GROUPS ON THE DECK.
“Incredulity is but Credulity seen from behind, bowing and nodding
assent to the Habitual and the Fashionable.”—_Coleridge._
The Pontiac had passed New Madrid on the Mississippi. She was advertised
as a first-class high-pressure boat, bound to beat any other on the
river in the long run, but with a captain and officers who were
“teetotalers,” and never raced.
The weather had been stormy for several days; but it was now a
delightful April forenoon. The sun-bright atmosphere was at once fresh
and soft, exhilarating and luxurious, in a combination one rarely enjoys
so fully as on a Western prairie. The delicate spring tracery of the
foliage was fast expanding into a richer exuberance on either bank of
the great river. The dogwood, with its blossoms of an alabaster
whiteness, here and there gleamed forth amid the tender green of the
surrounding trees,—maples, sycamores, and oaks. All at once a magnolia
sent forth a gush of fragrance from its snowy flowers. With every mile
southward the verdure grew thicker and the blossoms larger.
Two miles in the rear of the Pontiac, ploughing up the tawny waters with
her sharp and pointed beak, came the Champion, a new boat, and destined,
as many believed, to prove the fastest on the river. Whatever her
capacities, she had thus far shown herself inferior to the Pontiac in
speed. She kept within two or three miles, but failed to get much
nearer. Captain Crane of the Pontiac, a small, thin, wiry man, who had
acquired a great reputation for sagacity by always holding his tongue,
kept puffing away at a cigar, looking now and then anxiously at his
rival, but evidently happy in the assurance of victory.
The passengers of the Pontiac were distributed in groups about different
parts of the boat. Some were in the cabin playing at euchre or brag.
Some, regardless of the delicious atmosphere which they could drink in
without money and without price, were imbibing fiery liquors at the bar,
or puffing away at bad cigars on the forward part of the lower deck. A
few were reading, and here and there a lady might be seen busy with her
needle.
On the hurricane deck were those who had come up for conversation or a
promenade. Smokers were requested to keep below. The groups here were
rather more select and less numerous than on the main deck. They were
mostly gathered aft, so that the few promenaders could have a clear
space.
Among these last were a lady and two gentlemen, one on either side of
her; the younger, a man apparently about thirty-two, of middle height,
finely formed, handsome, and with the quiet, unarrogating air of one
whose nobility is a part of his nature, not a question of convention.
(The snob’s nonchalance is always spurious. He hopes to make you think
he is unconscious of your existence, and all the while is anxiously
trying to dazzle or stun you by his appearance.)
The other gentleman was also one to whom that much-abused name would be
unhesitatingly applied. He seemed to be about fifty-five, with a person
approaching the portly, dignified, gray-haired, and his face indicating
benevolence and self-control.
The lady, who appeared to be the wife of the younger man, was half a
head shorter than he, and a model of delicate beauty in union with high
health. Personally of a figure and carriage which Art and Grace could
hardly improve, she was dressed in a simple gray travelling-habit, with
a velvet hat and ostrich-plumes of the same color. But she had the rare
skill of making simplicity a charm. Flounces, jewels, and laces would
have been an impertinence. While she conversed, she seemed to take a
special interest in a group that occupied two “patent life-preserving
stools” near the centre of the deck. A young boy held in his lap a
little girl, seemingly not more than two years old, and pointed out
pictures to her from a book, while a mulatto woman, addressed as Hattie,
who appeared to have the infant in charge, joined in their juvenile
prattle, and placed her arm so as to assist the boy in securing his
hold.
“Your son seems to know how to fascinate children,” said the lady,
addressing the elder gentleman; “he has evidently won the heart of my
little Clara.”
“He has a sister just about her age in Texas,” replied the father; “he
is glad to find in your little girl a substitute for Emily.”
“You live in Texas then?” asked the younger gentleman.
“Yes; let me introduce myself, since I was the first to broach
conversation. My name is John Onslow, and my home is in Southwestern
Texas, though I was born in Mississippi, whence I removed some six or
seven years ago. My family consists of a wife, two sons, and a daughter.
The younger of my sons, Robert, sits yonder. The elder, William Temple,
is a student at Yale. I inherited several hundred slaves. I have
gradually liberated them all. In Texas I am trying the experiment of
free labor; but it is regarded with dislike by my slave-holding
neighbors, and they do not scruple, behind my back, to call me an
Abolitionist. I have been North to buy farming implements, and to offer
inducements to German immigrants. There, sir, you have my story; and if
you are a Yankee, you will appreciate my candor.”
