CHAPTER VII.
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.