NORTH AND SOUTH.
The family of the Mr. Lemuel Atkins, of whom the Captain had spoken,
belonged to what is called Good Society; but let no one suppose that
they constituted a specimen of the Boston aristocracy, with its men,
too often, indeed, cold and careless in the interests of mankind, yet
always polished gentlemen in instinct and education, and with its women,
cultured and noble, patrician from brow to foot, and many, very many of
them, angels of compassion and succor to the weak and poor. The Atkinses
were only of a large and dominant moneyed class, vulgar mushrooms—no,
toadstools—who spring up thickly in the aristocratic quarter and call
themselves Good Society.
These fine people were expecting a guest to dinner that afternoon, who
would have been a skeleton at any possible banquet of Harrington’s, could
he have known that such a guest was in town. Mr. Atkins’s usual dinner
hour was two o’clock, but on this occasion it had been postponed to four,
while the merchant was showing the guest a few of the lions.
It was within an hour of the dinner-time, and the servants in the kitchen
were sweltering over the preparation of the meal in the hottest possible
hurry, and the greatest possible trepidation, lest anything should be
overdone or underdone, or in any way done wrong. For they had been duly
impressed with the magnitude of the occasion, and they were trembling
lest the magnitude of the occasion should be disgraced by their humble
efforts.
Meanwhile Good Society was filled with soft tremors in the drawing-room
above. He had not come yet, but he was coming. Anxious eyes glanced
occasionally out at the front windows on Mount Vernon street, to see
if he was approaching. Eager ears listened momently for the slightest
intimation of a pull at the bell-wire. Palpitating hearts leaped at every
footfall in the highly respectable street, and Good Society was in a
steady flutter of delicious expectation.
Good Society, then and there represented by Mrs. Atkins, Miss Atkins,
Miss Julia Atkins, Mr. Thomas Atkins, and Mr. Horatio Atkins; and
elsewhere represented by the highly respectable father of this highly
respectable family, Mr. Lemuel Atkins, was not so honored every day in
the week—by no means. Distinguished gentlemen had come there to dine with
us; Count Blomanosoff, when he was in Boston, had come there to dine with
us; Lord Hawbury and Lord Charles Chawles, when they were in Boston, had
come there to dine with us; and eminent clergymen, and able lawyers, and
distinguished senators, and even a Massachusetts Governor, had come there
to dine with us. But a rich Southern gentleman—oh! A child of the sunny
South—ah! A gallant and chivalrous son of Louisiana, who owns an immense
plantation, and nobody knows how many of his fellow creatures—decidedly;
it is the next thing to having Mr. Webster to dine with us.
The drawing-room in which the so highly honored family were assembled
in eager expectation, was a large oblong square, papered with purple
and gold-spotted paper, and full of gaudy furniture. There were two
chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, all gilt and glitter; gilt sconces,
with cut glass globes, on the walls; a profusion of gold-framed pictures
and engravings; large mirrors over the mantels and between the windows;
red velvet, and blue velvet, and green velvet arm-chairs and sofas, all
around; a huge piano; vases; ormolu tables; tables of sienna marble;
statuettes on brackets; a bust of Mr. Webster on a pedestal; divers
ornaments in all directions; a vivid, huge-figured Brussels carpet on the
floor; and yellow and purple curtains to the windows. Taste, not in its
dying agonies, but murdered outright and horribly stone dead, was the
prevailing sentiment of the entire apartment.
Judged by a rigorous artistic eye, the same estheticide was chargeable
upon the drawing-room’s occupants. They were all excessively _à-la-mode_
in their general appearance, and evidently of the highest respectability.
Mrs. Atkins, the mother—who sat languidly leaning in the corner of a
velvet sofa, with her cheek resting on her fingers—was a fair-haired,
waxen-faced lady of middle age, with pallid-blue eyes, a snub nose, a
rabbit mouth half open, and a receding chin. She was expensively arrayed
in full dress of changeable silk, with many flounces; wore a lace cap,
and had a general air of weak good-nature and dawdling insipidity,
enervating to behold. Miss Atkins, the eldest daughter, who occupied the
other end of the sofa, was a yellow-haired, waxen-faced young lady of at
least twenty-five; the living suggestion of what her mother had been at
her age; with a chin even more receding, a nose as snub, eyes as pallidly
blue, the same drooping rabbit mouth, and the same air of mild vapidity
and hopeless enervation. She was also expensively attired, in deep blue
satin, cut low in the neck, and fitting closely to her full and shapely
bosom. Julia, the younger daughter, was an ultra fashionable miss of
sweet sixteen; with a bold, saucy face, smooth dark hair, a short, broad
nose, hard, black eyes, a prude’s mouth, and a great length and breadth
of flat circular jaw. The two young men, who were standing like highly
respectable caryatides, at opposite corners of the mantel, were snobs
of the purest water, both in dress and manner. They were got up in the
English style; for, like some of the highly respectable Bostonians, they
cherished a noble passion for that sort of Anglicism caricatured by Mr.
