non arbit legum—and quietly submitted.
The negroes were seated on a fallen pine, in a remote quarter of the ground, and were chained together by the wrists, in gangs of four or five, the outside one having one hand secured by a cord bound about the waist. The men wore woollen hats, and the women neat Madras turbans, and both had thick linsey clothing, warm enough for any weather. Their dusky faces were sleek and oily, and their kinky locks combed as straight as nature would permit. The trader had 'rigged them up,' as a jockey 'rigs up' his horses for market.
Pausing before a brawny specimen of the yellow species, he said: 'Thar, Kirke, luk o' thar; thar's a boy fur ye—a nig thet kin work—'tend ten thousand boxes (turpentine) easy. He's the sort. Prime stuffthet—(feeling of his arms and thighs)—hard—hard as rock—siners like rope. Come o' good stock, he did—the old Devereaux blood—(a highly respectable family in those parts)—they's the raal quality—none on yer shams or mushrooms; but genuwine 'stockracy—blamed if they haint. What d'ye say ter him?'
'Well, he moight do, p'raps—but I rather reckon ye've done him up sum; 'iled his face, greased his wool, and sech like. It's all right, ye know—onything's far in trade; but ye karn't come it over me, ole feller. I'm up ter sech doin's. Iam, Mr.——,' and I paused for him to finish the sentence.
'Larkin,' he added quickly and good-humoredly; 'Jake Larkin, and yours, by——,' and he gave my hand another shake. 'Yer one on 'em, I swar, and I own up; Ihev'iled em' a trifle—jest a trifle; but ye kin see through thet; we hev ter do it ter fix the green 'uns, ye knows.'
'Yes, I knows—'iled 'em inside and out, haint ye?'
'No, on my soul—only one glass ter day—true as preachin'.'
'Boy,' I said to the yellow man, 'how much whiskey hev ye drunk ter day? Now, tell the truth.'
'Nary drop, massa; hed a moufful o'sperrets—a berry little moufful—dat's all.'
'Taint 'nough, Larkin! Come, now, doan't be mean with nigs. Give 'em sum more—sum o' thet tall brandy o' your'n; a good swig. They karn't stand it out har in the cold without a little warmin' up.'
'Well, I'm blamed ef I won't. Har, you, Jim,' speaking to a well-dressed darky standing near. 'Har, go ter thet red-headed woodpecker, thar at the cabin, and tell him I'll smash his peepers if he doan't send me sum glasses ter onst—d'ye har? Go.'
The gentlemanly darky went, and soon returned with the glassware; and meanwhile Larkin directed another well-clad negro man to 'bring the jugs.' They were strung across the back of a horse which was tied near, and, uncorking one of them, the trader said: 'I allers carry my own pizen. 'Taint right to give even nigs sech hell-fire as they sell round har; it git's a feller's stumac used ter tophet 'fore the rest on him is 'climated.'
'Well, it does,' I replied; 'it's the devil's own warming pan.'
Each negro received a fair quantity of the needed beverage, and seemed the better for it. A little brandy, 'for the stomach's sake,' is enjoyed by those dusky denizens of the low latitudes.
When they were all supplied, the trader said to me: 'Now, what d'ye say, Kirke? What'll ye give fur the boy?'
'Well, I reckon I doan't want no boys jest now; and I doan't know as I wants ary 'ooman nother; but if ye've got a right likely gal—one thet'll sew, and nuss good—I moight buy her fur a friend o' mine. His wife's hed twins, and he moight use her ter look arter the young 'uns.'
'Young or old?'
'Young and sprightly.'
'They is high, ye knows—but thar's a gal that'll suit. Git up gals;' and a row of five women rose: 'No; git up thar, whar we kin see ye.' They stepped up on the log. 'Now, thar's a galfur ye,' he continued, pointing to a clean, tidy mulatto woman, not more than nineteen, with a handsome but meek, sorrow-marked face: 'Luk at thet!' and he threw up her dress to her knees, while the poor girl reached down her shackled hands in the vain effort to prevent the indignity. He was about to show off other good points, when I said: 'Never mind—I see what she is. Let 'em git down.'
They resumed their seats, and he continued: 'Thet's jest the gal ye wants, Kirke—good at nussin', wet or dry; good at breedin', too; hed two young 'uns, a'ready. Ye kin * * * * *' [The rest of this discourse will not bear repeating.]
'No, thank you.'