“And requite it, I suppose you think,” returned the younger gentleman,
laughing. “It strikes me that it is you, Mr. Onslow, who are playing the
Yankee. You have been talking, sir, with one Henry Berwick, New-Yorker
by birth, retired lawyer by profession, and now on his way to New
Orleans to attend to some real estate belonging to his wife. That little
girl is his daughter. This lady is his wife. My dear, this is our
fellow-passenger, Mr. Onslow. Allow me to introduce him to your better
acquaintance.”
The lady courtesied, flashing upon the stranger a smile that said as
eloquently as smile could say, “I need no vouchers; I flatter myself I
can distinguish a gentleman.”
As she turned aside her glance it met that of a third person, till then
unnoticed. He was pacing the deck and held an opera-glass in his hand,
with which he looked at places on either bank. He was slightly above the
middle height, compactly built, yet rather slender than stout, erect,
square-shouldered, neatly limbed. He might be anywhere between thirty
and thirty-five years of age. His hair was here and there threaded with
gray, and his cheeks were somewhat sunken, although there was nothing to
suggest the lassitude of ill-health in his appearance. His complexion
was that of a man who leads an active out-of-door life; but his hands
were small and unmarked by toil. He wore his beard neatly trimmed. His
finely curved Roman features and small expressive mouth spoke refinement
and strength of will, not untempered with tenderness; while his dark
gray eyes seemed to penetrate without a pause straight to their object.
A sagacious physiognomist would have said of him, “That man has a story
to tell; life has been to him no holiday frolic.” In the expression of
his eyes Mrs. Berwick was reminded of Sir Joshua’s fine picture of “The
Banished Lord.” This stranger, as he passed by, looked at her gravely
but intently, as if struck either by her beauty or by a fancied
resemblance to some one he had known. There was that in his glance which
so drew her attention, she said to her husband, “Who is that man?”
“I have not seen him before,” replied Mr. Berwick. “Probably he came on
board at New Madrid.”
They walked to the extent of their promenade forward, and turning saw
this stranger leaning against the bulwarks. His low-crowned hat of a
delicate, pliable felt, with its brims half curled up, his well-cut
pantaloons of a coarse but unspotted fabric, and his thin overcoat of a
light gray, showed that the Broadway fashions of the hour were not
unfamiliar to the wearer. This time he did not look up as the three
passed. His gaze seemed intent on the children; and the soft smile on
his lips and the dewy suffusion in his eyes betrayed emotion and tender
meditation.
“Well, Leonora, what is your judgment? Is he, too, a gentleman?” asked
Mr. Berwick of his wife.
“Yes; I will stake my reputation as a sibyl on it,” she replied.
“Ah! you vain mother!” said Berwick, laughing. “You say that, because he
seems lost in admiration of our little Clara. Isn’t her weakness
transparent, Mr. Onslow? What think _you_ of this new-comer?”
“He certainly has the air of a gentleman,” said Onslow “and yet he looks
to me very much like a fellow I once had up before me for
horse-stealing. Was he too much interested in looking at your wife, or
did he purposely abstain from letting me catch his eye? I shouldn’t
wonder if he were either a steamboat gambler or a horse-thief!”
“Atrocious!” exclaimed Mrs. Berwick. “I don’t believe a word of it. That
man a horse-thief! Impossible!”
“On closer examination, I think I must be mistaken,” rejoined Mr.
Onslow. “If I remember aright, the fellow with whom I confound him had
red hair.”
“There! I knew you must be either joking or in error,” said the lady.
“And now,” continued Mr. Onslow, “I have a vague recollection of meeting
him at the hotel where I stopped in Chicago last week.”
“Ah! if he is a Chicago man, I must be right in my estimate of him,”
said Mrs. Berwick.
“Why so? Why should you be partial to Chicago?”
“Because my father was one of the first residents of the place.”
“What was his name?”
“Robert Aylesford.”