Punch. Their black trowsers were of the tightest, on legs the slimmest;
their black dress coats were close in the body, large in the sleeves, and
small in the tail; their vests were very short, their collars high and
stiff, and each wore the Joinville neck-tie, a horizontal bar of silk
reaching from ear to ear, to the successful adjustment of which, as Punch
observed about that time, a man had to give his whole mind. Whatever
mind the two young Atkinses possessed, had evidently been wholly given,
for the neck-ties were alarmingly perfect, and constituted, in fact,
an incontestable triumph of mind over matter. In the solitude of their
aspiring souls, the young men worshipped the memory of Lord Hawbury
and Lord Charles Chawles, and moulded their whiskers after the style of
whiskerage patronized by those eminent nobles. It mattered not that the
vulgar rumor had crossed the Atlantic that Lord Hawbury, immediately on
his return to his ancestral acres, had been clapped into limbo by a low
British tradesman, on account of certain pounds, shillings and pence owed
by him the said Hawbury to him the said low tradesman. It mattered not
that the still vulgarer rumor had crossed the Atlantic that Lord Charles
Chawles, that bright, consummate flower of the British aristocracy, who
had deigned to honor our humble homes with his august presence, had got
into a row in a theatre just after his return to London—had, in the
coarse language of the London newspapers, which love to hawk at merit,
got drunk; cruelly insulted a poor ballet-dancer behind the scenes;
cruelly beat and trod upon the manager, who had ventured a remonstrance;
had thereupon been borne away, roaring and fighting, to the nearest
station-house, from whence he had emerged in the morning, to incur the
reprimand of a magistrate, and pay a brawler’s fine. What mattered such
reports as these? mere evidence of the rush and outbreak of a fiery
mind of general assault, as Horatio felicitously said, quoting from
Hamlet, when the rumor reached him. Whiskers were whiskers still, and
so Horatio trimmed the sandy crop which was his own, after the Hawbury
model. The result was a scraggy mutton-chop, depending big end down, in
tawny, straggling moss of hair from Horatio’s cheeks, and between these
manly hirsute ornaments loomed a bald, flat, tallowy, superficial face,
with an air of sullen emptiness upon it; with short brown hair, parted
behind, and on the side, and brushed forward around it; with a low,
broad forehead; dull, boiled blue eyes; a strong, short nose; a thin,
lineless, resolute mouth; and a great expanse of chin and jaw, bolder
than, but like, his younger sister’s. Mighty in whiskerage and hair, and
on the Lord Charles Chawles model, was Horatio’s brother Thomas. Hair,
tawny-brown in color, parted on the left, sloping up and off crescendo
to fall in a mass on the right side, and bunching off in a round, full
tuft of lesser quantity on the other side. This, as the lob-sided crown
of a puffy face, with the younger sister’s chin and jaw. Eyes, close
together, hard, black and insolent; short nose, a compromise between snub
and straight, with a lift in the nostrils, as if it snuffed offence;
mouth, a short, stern, small horseshoe curve, cusps down; and under this,
on the broad and long flat chin, a tawny short imperial, and over this,
curving down from the centre of the nose and rounding up the cheeks, in
a military pothook, the gallant whiskerage of Lord Charles Chawles. Over
the whole face an expression of sternly supercilious insolence, inspiring
to behold. A fine young man—two fine young men indeed; models of their
kind; full of the pride of caste and all its callousness. Destined to be
citizens of the highest respectability, when their wild oats—and they
were wild—were sown and come to the hard and selfish harvest. Already
they had begun, and begun well. Furnished with their father’s money,
they had their club, their boon-companions, their mistresses, their fast
horses, and drank and drove and gamed and revelled in a manner hardly
outdone by Lord Hawbury and Lord Charles Chawles themselves. They were,
moreover, stanch young Whigs—Union men, Constitution men, Law and Order
men, Fugitive Slave Law men, sound on the goose in every conceivable
particular. Proof of their devotion to their country, they had only
the Saturday before, foregone their customary drive on the Cambridge
road, foregone their supper and wine at Porter’s, and stayed in town to
hear Mr. Webster at Faneuil Hall, and even now, Thomas, the younger and
more ardent spirit, was a little hoarse from cheering on that memorable
occasion. Proof again of their devotion to their country, which always
meant in one form or another the Southern-Slavery part of their country,
here they were, nobly sacrificing their customary drive, to muster with
the rest of the family and greet the ardent son of the sunny South, the
gallant and chivalrous Southern gentleman then expected, and not yet come.
