Several gentlemen of the neighborhood, whom Beverly, upon hearing little
Phil's story, had hastily summoned to his assistance, now entered the
cabin, together with the male negroes of his household, who had mounted
the farm horses and eagerly followed to the rescue of their young
mistress. They had been detained without by an unsuccessful pursuit of
Rawbon, whose flight they had discovered, but who had easily evaded them
in the darkness. A rude litter was constructed for Arthur, but Oriana
declared herself well able to proceed on horseback, and would not listen
to any suggestion of delay on her account. She mounted Beverly's horse,
while he and Harold supplied themselves from among the horses that the
negroes had rode, and thus, slowly and silently, they threaded the
lonely forest, while ever and anon a groan from the litter struck
painfully upon their ears.
Arrived at the manor house, a physician who had been summoned,
pronounced Arthur's hurt to be serious, but not dangerous. Upon
receiving this intelligence, Oriana and Harold were persuaded to retire,
and Beverly and his aunt remained as watchers at the bedside of the
wounded man.
Oriana, despite her agitation, slept well, her rest being only disturbed
by fitful dreams, in which Arthur's pale face seemed ever present, now
smiling upon her mournfully, and now locked in the repose of death. She
arose somewhat refreshed, though still feverish and anxious, and walking
upon the veranda to breathe the morning air, she was joined by Harold,
with his hand in a sling, and much relieved by the application of a
poultice, which the skill of Miss Randolph had prepared. He informed her
that Arthur was sleeping quietly, and that she might dismiss all fears
as to his safety; and perhaps, if he had watched her closely, the
earnest expression of something more than pleasure with which she
received this assurance, might have given him cause for rumination.
Beverly descended soon afterward, and confirmed the favorable report
from the sick chamber, and Oriana retired into the house to assist in
preparing the morning meal.
"Let us take a stroll by the riverside," said Beverly; "the air breathes
freshly after my night's vigil."
"The storm has left none but traces of beauty behind," observed Harold,
as they crossed the lawn. The loveliness of the early morning was indeed
a pleasant sequel to the rude tempest of the preceding night. The
dewdrops glistened upon grass-blade and foliage, and the bosom of the
stream flashed merrily in the sunbeams.
"It is," answered Beverly, "as if Nature were rejoicing that the war of
the elements is over, and a peace proclaimed. Would that the black cloud
upon our political horizon had as happily passed away."
After a pause, he continued: "Harold, you need not fear to remain with
us a while longer. I am sure that Rawbon's confederates are heartily
ashamed of their participation in last night's outrage, and will on no
account be seduced to a similar adventure. Rawbon himself will not be
likely to show himself in this vicinity for some time to come, unless
as the inmate of a jail, for I have ordered a warrant to be issued
against him. The whole affair has resulted evidently from some
unaccountable antipathy which the fellow entertains against us."
"I agree with you," replied Harold, "but still I think this is an
unpropitious time for the prolongation of my visit. There are events, I
fear, breeding for the immediate future, in which I must take a part. I
shall only remain with you a few days, that I may be assured of Arthur's
safety."
"I will not disguise from you my impression that Virginia will withdraw
from the Union. In that case, we will be nominal enemies. God grant that
our paths may not cross each other."
"Amen!" replied Harold, with much feeling. "But I do not understand why
we should be enemies. You surely will not lend your voice to this
rebellion?"
"When the question of secession is before the people of my State, I
shall cast my vote as my judgment and conscience shall dictate.
Meanwhile I shall examine the issue, and, I trust, dispassionately. But
whatever may become of my individual opinion, where Virginia goes I go,
whatever be the event."
"Would you uphold a wrong in the face of your own conscience?"
"Oh, as to that, I do not hold it a question between right and wrong,
but simply of advisability. The right of secession I entertain no doubt
about."
"No doubt as to the right of dismembering and destroying a government
which has fostered your infancy, developed your strength, and made you
one among the parts of a nation that has no peer in a world's history?
Is it possible that intellect and honesty can harbor such a doctrine!"
"My dear Harold, you look at the subject as an enthusiast, and you allow
your heart not to assist but to control your brain. Men, by association,
become attached to forms and symbols, so as in time to believe that upon
their existence depends the substance of which they are but the signs.
Forty years ago, in the Hawaiian Islands, the death-penalty was
inflicted upon a native of the inferior caste, should he chance to pass
over the shadow of one of noble birth. So would you avenge an insult to
a shadow, while you allow the substance to be stolen from your grasp.