As she uttered this word they repassed the stranger. To their surprise
he repeated, in a tone of astonishment, “Aylesford!” then seemed to fall
into a fit of musing. Before they again reached the spot, he had walked
away, and taken a seat in an arm-chair aft, where he occupied himself in
wiping the opera-glass with his handkerchief. If he had recognized
Onslow, he had not betrayed it.
Here the attention of all on the upper deck was arrested by an explosion
of wrathful oaths.
A tall, gaunt, round-shouldered man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of
some coarse, home-made cloth, had ascended the stairs with a lighted
cigar in his mouth. One of the waiters of the boat, a bright-looking
mulatto, followed him, calling, “Mister! Mister!”
The tall man paid no heed to the call, and the mulatto touched him on
the shoulder, and said, “We don’t allow smoking on this deck,” whereupon
the tall man angrily turned on him and, with eyes blazing with savage
fire, exclaimed: “What in hell air yer at, nigger? Ask my pardon, blast
yer, or I’ll smash in yer ugly profile, sure!”
“Ask your pardon for what?”
“For darrin’ to put yer black hand on me, confound yer!”
The mulatto replied with spirit: “You don’t bully this child, Mister. I
merely did my duty.”
“Duty be damned! I’ll stick yer, sure, if yer don’t apologize right off,
damned lively!” And the tall man unsheathed a monstrous bowie-knife.
Mr. Onslow approached, and mildly interposed with the remark, “It was
natural for the waiter to touch you, since he couldn’t make you hear.”
“Who the hell air you, sir?” said the tall man. “I reckon I kn settle
with the nigger without no help of yourn.”
“Yes,” said another voice; “if the gentleman demands it, the nigger must
ask his pardon.”
Mr. Onslow turned, and to his surprise beheld the stranger with the
opera-glass.
“Really, sir,” said Mr. Onslow, “I hope you do not wish to see a man
degrade himself merely because he isn’t white like ourselves.”
“The point can’t be argued, sir,” said the stranger, putting his glass
in his pocket. Then seizing the mulatto by the throat, he thrust him on
his knees. “Down, you black hound, and ask this gentleman’s pardon.”
To everybody’s surprise, the mulatto’s whole manner changed the minute
he saw the stranger; and, sinking on his knees, he crossed his arms on
his breast, and, with downcast eyes, said, addressing the tall man, “I
ask pardon, sir, for putting my hand on you.”
“Wall, that’s enough, nigger! I pardon yer,” said the mollified tall
man, returning his bowie-knife to its sheath. “Niggers mus’ know thar
places,—that’s all. Ef a nigger knows his place, I’d no more harm him
nor I’d harm a val’able hoss.”
The mulatto rose and walked away; but with no such show of chagrin as a
keen observer might have expected; and the tall man, turning to him of
the opera-glass, said, “Sir, ye ’r a high-tone gemmleman; an’ cuss me
but I’m proud of yer acquaint. Who mowt it be I kn call yer, sir?”
“Vance of New Orleans,” was the reply.
“Mr. Vance, I’m yourn. I know’d yer mus’ be from the South. Yer mus’
liquor with me, Mr. Vance. Sir, ye’r a high-tone gemmleman. I’m Kunnle
Hyde,—Kunnle Delancy Hyde. Virginia-born, be Gawd! An’ I’m not ashamed
ter say it! My ahnces’tors cum over with the caval’yers in King James’s
time,—yes, sir-r-r! My father was one of the largest slave-owners in the
hull State of Virginia,—yes, sir-r-r! Lost his proputty, every damned
cent of it, sir, through a low-lived Yankee judge, sir!”
“I could have sworn, Colonel Hyde, there was no Puritan blood in your
veins.”
“That’s a fak!” said the Colonel, grimly smiling his gratification.
Then, throwing his cigar overboard, he remarked: “The Champion’s nowhar,
I reckon, by this time. She ain’t in sight no longer. What say yer to a
brandy-smash? Or sh’l it be a julep?”
“The bar is crowded just now; let’s wait awhile,” replied Vance.
Here Mr. Onslow turned away in disgust, and, rejoining the Berwicks,
remarked to the lady, “What think you of your gentleman now?”
“I shall keep my thoughts respecting him to myself for the present,” she
replied.
“My wife piques herself on her skill in judging of character by the
physiognomy,” said Mr. Berwick, apologetically; “and I see you can’t
make her believe she is wrong in this case. She sometimes gets
impressions from the very handwriting of a person, and they often turn
out wonderfully correct.”