He was coming, though, for while this interesting group, properly stilted
for the occasion, were waiting and chatting, a strenuous pull at the
bell-wire was heard, with the answering jingle of the hall bell.
“That’s him, be Jove!” exclaimed Thomas, straightening up on his slim
legs, and adjusting the bows of his neck-tie, while he looked with
military sternness at the drawing-room door.
Horatio, who, with the laudable desire to add brilliancy, as was his wont
on company days, to the dinner-table conversation, had been diligently
storing his memory with the quaint sayings of Charles Lamb—for Charles
Lamb is quite the _ton_ with the young Boston aristocracy, as Alexander
Pope is with the old—laid the book, which he had brought down to study
till the last minute, on the mantel behind a large vase, and with a
glance into the mirror behind him to see that his neck-tie was all right,
assumed a dignified and graceful attitude, with his left thumb inserted
in his vest pocket, and his head turned solemnly toward the door. Mrs.
Atkins, without moving, cast a glance along her flounces, and made sure
in her mind that she was seated so as to be able to rise gracefully when
the guest appeared. Her eldest daughter, with a little soft palpitation
at heart, for the guest might be a bachelor or a widower, and she was
ready to fall in love with any child of the sunny South, or son of the
icy North, who had money and social position, also cast an eye at her
ample skirts, and a mind’s eye at her capabilities for rising. The other
daughter, Julia, started bolt upright in her chair, and with her hard,
black eyes fixed on the door as though she would look through the panels,
listened intently.
Presently they heard Michael shuffling along through the hall, and then
the hall door opening.
“Is Mr. Atkins in?” demanded a resonant, loud voice, which was heard in
the drawing-room.
A moment’s silence, and Michael’s reply inaudible.
“Will he be in soon?”
Another silence, and Michael’s reply again inaudible.
“Well, I’ll wait for him.”
Michael was heard this time, explaining in a thin key that Mr. Atkins had
company, and wouldn’t wish to see him.
“Can’t help that,” was the bluff answer, followed by heavy feet stamping
into the hall, and the dump of a heavy body flinging itself on one of
the hall chairs. “It’s a matter of business, and he won’t thank you if I
don’t see him. Mind that, my man.”
“Humbug!” blurted out Horatio, taking up his book again. “It’s not him.”
“O fiddlestick!” was the elegant exclamation of Julia, in a pet, “he’s
not coming at all.”
“Hush, my child,” said her mamma in a soft, drawling voice, “don’t be
impatient. Show your breeding, my child, show your breeding.”
“Well, be Jove, I’d like to know who _that_ is!” exclaimed Thomas, with
some vehemence; “coming into the house like the sheriff, be Jove.”
Michael meanwhile, having probably stood still for a minute, was now
heard shutting the hall door, and presently came into the drawing-room,
and closing the door behind him, gave an account of the dialogue.
“Who is the man, Mike?” demanded Thomas in the imperative mood. “What
does he look like?”
Michael replied that he looked like a sailor, though he was not dressed
in sailor’s clothes.
“O it’s some of father’s people from the wharf,” said Horatio. “Better
show him up into the library, and not have him sitting there like a
scare-crow.”
“Yes, Michael, show him up into the library,” said Mrs. Atkins, “and tell
him Mr. Atkins will be in soon. If it’s business, your father will want
to see him, for he always sees people that come on business,” she added,
in a lower tone, as Michael slid out of the room.
They were quiet again for a minute, while the heavy boots of the visitor
were heard thumping up over the carpeted stairs into distance.
“Be Jove!” said Thomas, with a fierce air, “that chap goes up like one
of Dan Rice’s elephants, be Jove! Now then, where’s our Southern friend?
That’s the next question.”
“Mamma,” said Miss Atkins, in a soft, debilitated voice, with a slight
lisp, “do you know if he’s married?”
“No, Caroline, I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Atkins, languidly. “But
I think he’s not, or he would have brought his wife with him. These
Southern gentlemen are so gallant, you know, and they always bring their
wives with them.”
“Ecod, Carry,” blurted Thomas, while Caroline was taking the flattering
unction of her mother’s astonishing answer to her soul—“if he’s got a
wife already, it’s all up with your chance, me girl. Our Southern friends
are the deuce and all among the women, but Louisiana ain’t Turkey, you
know.”
“Now, Tom, I should be ashamed,” exclaimed Julia, bridling. “One would
think you were never brought up in good society, and I should be ashamed,
I should.”
“Oh, you cork up, Jule,” was the fine youth’s exquisite reply. “You girls
allow yourselves too much tongue, be Jove!”