Our jewel, as freemen, is the right of self-government; the form of
government is a mere convenience--a machine, which may be dismembered,
destroyed, remodelled a thousand times, without detriment to the great
principle of which it is the outward sign."
"You draw a picture of anarchy that would disgrace a confederation of
petty savage tribes. What miserable apology for a government would that
be whose integrity depends upon the caprice of the governed?"
"It is as likely that a government should become tyrannical, as that a
people should become capricious. You have simply chosen an unfair word.
For _caprice_ substitute _will_, and you have my ideal of a true
republic."
"And by that ideal, one State, by its individual act, might overturn the
entire system adopted for the convenience and safety of the whole."
"Not so. It does not follow that the system should be overturned because
circumscribed in limit, more than that a business firm should
necessarily be ruined by the withdrawal of a partner. Observe, Harold,
that the General Government was never a sovereignty, and came into
existence only by the consent of each and every individual State. The
States were the sovereignties, and their connection with the Union,
being the mere creature of their will, can exist only by that will."
"Why, Beverly, you might as well argue that this pencil-case, which
became mine by an act of volition on your part, because you gave it me,
ceases to be mine when you reclaim it."
"If I had appointed you my amanuensis, and had transferred my pencil to
you simply for the purposes of your labor in my behalf, when I choose to
dismiss you, I should expect the return of my property. The States made
no gifts to the Federal Government for the sake of giving, but only
delegated certain powers for specific purposes. They never could have
delegated the power of coercion, since no one State or number of States
possessed that power as against their sister States."
"But surely, in entering into the bonds of union, they formed a
contract with each other which should be inviolable."
"Then, at the worst, the seceding States are guilty of a breach of
contract with the remaining States, but not with the General Government,
with which they made no contract. They formed a union, it is true. But
of what? Of sovereignties. How can those States be sovereignties which
admit a power above them, possessing the right of coercion? To admit the
right of coercion is to deny the existence of sovereignty."
"You can find nothing in the Constitution to intimate the right of
secession."
"Because its framers considered the right sufficiently established by
the very nature of the confederation. The fears upon the subject that
were expressed by Patrick Henry, and other zealous supporters of State
Rights, were quieted by the assurances of the opposite party, who
ridiculed the idea that a convention, similar to that which in each
State adopted the Constitution, could not thereafter, in representation
of the popular will, withdraw such State from the confederacy. You
have, in proof of this, but to refer to the annals of the occasion."
"I discard the theory as utterly inconsistent with any legislative
power. We have either a government or we have not. If we have one, it
must possess within itself the power to sustain itself. Our chief
magistrate becomes otherwise a mere puppet, and our Congress a shallow
mockery, and the shadow only of a legislative body. Our nationality
becomes a word, and nothing more. Our place among the nations becomes
vacant, and the great Republic, our pride and the world's wonder,
crumbles into fragments, and with its downfall perishes the hope of the
oppressed of every clime. I wonder, Beverly, that you can coldly argue
against the very life of your country, and not feel the parricide's
remorse! Have you no lingering affection for the glorious structure
which our fathers built for and bequeathed to us, and which you now seek
to hurl from its foundations? Have you no pride and love for the brave
old flag that has been borne in the vanguard to victory so often, that
has shrouded the lifeless form of Lawrence, that has gladdened the
heart of the American wandering in foreign climes, and has spread its
sacred folds over the head of Washington, here, on your own native
soil?"
"Yes, Harold, yes! I love the Union, and I love and am proud of the
brave old flag; I would die for either, and, although I reason with you
coldly, my soul yearns to them both, and my heart aches when I think
that soon, perhaps, they will no more belong to me. But I must sacrifice
even my pride and love to a stern sense of duty. So Washington did, when
he hurled his armed squadrons against the proud banner of St. George,
under which he had been trained in soldiership, and had won the laurel
of his early fame. He, too, no doubt, was not without a pang, to be
sundered from his share of Old England's glorious memories, the land of
his allegiance, the king whom he had served, the soil where the bones of
his ancestors lay at rest. It would cause me many a throb of agony to
draw my sword against the standard of the Republic--but I would do it,
Harold, if my conscience bade me, although my nearest friends, although
you, Harold--and I love you dearly--were in the foremost rank."
"Where I will strive to be, should my country call upon me. But Heaven
forbid that we should meet thus, Beverly!"
"Heaven forbid?" he replied, with a sigh, as he pressed Harold's hand.
"But yonder comes little Phil, running like mad, to tell us, doubtless,
that breakfast is cold with waiting for us."
They retraced their steps, and found Miss Randolph and Oriana awaiting
their presence at the breakfast-table.