“Has Mrs. Berwick the gift of second-sight? Is she a seeress?”
“Her faculty does not often show itself in soothsaying,” said Berwick.
“But I have a step-mother who now and then has premonitions.”
“Do they ever find a fulfilment?”
“One time in a hundred, perhaps,” said Berwick. “If I believed in them
largely, I should not be on board this boat.”
“Why so?” inquired Onslow.
“She predicts disaster to it.”
“But why did you not tell me that before?” asked Mrs. Berwick.
“Simply, my dear, because you are inclined to be superstitious.”
“Hear him, Mr. Onslow!” said Mrs. Berwick. “He calls me superstitious
because I believe in spirits, whereas it is that belief which has cured
me of superstition.”
“I can readily suppose it,” replied Onslow. “The superstitious man is
the _un_believer,—he who thinks that all these phenomena can be produced
by the blind, unintelligent forces of nature, by a mechanical or
chemical necessity.”
“I may believe in spirits in their proper places,” said Berwick, “and
not believe in their visiting this earth.”
“But what if their condition is such that they are independent of those
restrictions of space or place which are such impediments to us poor
mortals?”
“Do you, too, then, believe in ghosts?” asked Berwick.
“Yes; I am a ghost myself,” said Onslow.
Berwick started at the abruptness of the announcement, then smiled, and
replied, “Prove it.”
“That I will, both etymologically and chemically,” rejoined Onslow. “The
words _ghost_ and _gas_ are set down by a majority of the philologists
as from the same root, whether Gothic, Saxon, or Sanscrit, implying
vapor, spirit. The fermenting _yeast_, the steaming _geyser_, are allied
to it. Now modern science has established (and Professor Henry will
confirm what I say) that man begins his earthly existence as a
microscopic vesicle of almost pure and transparent water. It is not true
that he is made of dust. He consists principally of solidified air. The
ashes which remain after combustion are the only ingredient of an earthy
character that enters into the composition of his body. All the other
parts of it were originally in the atmosphere. Nay, a more advanced
science will probably show that even his ashes, in their last analysis,
are an invisible, gaseous substance. Nine tenths of a man’s body, we can
even now prove, are water; and water, we all know, may be decomposed
into invisible gases, and then made to reappear as a visible liquid.
Science tells me, dear madam, that as to my body I am nothing but forty
or fifty pounds of carbon and nitrogen, diluted by five and a half
pailfuls of water. Put me under hydraulic pressure, and you can prove
it. So I do seriously maintain, that I am as much entitled to the
appellation of a ghost (that is, a gaseous body) as was the buried
majesty of Denmark, otherwise known as Hamlet’s father.”
“And I assert that Mr. Onslow has proved his point admirably,” said Mrs.
Berwick, clapping her little hands.
“I confess I never before considered the subject in that light,”
rejoined her husband.
“If science can prove,” continued Mr. Onslow, “that nine tenths of my
present body may be changed to a gaseous, invisible substance (invisible
to mortal eyes), with power to permeate what we call matter, like
electricity, is it so very difficult to imagine that a spirit in a
spiritual body may be standing here by our side without our knowing it?”
“I see you haven’t the fear of Sir David Brewster and the North British
Review before your eyes, Mr. Onslow.”
“No, for I do not regard them as infallible either in questions of
physical or of metaphysical science. Rather, with John Wesley, the
founder of Methodism, would I say, ‘With my latest breath will I bear
testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible
world, that, namely, of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the
testimony of all ages.’”
While this discussion was proceeding, Colonel Hyde and his new
acquaintance were pacing the larboard side of the deck, pausing now and
then at the railing forward of the wheel-house and looking down on the
lower deck, where, seated upon a coil of cables, were four negroes, one
of them, and he the most intelligent-looking of the lot, being
handcuffed.
“How are niggers now?” asked Mr. Vance.
“Niggers air bringin’ fust-rate prices jest now,” replied the Colonel;
“and Gov’nor Wise he reckons ef we fix Californy and Kahnsas all right,
a prime article of a nigger will fotch twenty-five hunderd dollars,
sure.”
“What’s the prospect of doing that?”
“Good. The South ain’t sleeping,—no, not by a damned sight. Californy’s
bound to be ourn, an’ the Missouri boys will take car’ of Kahnsas.”