“Hush, Julia,” interposed Mrs. Atkins, with soft authority, stopping the
young lady’s angry retort. “Silence, this instant. You musn’t speak to
your brother that way. It’s low, my child—very low, and you must show
your breeding.”
Julia was silent, but glared spitefully at Thomas. It is noticeable that
Mrs. Atkins never reproved her boys. Her girls she kept a check-rein upon
constantly.
“Mamma,” continued Caroline, perfectly unmoved by her brother’s late
remarks, “does he own a very large plantation, and how many negroes has
he, mamma?”
“Indeed, I can’t tell you, Caroline,” replied Mrs. Atkins, blandly.
“I think he must have a great many of the horrid creatures, for those
Southern gentlemen all have a great many, and numbers of the ungrateful
things run away, which was the reason why the Fugitive Slave Bill was
passed, you know.”
“Yes, and I wish the South would just march up back here on Nigger Hill,
and lug off the whole pack of them, men, women, and children, for they’re
a disgrace to the neighborhood, and it’s a burning shame to have them
staying away from their masters,” growled Horatio, looking up from the
gentle and human pages of Charles Lamb.
“All I know about him,” resumed Mrs. Atkins, continuing her notice of the
expected guest, “is what your father said in the note he sent up to the
house. Namely, that he belongs to a great cotton-house in New Orleans,
with which your father deals largely, and that he owns a plantation, and
that he is a splendid fellow, and a real Southern gentleman, and one of
the chivalry, and all that, and that we must have an excellent dinner,
and treat him with true Northern hospitality, and so forth. All which
you saw in the note, and really I don’t know any more about him. But of
course he is a perfect gentleman, for all the Southern gentlemen are
perfect gentlemen, and they are as gallant and chivalrous as gentlemen
can be, and as _distingué_ as—as Count Blomanosoff, and I’m sure nothing
could be more _distingué_ than Count Blomanosoff, you know.”
To compare anybody to the horrent-whiskered Russ who had dined with the
Atkinses on his way to Washington, was the highest compliment Mrs. Atkins
could pay. Count Blomanosoff was the god of her idolatry.
“Dear me, I wish he would come!” exclaimed Julia, fidgeting in her chair.
As if in response to her wish, and before her mother could again entreat
her to show her breeding, the door-bell rang.
“Here he is, be Jove!” cried Thomas, amidst a general flutter and
movement.
Anxious silence succeeded, while Michael was shuffling to the door.
Presently, the noise of entering feet, a full, decisive voice saying
something, and a soft, smooth, courteous voice answering; then, after a
moment’s pause, the drawing-room door swung open, and behind the sturdy
form of Mr. Lemuel Atkins, the enraptured ladies saw the rich brunette
complexion, the long waven hair and thick moustache, and the lordly
figure of their Southern guest.
At the first glance they were enchanted. So handsome, so gallant, so
chivalrous! Mrs. Atkins rose with a sweeping rustle of flounces, and
stepped forward; and there was a general rustle of rising and moving as
the two entered.
“Here we are,” cried Mr. Atkins, in his rotund, energetic voice, striding
in as he spoke, with a smile on his hard visage, and stepping aside to
pause and turn with an extended hand toward his guest. “Mr. Lafitte,
I have the honor to present you to my wife. My love, Mr. Lafitte, of
Louisiana.”
Mrs. Atkins curtseyed low as she slid forward with outstretched hand, her
waxen face slightly colored, and wreathed with smiles.
“I am most happy to see you, Mr. Lafitte,” she softly murmured, “and I am
delighted to welcome you to Boston.”
“Madam, I am charmed with the honor you do me,” courteously returned the
Southerner, bowing low with her hand in his, and serenely smiling.
“And this is my eldest daughter, sir,” continued the merchant. “Caroline,
Mr. Lafitte.”
Caroline looked very pretty, as with a fluttering heart, and a faint
sea-shell pink on her cheeks and lips, she wafted herself forward, and
dawdled down into a low curtsey, with a languishing glance at the rich
brunette visage of the Southerner. Mr. Lafitte glided up to her, bowing,
pressed her hand in his, and cast into her eyes a momentary ardent look,
which threw Caroline into feeble ecstasy.
“I am enchanted to meet you, Miss Atkins,” said Mr. Lafitte, in a low,
smooth voice, sweeter than music to her ear.
Caroline was so overcome with rapture, that she could only color,
curtsey, cast another languishing glance at her adorer, and withdraw a
pace or two, while her father introduced Julia. Then came Horatio’s turn,
and then Thomas’s. Horatio did it in the aristocratic Hawbury style—a
solemn face, a stiff bend of the back, the thumb of the left hand in his
vest pocket, and his right hand clasping Mr. Lafitte’s fingers. Thomas
came the Lord Charles Chawles—head up, shoulders back, coat-tail jutting
out in the bow, legs wide, hand slowly wagging Mr. Lafitte’s, horse-shoe
mouth agrin, and voice remarking, “Mr. Lafitte, yours—glad to meet you,
sir; be Jove, I am!” To which Mr. Lafitte replied, that he was always
proud to make a gentleman’s acquaintance, especially yours, Mr. Atkins,
on this happy occasion.
