WRECK AND RUIN.
The next day arose in the dazzling effulgence of a fervid sun. It was the
thirty-first of May—the last day of spring—but the light and heat of June
filled the streets of the crowded city under a cloudless and resplendent
blue.
Anticipating a crowd of callers, Muriel, unwilling to see them with this
trouble on her mind, gave Patrick orders to admit no one but Wentworth
and Captain Fisher, Harrington having sent for the latter.
The Captain arrived about ten o’clock, and his features grew all atwist,
and his head all awry, the moment he laid eyes on Harrington. There is
no knowing the unimaginable screw he would have got himself into could
he have seen the ghastly face the young man had worn the evening before.
To-day Harrington was only intensely pallid, and his face was resolute,
stern, and calm. While the Captain yet stared at him, and before he could
express his astonishment, Harrington bade him sit down, and at once told
him the whole story.
The moment he had done, the Captain rose in awful wrath, and began to
swear. Such oaths! No spruce-gum imprecations then, but tobacco of every
conceivable brand, did the infuriated old seaman pour forth in a steady
stream. The army that swore terribly in Flanders, never swore worse than
he in his wrath. Lafitte, Atkins, Boston, Boston merchants, kidnappers,
slaveholders, and slavery in the abstract and in the concrete, did he
shower with curses. Never had the Captain such a backsliding before.
Harrington, who perhaps thought of Sterne’s Recording Angel, with his
disposition to blot out with tears the record of what Muriel called good
sins, let him rip away till, as the man in the play says, he got all the
bad stuff out of him, and tumbled into his seat exhausted with his rage.
The interview lasted about an hour, and without result. Harrington had
thought it best to let the Captain know what had happened, and did
not hope that he could suggest any action, as under the circumstances
he could not. Profoundly depressed with the knowledge that Mrs.
Eastman’s invincible feeling shut out even the forlorn hope of legal or
anti-slavery effort, the old man departed with a self-imposed promise to
remain all day on the wharf and watch the Soliman.
Mrs. Eastman’s feeling was indeed invincible. She said nothing, but as
they saw her moving about the house like a ghost, they understood from
her austere and ashen features that she could not bring her heart to
consent to her brother’s public dishonor, and her own related disgrace.
The family _esprit de corps_ was mighty in her.
Muriel, meanwhile, thinking that the true disgrace and dishonor would
be to have Antony sacrificed to any private feeling, however sacred,
was holding busy audience with her teeming brain, as to the duty of
disregarding her mother’s feeling, and resolutely taking matters into her
own hands. The chief consideration that withheld her decision now, was
that the captain of the Soliman might deny, when the writ was served on
him, that the man was in his possession, and that then, in the interim
of delay, Mr. Atkins would procure a regular warrant, which would be
fatal to Antony. Besides, she well knew that the moment the fugitive
was brought before a Commissioner, the dauntless Harrington, thoroughly
trained in the use of arms, and with the might of ten men in him, would
burst into the court-room like a thunderbolt of war, and slay every man
that stood between him and the rescue, or be himself slain. There was
good blood in the veins of young Muriel—the old red blood of the Achaian
women who sent their dear ones to Platea with the cry of “return with
your shields or upon them”—the old red blood of the New England women
who armed their husbands for Lexington; and strong in her faith of the
deathlessness of life, she did not shrink from the thought of his death
in such a cause; but still she preferred that every peaceful means of
obtaining the end should be employed before the last stern issue should
be made.
While she yet debated with herself, Wentworth arrived. A hasty council
was at once held between the three, and it was resolved that Harrington
should wait on Mr. Atkins, with a proposition to buy Antony at any price
within reason.
Accompanied by Wentworth, Harrington at once set out for Long Wharf. It
was then nearly noon, and the crowded streets through which they passed
were salient and swarming in the vertical splendor. A few minutes’ walk
brought them to the place of their destination, and Wentworth agreeing
to wait outside, wandered across the street to the shipping, while
Harrington turned in to the counting-room.
He paused a moment in the dusky ware-room opening on the street, and
surveyed its contents. Amongst other merchandise was visible a pile of
dirty cotton-bales, burst here and there with their fullness, and the
white staple bulging from the rents. The thick, musty, stifling smell of
cotton choked the air of the ware-room. It was the same smell that had
stifled the conscience of the merchant, the conscience of his fellows,
the conscience of the nation—yes, honor, duty, courage, compassion,
manhood, independence, all that was truly American.
