“Why don't you?” retorted Champe, as Dan got up and called to Big Abel to bring his riding clothes. “Oh, I'm not a lady's man,” he said lightly. “I've too moody a face for them,” and he began to dress himself with the elaborate care which had won for him the title of “Beau” Montjoy.
By the next summer, Betty and Virginia had shot up as if in a night, but neither Champe nor Dan came home. After weeks of excited preparation, the Major and Mrs. Lightfoot started, with Congo and Mitty, for the White Sulphur, where the boys were awaiting them. As the months went on, vague rumours reached the Governor's ears—rumours which the Major did not quite disprove when he came back in the autumn. “Yes, the boy is sowing his wild oats,” he said; “but what can you expect, Governor? Why, he is not yet twenty, and young blood is hot blood, sir.”
“I am sorry to hear that he has been losing at cards,” returned the Governor; “but take my advice, and let him pick himself up when he falls to hurt. Don't back him up, Major.”
“Pooh! pooh!” exclaimed the Major, testily. “You're like Molly, Governor, and, bless my soul, one old woman is as much as I can manage. Why, she wants me to let the boy starve.”
The Governor sighed, but he did not protest. He liked Dan, with all his youthful errors, and he wanted to put out a hand to hold him back from destruction; but he feared to bring the terrible flush to the Major's face. It was better to leave things alone, he thought, and so sighed and said nothing.
That was an autumn of burning political conditions, and the excited slavery debates in the North were reechoing through the Virginia mountains. The Major, like the old war horse that he was, had already pricked up his ears, and determined to lend his tongue or his sword, as his state might require. That a fight could go on in the Union so long as Virginia or himself kept out of it, seemed to him a possibility little less than preposterous.
“Didn't we fight the Revolution, sir? and didn't we fight the War of 1812? and didn't we fight the Mexican War to boot?” he would demand. “And, bless my soul, aren't we ready to fight all the Yankees in the universe, and to whip them clean out of the Union, too? Why, it wouldn't take us ten days to have them on their knees, sir.”
The Governor did not laugh now; the times were too grave for that. His clear eyes had seen whither they were drifting, and he had thrown his influence against the tide, which, he knew, would but sweep over him in the end. “You are out of place in Virginia, Major,” he said seriously. “Virginia wants peace, and she wants the Union. Go south, my dear sir, go south.”
During the spring before he had gone south himself to a convention at Montgomery, and he had spoken there against one of the greatest of the Southern orators. His state had upheld him, but the Major had not. He came home to find his old neighbour red with resentment, and refusing for the first few days to shake the hand of “a man who would tamper with the honour of Virginia.” At the end of the week the Major's hand was held out, but his heart still bore his grievance, and he began quoting William L. Yancey, as he had once quoted Mr. Addison. In the little meetings at Uplands or at Chericoke, he would now declaim the words of the impassioned agitator as vigorously as in the old days he had recited those of the polished gentleman of letters. The rector and the doctor would sit silent and abashed, and only the Governor would break in now and then with: “You go too far, Major. There is a step from which there is no drawing back, and that step means ruin to your state, sir.”
“Ruin, sir? Nonsense! nonsense! We made the Union, and we'll unmake it when we please. We didn't make slavery; but, if Virginia wants slaves, by God, sir, she shall have slaves!”