The introductions successfully over, Mr. Lafitte was invited to take a
seat near the hostess, and the rest of the company settled into their
respective chairs, Mr. Atkins surveying them all with an air of proud
and smiling gratification. He was a strong, sturdily-built man, of
good presence, dressed in black, with a purple velvet vest, crossed
by a short and thick gold chain. On his little finger he wore a heavy
gold seal-ring, with a red stone. His face was more like Horatio’s
and Julia’s than any of the others, but much finer and stronger than
either’s, for Mr. Atkins’s boyhood was cast in the robust life of a
country town, and he had fought his way up to wealth and social position
in Boston, battling with the forces of trade, and hewing out for himself
the character of a self-made man. The black, hard eyes of his younger
daughter, and the short, bold nose and large round jaw of her and the
sons, were stronglier seen in him than in them. He was smooth-shaven,
wore his hair short, and had the blanched, resolute color of a man whose
days had been strenuously devoted to money-making. Usually his face was
decisive and stern, though now it was relaxed into a proud and gratified
smile, as he surveyed his guest and family circle.
“Charming weather you’re having in Boston, madam,” remarked Mr. Lafitte,
addressing his hostess. “Cooler though than when I left Louisiana three
weeks ago. We had some of the hottest days there in April that I ever
knew. It was positively like midsummer.”
“Ah, Mr. Lafitte,” sighed Mrs. Atkins, “our climate must seem cold to
you, who have come so lately from the sunny South. Is this your first
visit to Boston?”
“Yes, madam, it is the first time I ever had the pleasure of visiting
your beautiful city,” courteously replied the Southerner. “I was sorry
not to be able to get here in time to hear Mr. Webster, who spoke, they
tell me, in your Faneuil Hall, last Saturday. Dear Webster! I positively
love him as if he were my brother. He is doing such a good work for our
common country.”
“Oh, isn’t he splendid!” lisped Miss Atkins, with a languishing air. “So
statesmanlike! We were all there to hear him, Mr. Lafitte. Oh, it was
beautiful!”
“I can well imagine that, Miss Atkins,” replied Mr. Lafitte, smiling
blandly at her; “and it was really patriotic in you to lend the grace
and beauty of your presence, ladies, to ornament such an occasion. Dear
Webster is giving abolition fanaticism its death-blow. By the way,
speaking of fanaticism, Mr. Atkins pointed out two of your notorieties to
me in the street to-day—Garrison and Wendell Phillips.”
“Horrid wretches!” murmured Mrs. Atkins, in a die-away tone.
“Be Jove!” blurted Thomas, “I’d just like to put an ounce of lead into
them two. I would, be Jove!”
“Very patriotic,” said Mr. Lafitte, with a courteous inclination of his
head toward the speaker, “and spoken in the true Southern spirit.”
“Those two men ought to be hung,” said Horatio, solemnly, emulous of
Southern approbation. “They make me think of that anecdote of Charles
Lamb, Mr. Lafitte. You remember, sir, a stranger called on Lamb at the
West Indy House. ‘Are you Mr. Lamb?’ said he. ‘Well,’ said Charles,
feeling the grey whisker on his cheek, ‘I think I’m old enough to be a
sheep.’ Now, Garrison and Wendell Phillips,” continued Horatio, making
the exquisitely felicitous application, “they’re old enough to be sheep,
and I go for making them dead mutton.”
“Ha, ha, capital!” exclaimed Mr. Atkins, with a mild bellow, looking
around on the company, with a smiling, open mouth of satisfaction in his
son’s wit.
“Very good, be Jove!” said Thomas, with a grin.
Mrs. Atkins feebly clapped her hands, and said, “good, good,” and
Caroline giggled, and softly murmured, “Oh, Horatio, you’re so funny!”
What a set of damned boobies! thought Mr. Lafitte; then aloud: “Yes,
that’s a capital story, and your application of it, Mr. Horatio, is one
of the best things I’ve heard. But I was surprised to see that Garrison
is quite a mild, benevolent-looking man. We think of him down South, you
know, as a red-faced brawler, and I was struck with the contrast between
the original and the fancy portrait. Phillips, too, surprised me still
more, for he has the air of a high-bred gentleman. I’ll tell you who he
reminded me of. You are aware, ladies, that the Mobilians are famous for
their polished grace and high breeding. Now, the flower of them all is
Tom Lafourcade. In fact his elegance and dignity of manner and bearing
are town-talk down there. Well, if you’ll believe me, Phillips, though
he has a graver and less pronounced air, actually reminded me of Tom
Lafourcade.”