Pausing only for a moment, Harrington went up-stairs into the office, and
glancing at the clerks by the desks, looked away and saw the merchant
sitting with his back to him in the little inner counting-room, and by
his side Driscoll, the stevedore. He at once passed forward, noticing, as
he entered the counting-room that Driscoll had a twenty-dollar gold piece
in his hand. Without thinking anything of this, Harrington nodded to the
stevedore, and bowed gravely to Mr. Atkins as the latter turned with a
sudden flush and a half scowl toward him.
“Mr. Atkins,” said the young man, courteously, “will you favor me with a
few minutes’ conversation with you?”
The merchant’s first impulse was to order him out of the office, but
Harrington’s manner was at once so courteous and so dignified that he
found it difficult to treat him with incivility.
“Driscoll,” said he, “just wait outside a few minutes. Now, Mr.
Harrington, what is it?”
Driscoll withdrew just outside of the open door, where he remained
standing, while Harrington took a chair beside the merchant, who turned
his obstinate, energetic face straight to the wall before him, and linked
his fingers, with the air of one who was resolved to hear patiently all
that could be said, and not be moved by anything.
“Mr. Atkins,” began Harrington, “I have called to see you about this
man Antony. I am aware that he escaped from New Orleans in one of your
vessels, and I fully appreciate the difficulties of the position in which
his escape has placed you. If it should happen to become known, it not
only injures the credit and character of your house in New Orleans, but
it renders your captain liable to imprisonment. Is it not so, Mr. Atkins?”
“It is, Mr. Harrington,” replied the merchant, somewhat disconcerted by
the gentle suavity of Harrington’s manner, and by his fair statement of
the matter, which were not what he had anticipated.
“On the other hand, Mr. Atkins,” pursued Harrington, “is the fact that
this negro escaped, as there is no reason to doubt, from a master of
unusual hardness, and only after being very cruelly treated. Furthermore,
he chanced to find shelter with your sister, who feels a deep sympathy
for his misfortunes, and would be very seriously injured both in health
and spirits if he were returned to the unhappy life from which he has
fled. Now I assume of course that you do not wish to unnecessarily
afflict this poor fellow, still less to grieve Mrs. Eastman. All that you
wish is to be rid of the unfortunate consequences which his escape is
likely to entail upon you in New Orleans. Is not that the case?”
Mr. Atkins stared at the wall with an uneasy look, and twiddled his
thumbs.
“Something of that sort, Mr. Harrington, something of that sort,” he
nervously replied.
“Exactly,” returned Harrington. “Now I take the liberty to suggest that
this matter can be readily arranged to the satisfaction of all parties,
and every unpleasant consequence be avoided. I am commissioned to say
that the value of this man, and even twice or three times his value, will
be paid to his owner. It will be easy for you to state this in a card in
the New Orleans papers, and also to state the circumstances under which
he got to Boston in your vessel. Everybody will see at once that you and
your captain were not at all responsible for his escape, and this frank
statement, conjoined with your avowed willingness to reimburse the owner
for his loss, will not only free you from all suspicion of complicity
in his flight, but will raise your credit as an honorable man in New
Orleans, and also with the conservative portion of the community at the
North. Besides, this compromise will spare your sister and niece the
real distress they will feel if the man is returned, and this I think
you will be willing to do if you can in justice to all other parties
concerned. This arrangement will not only cost you nothing, but benefit
you materially, besides satisfying every person involved in the matter.
Now, candidly, is not this a fair and reasonable proposition?”
Mr. Atkins fidgeted in his chair for a minute, unable to deny the force
of what Harrington had said.
“Well, Mr. Harrington,” he replied, “I admit that your plan is feasible
enough, and not unfair, certainly. But there is one difficulty in the
way. Mr. Lafitte is unwilling to lose this man. His value is not more
than twelve hundred dollars, but I am convinced that Mr. Lafitte would
not take five thousand for him.”
“Mr. Atkins, we will give him five thousand,” said Harrington.
“But I tell you he wouldn’t take it,” replied the merchant.
