“We are laggards! Laggards in duty!” cried an old frontiersman; and Houston replied with calm dignity,
“Sir, we are acting as trustees for posterity. It becomes us to do all things decently, and in order.”
A loud, confused rattle of side arms was the only audible reply. It might have been an assent to Houston’s opinion, but it was more likely to be a promise, that the duty would be fully redeemed.
I did not wonder at the old man calling Texans “laggards,” for, immediately after the election of Mr. Lincoln, South Carolina seceded; Mississippi followed her in three weeks; Florida went out on January the tenth, 1861; Alabama, on January the eleventh; Georgia, on January the nineteenth; Louisiana, on January the twenty-fifth; so that, when Houston called the Texas convention, six states had already made preparations for meeting on February the fourth, at Montgomery, Alabama, to organize a provisional Congress of Confederate States. Robert told me that, in a conversation in the Governor’s office, some one spoke scornfully of this meeting, and Houston replied,
“Sir, it is an unlawful meeting, but it cannot be a contemptible one, with such men as ex-President Tyler, Roger A. Pryor, and our own Wigfall leading it.”
“Is that all, Robert?” I asked, for I was always delighted to hear anything about Houston.
“Very nearly. Some one added, ‘There is Jefferson Davis, also.’”
“Oh! What did Houston say?”
“He said, ‘I know Jefferson Davis, and I did not mention 226 him, because I know him. He is proud as Lucifer and cold as a lizard.’”
Then I had one of those unreasonable certainties, that are all-convincing to the people who have them, and sheer foolishness to all ignorant of their irresistible testimony; and I said, “Houston is right; my lips shiver if they utter his name. He will bring ill-luck to any cause.”