“Dear me! how surprising,” softly exclaimed Mrs. Atkins.
“Why, yes, madam, very,” returned Mr. Lafitte. “It was really odd to come
North and have the arch abolition fanatic remind one of princely Tom
Lafourcade, of Mobile.”
“Oh, he’s very handsome,” lisped Caroline, pensively. “But so fanatical.”
“I tell you, Mr. Lafitte, it’s an awful pity about Phillips,” broke in
Mr. Atkins. “He’s very much of a gentleman, a splendid orator, full of
ability every way, and belongs to one of our most respectable families.
Why, I heard Choate say once that if he’d stuck to the bar, he’d have
been the first lawyer in America. Yes, sir. And there’s no doubt that if
he was in our party he’d be second to no man in the country, unless it
was Webster. But he’s thrown himself away—positively sacrificed all his
influence and wasted his talents by joining that abolition crew.”
“In short, Nicodemused himself into nothing, as Charles Lamb says,”
observed Horatio.
“Nicodemused?” interrogated Mr. Lafitte. “Might I ask the meaning of that
phrase, sir? I am so dull, and I confess my unacquaintance with Lamb.”
It is not Charles Lamb, but another humorist, who, alluding to the
obstructive influence of an ugly name upon its owner’s career, and giving
parents a quaint hint for the christening, remarks, “don’t Nicodemus
a boy into nothing.” Horatio, who only remembered the phrase for its
oddity, and as usual with his quotations, lugged it into his remarks,
without much thought of its relevancy, utterly forgetting the context and
the meaning, was considerably disconcerted by Mr. Lafitte’s question, and
reddened slightly.
“Nicodemused, Mr. Lafitte?” he stammered. “Why, you know, sir,” he
continued, as a happy means of extrication from his difficulty, suggested
itself—“you know that the Bible says Nicodemus went to Christ.”
“Oh, yes, I see. And lost his influence by so doing,” blandly answered
Mr. Lafitte, with a furtive smile which nobody noticed. “Yes, yes.
That’s very clear. Very happily said, sir, and I’m much obliged to you
for enlightening my stupidity. So Phillips has Nicodemused himself into
nothing?”
“Indeed he has, sir,” replied Mr. Atkins. “Just thrown away his talents,
and misused his eloquence in denouncing the Compromise Measures, and Mr.
Webster, and Slavery, and all the best interests of his country.”
“Be Jove, he’s a fool, that’s what he is,” remarked Thomas, caressing his
military whiskerage.
“He’s worse, Tom,” replied his father; “he’s a traitor, and ought to be
indicted for treason.”
“Does he move in good society here, Mr. Atkins?” blandly asked Mr.
Lafitte.
“He! Why, sir, he’s a rank Disunionist!” exclaimed the merchant. “A
Disunionist received into good society! My dear sir, what are you
thinking of!”
“Pardon me,” politely returned the Southerner, with a courteous
inclination of his head, and cherishing in secret, a malicious desire to
corner his host, though he must tell a lie to do it—“pardon me, I did
not know. You are aware that I am a Disunionist myself. The difference
I apprehend to be this: Phillips is for a Dissolution of the Union for
the sake of liberty; I am for a dissolution of the Union for the sake
of slavery. I state it frankly, for I wish to plainly present the fact
that we are both Disunionists, though for different reasons. Now am I to
infer that the fact of my Disunion sentiments would exclude me from good
society here? For I have letters to some of your leading citizens, and
it would indeed be awkward were I to present them where I should not be
welcome.”
“No, sir, no indeed, sir,” replied the merchant with sonorous emphasis.
“That is a different case altogether, sir. Entirely different. We honor
the spirit of Southern gentlemen in defence of their property, sir, and
our first society is always open to them, Mr. Lafitte.”
“You Southern gentleman are so chivalrous!” said Mrs. Atkins, with
languid playfulness.
“So ardent!” lisped Caroline, with a languishing glance at the Southerner.
“Indeed, ladies, you overwhelm me,” returned Mr. Lafitte, gallantly;
“and I am glad to perceive the true state of the case, Mr. Atkins. It
is curious, however, if we look at it from one point of view, that Mr.
Phillips, who, as you say, is very much of a gentleman, one of your most
talented men, and belonging to one of your most respectable families—it
is curious that he should be sent to Coventry by your first society for
his Disunion, and we received so handsomely for ours. But then, he is
for liberty, and we are for slavery, which, as you happily observed,
makes an important difference. Yes, I see the distinction, and it is both
broad and just. An admirable distinction, indeed, and one that does your
society great credit.”