“Well, then, we will give him ten thousand,” said Harrington.
Mr. Atkins stared at him.
“Pshaw! Mr. Harrington, you surely wouldn’t be such a fool as to give
that sum for a worthless nigger,” he contemptuously answered.
Harrington’s blood grew hot, but externally he kept cool as ice.
“My dear sir,” he said, affably, “we will not mention the negro. It
is Mrs. Eastman who is concerned. Your niece will willingly give ten
thousand dollars out of her fortune to spare her mother’s feelings. And
surely you would not deny her the privilege of comforting her mother,
even were this a mere matter of prejudice.”
Mr. Atkins really felt cornered. He could not but see the various solid
advantages of this proposition. But Mr. Atkins had considerable of the
mule in his composition.
“Mr. Harrington,” said he, after an embarrassed pause, “suppose Lafitte
wouldn’t be willing to take even ten thousand.”
“My dear Mr. Atkins,” replied Harrington, laughing—alas! he found it
hard to laugh, poor gentleman—“do you not see that if Mr. Lafitte refuses
to take so extravagant a sum, he will only make himself ridiculous in the
eyes of the New Orleans people. Why, they will hoot at him! And besides,
they will extol your public spirit to the skies. It will give you a name
there no other merchant possesses. Just think of it! Why, Lafitte would
be forced to accept out of pure shame, even were he indifferent to the
advantage of having the round sum of ten thousand dollars.”
“I declare, sir, this is too preposterously absurd,” said the merchant,
growing red with vexation at being thus tempted out of his plan. “To
think of wasting so much money as that for such a purpose.”
“But, Mr. Atkins,” replied Harrington, “large as the sum is, what is it
compared with your sister’s peace of mind? If you only knew the dreadful
state of distress she is in, you would not think so. True her distress
may be nonsensical, but still as a practical man you will be willing to
allow that we must take human nature as we find it. Besides, we need
not give so large a sum. We only wish to give enough to repair matters,
and set you right with the New Orleans folks. Lafitte can appraise his
slave, and regard for public opinion will make him keep within reason.
Still we are ready to do anything rather than have you prejudiced in your
business, or your sister injured as, at her time of life, this matter
would injure her.”
“I don’t see why you should interest yourself so much in this affair, Mr.
Harrington,” grumbled the merchant.
“Pardon me, I am only an agent,” replied Harrington, with a sweet
civility which not even Atkins could resist. “I hope you will excuse
me if I have said anything to offend your sense of propriety, but I
only meant to suggest a way out of this unpleasant embroilment, which I
thought might not have occurred to you, and which I am sure will commend
itself to your judgment as a practical business man, and one who only
desires fair play to all parties. I trust there is no offence in this Mr.
Atkins.”
“Oh, no sir, no sir,” said the merchant hastily, with an awkward bow,
his jaw working meanwhile with his embarrassment at the deferential
politeness with which Harrington presented what he could not but admit
was an unexceptionable way of settling the whole matter. “No offence at
all, sir. But—well—what I—well the fact is, Mr. Harrington, you know my
political views, which of course you don’t agree with.”
“We will not differ about politics, sir,” replied Harrington with
gracious affability.
“No, of course not, of course not,” fidgeted Mr. Atkins. “But this is
the point: There has been too much tampering with slave property in this
country, sir, and I wanted to send that man back that Southern men might
see that we are devoted to their interests, and can promptly return their
property without putting them to the trouble of legal formalities.”
“My dear sir,” put in Harrington, “in what better way could you prove
your devotion to the interests of Southern men than by the plan I
mention? Consider how inferior the return of the man would be to the
magnificent offer to pay ten times his value, publicly made, and promptly
accomplished. The one would be the theme of limited complimentary
mention, but the other would be blazoned far and wide, and loud and long.
A Northern merchant willing to sacrifice ten thousand dollars even,
rather than loosen one bond of political or business fellowship between
the North and South! Why, it is impossible that you should not see the
superiority of this measure to accomplish the very end you have in view.”
Mr. Atkins thrust his hands into his pockets, and working his jaw
convulsively, struggled between the temptation to yield, and the
obstinate desire to carry out his original purpose. Harrington saw that
the crisis had come, and fearing to irritate the merchant into refusal by
his presence, he rose.