“I see the North are threatening to send in armed immigrants,” said
Vance; “and one John Brown swears Kansas shall be free soil.”
“John Brown be damned!” replied the Colonel. “One common Suthun man is
more’n a match fur five of thar best Yankees, any day. Kahnsas must be
ourn, ef we hev to shoot every white squatter in the hull terrertory. By
the way, that’s a likely yuller gal, sittin’ thar with the bebby. That
gal ud bring sixteen hunderd dollars _sure_ in Noo Orleenz.”
“Whose niggers are those I see forward there, on the cables?” asked
Vance.
“Them niggers, Mr. Vance, air under my car’, an’ I’m takin’ ’em to Texas
fur Kunnle Barnwell. The feller yer see han’cuffed thar an’ sleepin’,
run away three or four yars ago. At last the Kunnle heerd, through
Hermin & Co., that Peek (that’s his name) was in New York; an’ so the
Kunnle gits me ter go on fur him; an’ cuss me ef I didn’t ketch him
easy. The other three niggers air a lot the Kunnle’s agent in St. Louis
bowt fur him last week.”
“How did you dodge the Abolitionists in New York?” inquired Vance. “You
went before the United States Commissioner, I suppose, and proved your
claim to the article.”
“Damned ef I did! Arter I’d kotched Peek, he said, ef as how I’d let him
go home, an’ settle up, he’d return, so help him Gawd, an’ give hisself
up without no fuss or trial. Wall, I’m a judge of niggers,—kn see right
through ’em,—kn ollerz tell whan a nigger’s lying. I seed Peek was in
airnest, and so I let him go; and may I be shot but he cum back jest at
the hour he said he would.”
“Very extraordinary!” said Vance, musingly. “You must be a great judge
of character, Colonel Hyde.”
“Wall, what’s extrordinerer still,” continued the Colonel, “is this:
Peek wanted money ter send ter his wife, and cuss me ef he didn’t offer
ter go the hull way ter Cincinnati without no officers ter guard him, ef
I’d give him twenty-five dollars. In coorse I done it, seein’ as how I
saved fifty dollars by the operation. The minute he got on board this
’ere boat I hahd him han’cuffed, fur I knowed his promise wahn’t good no
longer, anyhow.”
“Colonel, what’s your address?” asked Mr. Vance. “If ever I lose a
nigger, you’re the man I must send for to help me find him.”
The Colonel drew forth from his vest pocket a dirty card, and presented
it to Mr. Vance. It contained these words: “Colonel Delancy Hyde, Agent
for the Recovery of Escaped Slaves. Address him, care of J.
Breckenridge, St. Louis; Hermin & Co., New Orleans.”
“Shall be proud to do yer business, Mr. Vance,” said the Colonel.
“I must have a talk with that handcuffed fellow of yours by and by,”
remarked Vance.
“Do!” returned the Colonel. “Yer’ll find him a right knowin’ nigger. He
kn read an’ write, an’ that air’s more ’n we kn say of some white folks
in our part of the kintry.”
“Do the owners hereabouts lose many slaves now-a-days?”
“Not sence old Gashface was killed last autumn.”
“Who’s Gashface? Is it a real name?” asked Vance.
“Nobody ever knowed his raal name,” returned the Colonel; “an’ so we
called him Gashface, seem’ as he’d a bad gash over his left cheek. He
was a half mulatto, with woolly hair, an’ so short-sighted he weared
specs. Wall, that bloody cuss hahz run off more niggers nor all the
abolitioners in the Northwest,—damned ef he haint! Two millions of
dollars wouldn’t pay fur all the slaves he’s helped across the line. He
guv his hull time ter the work, an’ was crazy mad on that one pint. Last
yar the planters clubbed together an’ made up a pus of five thousand
dollars fur the man that ’ud shoot the cuss. Two gemmlemen from
Vicksburg went inter the job, treed him, shot him dead, an’ tuk the five
thousand dollars. An almighty good day’s work!”[14]
“How did the planters know they had got the right man?” asked Vance.
“Wall, there wah n’t much doubt about that, yer see,” said the Colonel.
“Them as shot him war’ high-tone gemmlemen, both on ’em, an’ knowed the
cuss well. So did I, an’ they paid me a cool hunderd,—damned if they
didn’t!—to come on an’ swar ter the body.”