'Well, jest as ye say. She's sound, though; sold fur no fault. Har young massa's ben a-usin' on har—young 'uns are his'n. Old man got pious; couldn't stand sech doin's no how—ter home—so he says ter me, 'Jake, says he, take har ter Orleans—she's jest the sort—ye'll make money sellin' har ter some o' them young bloods. Ha! ha! thet's religion for ye! I doan't know, Kirke, mebbe ye b'long ter the church, and p'raps yer one o' the screamin' sort; but any how, I say, d—— sech religion as thet. Jake Larkin's a spec'lator, but he wouldn't do a thing like thet—ef he would, d—— him.'
[The dealer in negroes never applies the term 'trader' to himself; he prefers the softer word, 'speculator.' The phrase 'negro trader' is used only by the rest of the community, who are 'holier than he.']
'I doan't b'lieve ye would, Larkin; yer a good fellow, at bottom, I reckon.'
'Well, Kirke, yer a trump. Come, hev another drink.'
'No; excuse me; karn't stand more'n one horn a day: another'd lay me out flatter'n a stewpan. But ter business. How much fur thet gal—cash down? Come, talk it out.'
'Well, at a word—twelve hun'red.'
'Too much; bigger'n my pile; couldn't put so much inter one gal, nohow. Wouldn't give thet money fur ary nig in Car'lina.'
'Oh, buy me, good massa. Mister Larkin'll take less'n dat, I reckon;dobuy me,' said the girl, who had been eying me very closely during the preceding dialogue.
'I would, my good girl, if I could; but you'll not exactly suit my friend.'
'Buy har fur yourself, then, Kirke. She'd suit you. She's sound, I tell ye—ye'd make money on har.'
'Not much, I reckon,' I replied, dryly.
'Why not? She'll breed like a rabbit.' * * * * *
'I wouldn't own her for the whole State: if I had her, I'd free her on the spot!' The cool bestiality of the trader disgusted me, and I forgot myself.
He started back surprised; then quietly remarked: 'Ye're a Nutherner, I swar; no corncracker ever held sech doctrines as them.'
'Yes,' I replied, dropping the accent, which my blunder had rendered useless; 'Iama Northerner; but I want a nurse, notwithstanding, for a friend.'
'Whar d'ye live?' asked the trader, in the same free, good-natured tone as before.
'In New York.'
'In York! What! Yer not Mr. Kirke, of Randall, Kirke & Co.? But, blamenation, year! How them whiskers has altered ye! IthortI'd seed ye afore. Haint ye come it over me slick? Tuk in clean, swallered hull. But thar's my hand, Mr. Kirke; I'm right glad ter see ye.'
'Where have you met me, my good fellow? I don't rememberyou.'
'Down ter Orleans. Seed ye inter Roye, Struthers & Co.'s. The ole man thinks a heap o' you; ye give 'em a pile of business, doan't ye.'
'No, not much of our own. They buy cotton for our English correspondents, and negotiate through us, that is all. Roye is a fine old gentleman.'
'Yes, he ar; I'm in with him.'
'Howinwith him?'
'Why, in this business—we go snacks; I do the buyin', and he finds the rocks. We use a pile—sometimes a hun'red, sometimes two hun'red thousand.'
'Is it possible! Then you do a large business?'
'Yes, right smart; I handle 'bout a thousand—big and little—ev'ry year.'
'Thatislarge. You do not buy and sell them all, yourself, do you?'
'Oh, no? I hardly ever sells; once in a while I run agin a buyer—like you—ha! ha!—and let one drap; but gin'rally I cage 'em, and when I git 'bout a hun'red together, I take 'em ter Orleans, and auction 'em off. Thar's no fuss and dicker 'bout thet, ye knows.'
'Yes, I know! But how do you manage so large a gang? I should think some would get away.'
'No, they doan't. I put the ribands on 'em; and, 'sides, ye see them boys, thar?' pointing to three splendid specimens of property, loitering near; 'I've hed them boys nigh on ter ten year, and I haint lost nary a nig sense I had 'em. They're cuter and smarter nor I am, any day.'
'Then you pick the negroes up round the country, and send them to a rendezvous, where you put them in jail till you make up your number?'
'Yes, the boys takes 'em down ter the pen. I'm pickin' sum up round har, now, ye see, and I send 'em ter Goldsboro'. When I've toted these down thar, the boys and I'll go up ter Virginny.'
'Why don't you send them on by stage? I should think it would hurt them to camp out at this season.'
'Hurt 'em! Lord bless ye, fresh air never hurt a nig; they're never so happy as sleepin' on the groun', with nothin' over 'em, and thar heels close ter a light-wood fire.'
'But the delicate house women and the children, can they bear it?'