Mr. Lafitte said all this so courteously—with such flattering and affable
sincerity of voice and manner—that his listeners had not the slightest
apprehension of the terrific sarcasm which lurked in his words. They took
it all as an elaborate compliment, and sat smiling and simpering at him,
each after his or her respective fashion. The damned, mean, contemptible,
servile curs—tabooing their own Disunionists, and ducking and smiling
to ours!—was Mr. Lafitte’s irreverent mental reflection, as, softly
fingering his moustache, with the most affable of smiles lighting his
rich brunette complexion, he equably surveyed them—floods of contemptuous
disgust meanwhile raging delightedly in his lordly bosom.
“Oh, Mr. Atkins,” said the lady of the house, “I almost forgot to tell
you that a—a person called to see you, and is up-stairs in the library.”
“A person. Who is he? I can’t see persons now. Send up word that I’m
engaged,” returned the merchant, somewhat brusquely.
“Michael thought he was a sailor,” drawled Mrs. Atkins, in her fal-lal
voice; “and he said he’d come on business of importance, and that you’d
want to see him.”
“Oh, business. That’s another affair,” returned her husband, rising and
looking at his watch. “Business before pleasure always. You’ll excuse me
a few moments, Mr. Lafitte. I’ll be right down.”
“Certainly, sir, certainly,” said the Southerner, blandly bowing.
Mr. Atkins at once left the drawing-room and went up-stairs into the
library. The visitor, a short, strongly-built man, with a sunburnt face,
who was slowly walking up and down, with his hands in his pockets, came
toward him as he entered.
“Why, Captain Bangham! You? How are you?” exclaimed the merchant,
smiling, and shaking hands with him.
“All right, Mr. Atkins. How are you, sir?”
“Capital. And so the Soliman’s in.”
“Yes, sir. Came up this morning. I’ve been waiting at the office pretty
much all day”—
“Indeed. I’m sorry, captain. But, for a wonder, Lafitte came to town, and
I’ve been showing him round.”
Captain Bangham started, and slapped his hips with his hands.
“Lafitte in town!” he burst out. “Which one of ’em?”
“Lafitte the younger. Torwood, you know,” returned the merchant, taking
an easy chair.
“The hell he is!” ejaculated the profane captain, reddening, and
thrusting both hands into his pocket. “You don’t mean to say he’s
down-stairs now?”
“Why Bangham, what in the world’s the matter with you, man?” said the
surprised merchant, staring at him. “Down stairs? Of course he’s down
stairs. Come to dine with us.”
“Well, I’m damned!” vociferated the excited captain. “If this ain’t
horrid.”
He stamped off, with his hands in his pocket, while Mr. Atkins stared at
him, as if he thought the man had gone mad.
“Captain Bangham,” said the merchant, slowly, “will you be so good as
to tell me what you mean by this extraordinary ebullition. What’s the
matter? Isn’t the Soliman all right? Has the cargo”—
“The matter’s just this, Mr. Atkins,” broke in the sailor, coming toward
him, and flinging himself into a chair. “Soliman, cargo, and all is
right. There’s nothing the matter with them”—
“Then what _is_ the matter?” demanded the merchant, angrily.
“The matter’s this, Mr. Atkins,” roared Bangham, pounding his knees with
his clenched hands. “When we were three days out we found a blasted
nigger, half smothered in the hold. And that nigger belongs to Torwood
Lafitte, and you’ve got him down-stairs to dine with you. Yes, sir, I’ve
got the nigger tied up aboard the brig this minute, and you’ve got his
master.”
Mr. Atkins turned white, and sat looking at the sailor with rigid lips.
“Yes, sir. That’s the matter,” continued Bangham. “And matter enough,
too, Mr. Atkins. Just think of what Lafitte’ll say if he hears that his
nigger got off on your brig. Just think of the row there’ll be in Orleans
if it gets out. They’ll seize me for it, if the brig ever touches the
levee again, Mr. Atkins.”
“She’ll touch the levee again with that scoundrel on board of her,”
shouted the merchant, with an oath, thrusting his thumbs into the
arm-holes of his vest, and swelling proudly. “They shall know in New
Orleans that we’re law-abiding citizens, Bangham. Back he shall go, and
it will redound to the credit of the house when it’s known that we sent
him back promptly. I’m glad you came to tell me this, Bangham. Just keep
it quiet. He shall go back just as soon as the Soliman can get ready for
the return voyage.”