“Let’s go and have a talk with your smart nigger,” interrupted Vance.
“Agreed!” replied the Colonel with an oath; and the two descended a
short ladder, and stood on the lower deck in front of Peek, who was
leaning against a green sliding box of stones, used for keeping the boat
rightly trimmed.
“Wake up here, Peek,” said Hyde, kicking him not very gently; “here’s my
friend, Mr. Vance, come ter see yer.”
The slave started, and his eyes had a lurid glitter as they turned on
Hyde; but they opened with a wild and pleased surprise as they caught
the quick, intelligible glance of Vance, whose right hand was pointing
to an inner pocket of his coat. The change of expression in the slave
was, however, too subtle and evanescent for any one except Vance himself
to recognize it; and he was not moved by it to take other notice of the
negro than to imitate the Colonel’s example by pushing Peek with his
foot, at the same time saying, “I wish I had you on a sugar-plantation
down in Louisiana, my fine fellow! I’d teach you to run away! You
wouldn’t try it more than once, I’m thinking.”
“Look he-ah, stranger,” exclaimed Peek, rising to his feet, with a look
of savage irritation, and clenching his fists, in spite of the irons on
his wrists, “you jes’ put yer foot on me agin, and I’ll come at yer,
shoo-ar!”
“You’ll do that, will you,” said Vance, laying both hands on the slave’s
throat, shaking him, and muttering words audible to him only.
Peek, seeming to struggle, thrust his fettered hands into the bosom of
his antagonist, as if to knock him down; but Vance pushed him up against
the bulwarks of the boat, and held him there, with his grasp on his
throat, till the slave begged humbly for mercy. Vance then let him go,
and turning to Colonel Hyde, with perfect coolness, said, “That’s the
way to let a nigger know you’re master.” To which the Colonel, unable to
repress his admiration, replied: “I see as how yer understand ’em, from
hide to innards, clar’ through. A nigger’s a nigger, all the world over.
Now let’s liquor.”
They went to the bar, around which a motley group of smokers and
drinkers were standing. The bar-keeper was a black man, and between him
and Vance there passed a flash of intelligence.
“What shall it be, Mr. Vance?” asked the Colonel.
“Gin for me,” was the reply.
“Make me a whiskey nose-tickler,” said the Colonel, who seemed to be not
unfamiliar with the fancy nomenclature of the bar-room.
The bar-keeper, with that nimbleness and dexterity which high art alone
could have inspired, compounded a preparation of whiskey, lemon, and
sugar with bitters, crushed ice, and a sprig of mint, and handed it to
the Colonel, at the same time placing a decanter labelled “GIN” before
Vance. The latter poured out two thirds of a tumbler of what seemed to
be the raw spirit, and, adding neither water nor sugar, touched glasses
with the Colonel, and swallowed it off as if it had been a spoonful of
_eau sucré_. So overpowered with admiration at the feat was the Colonel,
that he paused a full quarter of a minute before doing entire justice to
the “nose-tickler” which had been brewed for him.
Some of the loungers now drew round the Colonel, and asked him to join
them in a game of euchre. He looked inquiringly at Vance, and the latter
said, “Go and play, Colonel; I’ll rejoin you by and by.” Then, in a
confidential whisper, he added, “I must find out about that yellow
girl,—whether she’s for sale.”
The Colonel winked, and answered, “All right,” and Vance walked away.
“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Leonidas Quattles, a long-haired, swarthy youth,
who looked as if he might be half Indian.
“That’s Mr. Vance of Noo Orleenz,” replied the Colonel; “he’s my
partik’lar friend, an’ a perfek high-tone gemmleman, I don’t car’ whar’
the other is.”
“How stands the Champion now?” said another of the party.
“Three miles astern, and thar she’ll stick,” exclaimed Quattles.
As Vance reascended to the upper deck, he encountered the children at
play. Little Clara Berwick, in high glee, was running as fast as her
infantile feet could carry her, pursued by Master Onslow, while Hattie,
the mulatto woman in attendance, held out the child’s bonnet, and begged
her to come and have it on. But Clara, with her light-brown ringlets
flying on the breeze, was bent on trying her speed, and the boy, fearful
that she would fall, was trying to arrest her. Before he could do this,
his fears were realized. Clara tripped and fell, striking her forehead.