“Permit me to leave you to think of it,” he said courteously. “Just give
it candid consideration, solely as a business matter, and with regard to
your own interests and political feelings, and let me call again, if it
is not asking too much, at any time you may mention.”
It is perfectly impossible to describe the fine tact of bearing, the
sweet and winning courtesy and delicacy with which Harrington conducted
himself during this difficult interview. If Lemuel Atkins had not been
more stubborn than the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, he would have soon
opened to that subtle charm, and as it was, he began to open to it.
“Well, Mr. Harrington,” he said after a pause, “I’ll think of it, and you
can call in about—no you needn’t,” he cried, with a sudden revulsion,
turning red in the face with passion. “I’ll be damned if I’ll do it!
There. It’s cursed folly, and I won’t consent to it.”
Harrington’s trembling heart froze, but he did not yet abandon hope.
“Nay,” said he, gently, “I trust you will not decide hastily. I know
it may strike you unfavorably in one view of it, but if after careful
consideration you do not approve the course I mention, why then I will
submit to your maturer judgment. Only consider it calmly and candidly,
and I do not fear the result.”
“I won’t,” snarled the merchant. “I won’t consider it at all.”
“But Mr. Atkins”—
“I tell you I won’t. Come, bother me no more with it.”
“At least, sir, give one moment’s consideration to the suffering your
sister is in.”
“Oh, damn my sister! What do I care for her suffering. Let her suffer. I
tell you, I’ll send that black scoundrel back in spite of her and you,
and the whole pack of you,” he roared, purple with rage, and shaking his
fist at Harrington.
“Mr. Atkins,” said Harrington, with an impressive solemnity which cooled
the merchant even in the mad heat of his fury—“you know the nature of
Mr. Lafitte as well as I, for you have had dealings with him. I pray you
to consider that if you send that man back, you send him to his murder.
Murder by the most merciless torture, Mr. Atkins. Can you bear the
responsibility of that? Now think of it coolly.”
“I don’t care for his murder,” sullenly growled the merchant. “I’ll send
him, whether or no.”
Harrington saw that the case was hopeless.
“Mr. Atkins,” he said, with touching gentleness, “do not decide this
matter in anger. Pardon me, if I have said anything to offend you, and
pray think of this again.”
“I’ve heard enough,” returned Atkins. “Let me hear no more. You have my
final decision.”
“At least,” replied Harrington, mournfully, “think of the future. The day
may come when public opinion will change. The old New England opposition
to slavery may arise again even in Boston. Do not commit yourself by such
an act as this, so that a few years hence men may judge you harshly.
Think of what your children will say of you if you leave them a name
spotted with disgrace. Think of that.”
“It is a matter of perfect indifference to me what my children will
say of me,” coolly replied the merchant, with a yawn. “Hark you, Mr.
Harrington,” he cried, rising to his feet, and sternly facing the young
man. “I’ll just give you my idea of this slavery question, and one which
involves my whole action in this matter. When any nation concludes that
it is for the best interests and prosperity of the country to make men
slaves—I don’t care whether those slaves are white or black—no man nor
body of men, nor any other nation, has a right to interfere with, or
in any way prevent that nation’s making them slaves, and keeping them
in slavery. White or black, it makes no difference. This nation or any
other nation, it’s all the same. Statesmen have settled that—older heads
than yours or mine. That principle of national right has come up, as
a question of national right, before the sober, sound, conservative
statesmanship of the American Union, and that statesmanship has answered
it.”
“How has it answered it?” put in Harrington, quickly, fixing his stern
and searching eyes on the flushed face of the merchant.
“How has it answered it?” repeated Mr. Atkins, with a sarcastic air.
“Well, sir, how has it answered it?”
“It has answered it with the roar of Decatur’s guns under the walls of
Algiers!” thundered Harrington, with a look of fire.
Mr. Atkins, at this stunning demolition of his position, turned red, and
then pale, and then all sorts of colors, and finally sat down with a
working jaw, and a face of utter confusion.
“That is the way the sober, sound, conservative statesmanship of the
Union answered that question of national right,” sternly continued
Harrington. “It answered from the blazing muzzles of Decatur’s cannon,
that the nation that undertakes to hold innocent men in slavery is a
nation of pirates. By its own answer it stands condemned. Every State in
this Union, that holds innocent men in slavery, is an organized piracy.