“All right, sir,” replied the sailor. “But, Mr. Atkins, we’ve got him
here now in Boston Bay, and how are we going to take him back without
going to law about it? Hadn’t Lafitte better bring him before a
Commissioner, and have a certificate made out”—
“No,” interrupted the merchant, with strenuous emphasis. “I’ll have it
said in New Orleans that a Boston merchant can show his devotion to the
interests of the South without any ridiculous formalities. It’ll strike
them well, Bangham, and raise our credit there. Besides, if we go before
the Commissioner, those infernal Abolitionists will have another long
fuss about it, as they had about Sims, and who knows but that they’ll
rescue him as they did Shadrach. No, I’ll make sure work of it. If the
black villain were to escape, the effect on my trade would be as bad in
New Orleans as if I hadn’t done my best to return him, and I won’t have
my trade injured. Business before everything. I’m not going to have the
delay of the law, nor the risks either, in this matter. So just hold on
to the black reprobate, Bangham, till we can return him.”
“It’s rather risky, Mr. Atkins,” demurred the sailor. “You know it’s
illegal, sir, to take off the man without due process of law, and if the
Grand Jury gets hold of it, they’ll be apt to indict you for kidnapping.”
“Indict _me_?” returned the merchant. “Ho, ho, Bangham,” he laughed,
“you’re verdant, my man. There’s not a Grand Jury would ever find a
bill against me for that, Bangham. Why, bless your soul, Bangham, the
Grand Jury’s made up of our most respectable citizens—property holders
every man of them—Fugitive Slave Law men to the backbone—and do you
think they’d indict me for an act in the very spirit of the Compromise
Measures, and for the best interests of our Southern commerce? Oh, no,
Bangham! There’s not one of them that wouldn’t wink at it—not one. No
fear about the Grand Jury, captain, not the least in the world. But you
haven’t told me how this black wretch got aboard.”
“And I’ll be hanged if I know, Mr. Atkins,” replied the sailor, with
another thump on his knees. “All I know is, that when we were three days
out we unbattened one of the hatches to get an axe that had been left in
there accidentally, and there was the black beast, almost dead. Lord, how
he smelt! It was horrid. And he looked like the very devil himself. Had
an iron collar on his neck, with the name of Lafitte Brothers engraved on
it. He escaped from the Red River, lived in a swamp with the snakes and
alligators, got down the river somehow, and had a horrid time all round.
Didn’t seem to know, or else he wouldn’t tell, how he got aboard the
brig. Fact is, the black pig’s not more than half-witted now, with all
he’s gone through.”
“Badly treated?” inquired Mr. Atkins, placidly.
“Oh, yes, treated bad enough,” carelessly replied the sailor. “Lafitte’s
a high-binder with his niggers, I reckon. This chap’s all covered with
scars and marks, and accordin’ to his story, and that’s true enough, I
don’t doubt, there’s not a worse treated nigger in the whole South than
he was. He wouldn’t have run off, I guess, if he hadn’t been desperate
with bad usage. I expect Lafitte’ll be the death of him when he gets him
again.”
“That’s his lookout,” said the merchant, calmly. “If Lafitte chooses to
maltreat his own property, there’s no one the loser by it but himself.”
At this moment Michael appeared at the library door with the announcement
that dinner was served. The merchant rose, and Bangham took his straw hat
from the table and rose also.
“I’ll see you to-morrow, captain,” said Mr. Atkins. “In the meantime,
keep that fellow in limbo, and we’ll arrange for his return.”
“All right, Mr. Atkins,” returned the sailor, lounging out of the room,
with a relieved mind.
Mr. Atkins followed him down-stairs to the hall-door, and then turned
into the drawing-room, with a smiling countenance.
“Now, Mr. Lafitte,” said this manly, humane, high-souled, law-abiding,
patriotic American Christian and flower of mercantile morality,
addressing the gallant and chivalrous son of the sunny South, “now, if
you please, we will go out to dinner.”
“Shall I have the honor?” said Mr. Lafitte, rising and offering his arm,
with a bow, to the hostess.
She took the offered arm, and they swept out together, the brave and
the fair. Bouquet de Caroline streamed in their wake, as Miss Atkins,
leaning on the arm of her highly respectable papa, wafted on after
them. Millefleurs and pomatum lent their sweetness to the desert air
of the drawing-room, as the gallant Horatio escorted out the lovely
Julia. Following up the rear, in martial state, and redolent of musk and
marrowfat, came haughty Thomas, caressing the whiskerage of Lord Charles
Chawles, and sniffing the rich odor of the dinner from afar.
Meanwhile, low Antony, brother of Roux, bought chattel of Lafitte,
foodless, filthy, helpless, friendless, despised and accursed, lay
bound in the dark and noisome hold of a Boston vessel—a negro with no
rights that a white man is bound to respect—with no rights that a Boston
merchant might not, and would not, take away, all for the good of party
and of trade—a good which, as every thoughtful patriot and Christian will
allow, is the chief good of existence.