Vance caught her up, and her parents, with Mr. Onslow and Hattie,
gathered round her, while the boy looked on in speechless distress.
The little girl was so stunned by the blow, that for nearly a minute she
could neither cry nor speak. Then opening her eyes on Mr. Vance, who,
seating himself, held her in his lap, she began to grieve in a low,
subdued whimper.
“The dear little creature! How she tries to restrain her tears!” said
Vance. “Cry, darling, cry!” he added, while the moisture began to
suffuse his own eyes.
Then, taking from his pocket a small morocco case, he said to Mrs.
Berwick, “I have some diluted arnica here, madam, the best lotion in the
world for a bruise. With your permission I will apply it.”
“Do so,” said the mother. “I know the remedy.”
And, pulling from a side pocket of his coat a fresh handkerchief of the
finest linen, he wet it with the liquid, and applied it tenderly to the
bruise, all the while engaging the child’s attention with prattle suited
to her comprehension, and telling her what a brave good little girl she
was.
“What is your name?” he asked.
She tried to utter it, but, failing to make herself understood, the
mother helped her to say, “Clara Aylesford Berwick.”
“Aylesford!” said Vance, thoughtfully. Then, gazing in the child’s face,
he rejoined: “How strange! Her eyes are dissimilar. One is a decided
gray, the other a blue.”
“Yes,” said Berwick; “she gets the handsome eye from me; the other from
her mamma.”
“Conceited man! cease your trifling!” interposed the lady.
Vance picked up from the deck a little sleeve-button of gold and coral.
It had been dropped in the child’s fall.
“This must belong to Miss Clara,” said Vance, “for it bears the initials
C. A. B.”
The mother took it and fixed it in the little dimity pelisse which the
child wore.
Hattie now offered to receive Miss Clara from Vance’s arms; but, with an
utterance and gesture of remonstrance, the child signified she did not
choose to be parted without a kiss; so he bent down and kissed her,
while she threw her little arms about his neck. Then seeing the boy, who
felt like a culprit for chasing her, she called him to her and gave him
absolution by the same token. Thanking Vance for his service, Mr.
Berwick walked away with Leonora.
“That’s a noble boy of yours, sir,” said Vance, addressing himself to
Mr. Onslow.
All the father’s displeasure vanished with the compliment, and he
replied, “Yes, Robert _is_ a noble boy; that’s the true word for him.”
“I fear,” resumed Vance, “I gave you some cause just now to form a bad
opinion of me because of my conduct to one of the waiters.”
“To be frank,” replied Onslow, “I _did_ feel surprise that you should
take not only the strong side, but the wrong one.”
“Mr. Onslow, did you ever read Parnell’s poem of the ‘Hermit’?”
“Yes, it was one of the favorites of my youth.”
“And do you remember how many things seemed wrong to the hermit that he
afterwards found to be right?”
“I perceive the drift of your allusion, sir,” returned Onslow; “but I am
puzzled, nevertheless.”
“Perhaps one of these days you will be enlightened.” Then, changing the
subject, Vance remarked, “How do you succeed in Texas in your attempt to
substitute free labor for that of slaves?”
“My success has been all I could have hoped; but the more successful I
am, the more imminent is my failure.”
“Why so? That sounds like a paradox.”
“The rich slave-owners look with fear and dislike on my experiment.”
“What else could you expect, Mr. Onslow? Take a case, publicly vouched
for as true. Not long since a New York capitalist purchased mineral
lands in Virginia, with a view to working them. He went on the ground
and hired some of the white inhabitants of the neighborhood as laborers.
All promised well, when lo! a committee of slaveholders, headed by one
Jenkins,[15] waited on him, and told him he must discharge his hands and
hire _slaves_. The white laborers offered to work at reduced wages
rather than give up their employment, but they were overawed, and their
employer was compelled by the slave despots to abandon his undertaking
and return to a State where white laborers have rights.”
“And yet,” said Onslow, “there are politicians who try to persuade the
people that the enslaving of a black man removes him from competition
with white labor; whereas the direct effect of slavery is to give to
slaveholders the monopoly and control of the most desirable kinds of
labor, and to enable them to degrade and impoverish the white laboring
man!”
Here the furious ringing of a bell called the gentlemen to dinner.