The Union that sanctions the crime, and makes it possible, is another.
And you, Lemuel Atkins, trampling on your sister’s heart, in your
scoundrel zeal to thrust an innocent and wretched man into that pirate
hell from whence his own bravery freed him, you are the vilest, because
the meanest, pirate of them all. The most degraded slaveholder is white
beside such a wretch as you. Never let me hear again of Southern infamy.
You, a Northern merchant, kidnapping your brother—kidnapping a man whose
right it is to say with you, in his prayers to Heaven, ‘Our Father’—not
respecting even the miserable forms of pirate law in your infernal zeal
for wickedness—what wretch is there, however black, that does not whiten
into virtue beside you! Lafitte himself sees in you a depth of mean vice
to which his self-respect will not permit him to descend. God forgive me,
that I lowered myself to prune my speech, and curb my heart, and strain
my conscience, in the effort to win and bribe you from your ghastly
crime against mankind. Go on with it now. Blacken down into your pit of
iniquity. Wrench from the world of living men to which he yet clings,
the poor victim of your accursed avarice, and send him back as you and
your muck-rake tribe sent Sims, to shriek his life away under the bloody
scourge. So live your life, and gorging on your miserable gains till
you drop into your grave, may you never know the fate it is to feel the
curses of the poor!”
Gazing aghast, with glassy eyes, like one fascinated, into the white
and terrible countenance of Harrington, with a horrible, blind look on
his own visage, Atkins sat petrified under the low, magnetic voice in
which, like wind and rain and fire and hail, these words burst upon
him. A moment, and Harrington had gone; and rising to his feet, and
shaking all over as in an ague fit, with that horrible blind look upon
his furious face, and a mad-dog slaver gathering on his loose and livid
lips, his sick-man’s voice strained and gasped into speech, such as
might unnaturally tear its way in agonizing rage from the throat of one
organically dumb.
“B-y G-a-ud, I’d sa-end him ba-eck,” he drawled agasp, “e-ff I-i ha-ed
t-a be sa-ent t-a ha-ell!”
I would send him back if I had to be sent to hell. With these words,
which sounded as if they were torn from him, as the fabled mandrake was
said to be torn from the earth, with low shrieks and dripping blood; and
which seemed to cling as they were wrenched away, as the demon vegetable
was said to cling when dragged from the soil, he tottered backward, and
fell with a heavy slump into his chair. There he sat gasping, with his
face turned to the wall.
Driscoll had slunk away into the outer office as Harrington left the
counting-room, and the young man passed down into the street without
seeing him, and crossed to where Wentworth was standing. The young artist
gazed with a shocked expression into his colorless face as he approached
him.
“Heavens! Harrington, how white you are!” he murmured.
“I have failed, Richard,” returned Harrington in a deep and quiet voice.
“He has no heart, no reason even. Trade has eaten the one and the other
out of him. I made my plea as well as I could. I appealed to his mean
self-interest, so that even he felt the force of my appeal, and wavered.
But he refused me, and I flung upon him the bitterest words that ever
passed my lips, and left him.”
Wentworth looked in silence on the marble countenance, white in the
shadow of the slouched hat, with the vertical sunlight just touching the
beard below.
“I am glad, Harrington,” he said, after a pause, “that you flung bitter
words upon him.”
“No,” replied Harrington, mournfully, “do not be glad, for it cannot
gladden me. Yet I do not regret what I said to him, nor do I think
it were better unsaid. Let him pass. He lies, the saddest wreck I
know, stranded on the shores of my pity. Mal-organized, miseducated,
the imperfect infant taken from his cradle, and every imperfection
developed by the haphazard social culture, and all else undeveloped; you
have him at last, what he is—at once the product and the victim of a
half-barbarous state of society. Pity him. He might have been better had
he lived in a better day and among better men.”
“Well, no doubt,” musingly replied Wentworth. “Like Dr. Johnson’s
Scotchmen—caught young, something might have been made of him. In the
mean time, blast his eyes!”
They wandered on a few steps together. Suddenly Harrington stood still.