'It do come a trifle hard on them, but it doan't last long. I allers takes ter the railroad when I gets a gang together.'
'Well, come; I want a woman. Show me all you have.'
'Do ye mean so, raally, Mr. Kirke? I thort ye wus a comin' it on me, and I swar ye does do the Suthern like a native. I'm blamed ef I didn't s'pose ye b'longed round har. Ha! ha! How the ole man would larf ter hear it!'
'But Iama native, Larkin; born within sight of Bunker Hill.'
'Yes, thet kind o' native; and them's the sort, too. They make all-fired smart spec'lators. I knows a dozen on 'em, thet hev made thar pile, and haint older'n I am, nother.'
'Is it possible! Yankees in this business?'
'Yes, lots on 'em. Some on yer big folks up ter York and Bostin are in it deep; but they go the 'portin' line, gin'rally, and thet—d—d ifI'ddo it, anyhow.'
'Well, about the woman. None of these will do; are they all you have?'
'No, I've got one more, but I've sort o' 'lotted har ter a young feller down ter Orleans. He told me ter git him jest sech a gal. She's 'most white, and brought up tender like, and them kind is high prized, ye knows.'
'Yes, I know; but where is she—let me see her?'
'She's in the store;' and rising, he led the way to the shanty.
When we arrived at the part of the ground where the marksmen were stationed, we found an altercation going on between Tom and a young planter. It appeared that the young man had paid for a shot, and insisted on his body servant taking his place in the lists. To that Tom, and the stout yeomen who had entered for the turkey, objected, on account of the yellow man's station and complexion.
The young gentleman was dressed in the highest style of fashion, and, though not more than nineteen, was evidently a 'blood' of 'the very first water.' The body servant was a good-looking quadroon, and sported an enormous diamond pin and a heavy gold watch chain. In his sleek beaver hat, and nicely-brushed suit of black broadcloth, he looked a much better-dressed gentleman than any one on the ground.
As we approached, Tom, every pimple on his red face swelling with virtuous indignation, was delivering himself of the following harangue:
'We doan't put ourselfs on a futtin' with niggers, Mr. Gaston. We doan't keer if they do b'long ter kid-gloved 'ristocrats like ye is; they karn't come in har, no how! Ye'd better go home. Ye orter be in better business then prowlin' round shootin' matches, with yer scented, bedevilled-up buck niggers. Go home, and wash the smell out o' yer cloes. Yer d——d muskmelon (Tom's word for musk) makes ye smell jest like hurt skunks; and ye ar skunks, clar through ter the innards. Whew! Clar eöut, I tell ye!'
The young man's face reddened. The blood of the chivalry was rising. He replied:
'Keep a civil tongue in your head, you thieving scoundrel; if you don't, the next time I catch you trading with my nigs, I'll see you get a hundred lashes; d——d if I don't.'
Tom bade him go to a very warm latitude, and denied trading with negroes.
'You lie, you sneaking whelp; you've got the marks on your back now, for dealing with Pritchett's.'
Tom returned the lie, when the young man's face grew a trifle redder, and his whip rising in the air, it fell across Tom's nose in a very uncomfortable manner—for Tom. The liquor vender reeled, but, recovering himself in a moment, he aimed a heavy blow at the young gentleman's frontispiece. That 'parlor ornament' would have been sadly disfigured, had not the darky caught the stroke on his left arm, and at the same moment planted what the 'profession' call a 'wiper,' just behind Tom's left ear. Tom's private dram shop went down—'caved in'—was 'laid out sprawling;' and two or three minutes elapsed before it got on its legs again. When it did, it frothed at the mouth like a mug of ale with too much head on it.
They were not more than six paces apart, when Tom rose, and drawing a double-barrelled pistol from his pocket, aimed it at the planter. The latter was in readiness for him. His six-shooter was level with Tom's breast, and his hand on the trigger, when, just as he seemed ready to fire, the negro trader coolly stepped before him, and twisted the weapon from his hand. Turning then to Tom, Larkin said, 'Now, you clar out. Make tracks, or I'll lamm ye like blamenation. Be off, I tell ye,' he added as Tom showed an unwillingness to move. 'A sensible man like ye arn't a gwine ter waste good powder on sech a muskrat sort of a thing as this is, is ye? Come, clar!' and he placed his hand on Tom's shoulder, and accelerated his rather slow movements toward the groggery. Returning then to the young man, he said:
'And now you, Mr. Gustavus Adolphus Pocahontas Powhatan Gaston, s'poseyouclar out, too?'