“There’s no use in the Captain watching the Soliman,” he said. “The man
is secreted somewhere, and will probably not be taken on board till the
vessel is ready to sail. Besides, it may awaken suspicion if anybody
should happen to know Eldad’s connection with me, and see him hanging
about the brig. Let’s go down to him.”
They turned and went down the wharf.
“What do you think of boarding the Soliman again?” asked Wentworth.
“Better not,” Harrington returned. “Antony is not there. It would only
put them on their guard. The sole chance now is the writ of habeas
corpus.”
“And how about Mrs. Eastman?” said Wentworth.
“We must disregard her,” Harrington replied. “She will thank us by and by
for doing so, especially if we succeed in saving poor Antony. The Soliman
does not sail till Tuesday night, so there is plenty of time. We will
return presently, see Muriel, and then I will at once procure the writ.
If I fail with it, the last thing is to search the Soliman as she is on
the point of leaving the wharf, opposition or no opposition.”
“Good,” exclaimed Wentworth, with a proud thrill.
They went on in silence, and presently reached the Soliman. The
stevedores were busy lading her, and all was activity on board and on
the wharf. Looking about, Harrington presently caught sight of Captain
Fisher on the opposite pavement, and at once went over to him. The two
joined Wentworth in a couple of minutes, and they all went up the wharf
together.
“Now, Captain,” said Harrington, as they walked on, “I am going on to
Temple street, and I will be at your house soon. Then you and I will go
together for the writ—so wait for me.”
“All right, John,” returned the Captain, who had been previously told by
Harrington that Mrs. Eastman was to be disregarded.
Half way up, the Captain stopped and fixed an admiring gaze on a pretty
little sail-boat, sloop-rigged, which lay alongside, and which belonged
to him.
“Pooty, aint she?” he remarked, ogling his property.
“Yes, indeed,” returned Harrington, “we’ve had many a pleasant sail in
her in the old days.”
He sighed vaguely, and they went on, up the busy wharf, and into the
noise and bustle of State street. It was the great mercantile street of
the city, the old street of solemn memories, the proud street of Sam
Adams and Paul Revere, the brave street of the Boston Massacre, the dark
street of the rendition of Sims. Over those stones once wet with the
sacramental blood of Attucks, under the solemn eye of the morning star,
the child of his race, surrounded by sabres, had gone to the vessel a
Boston merchant volunteered to take him to his murder. Side by side,
amidst the weeds and rubble of traffic, burst the black slaver flower and
bloomed the bright historic rose.
The merchants were thick on ’Change as the three companions came up the
street, and there was much lifting of hats and fluttering and swarming,
which for a moment they could not account for. But presently, as they
entered the crowd, they met a figure which explained that decorous
commotion, and involuntarily made them start and for a second pause.
It was Webster. Not, alas! the dark Hyperion, splendid in statued
majesty, of a younger day, when those stern lips thundered the speech of
freemen; but him grown old, his leonine and massive features austere
and sullen-grim, fire-scarred in swarthy grain with base ambition and
battered by the storms of state, yet kingly still in ruin, and with some
relic of their former sombre beauty. He lifted his hat to a gentleman
as they came up, and for an instant they gazed upon the rugged and
malignant grandeur of that imposing countenance, with its vast brow and
iron majesty of mouth, and its cavernous and torrid eyes. A moment, and
they had gone by. Wentworth looked awed, the Captain’s face was rigid and
atwist, and Harrington was blind with tears.
“To meet him at such an hour as this!” he gasped. “He who has done it
all! He with the seventh of March upon his face, and you and I and all
of us with its shadow on our lives. One speech for freedom then, and the
cloud of this anguish and dishonor would have passed away. That speech,
half-written in his desk, never spoken, but in its stead the speech
for slavery, which has made kidnapping a law. And he, fallen forever,
standing there amidst those muck-rake rogues, fallen from all he was,
fallen from all he might have been, sunk to herd among the thieves of
men! Oh, wreck of wrecks—grief of griefs—ashes and dust and ruin!”
Touched by the solemn passion of his sorrow, they did not speak, but went
on in brooding silence, regardless of the passing crowds around them. In
a few minutes they reached the head of State street, where the Captain
silently nodded and left them, and turning in the opposite direction,
they went on to Temple street.