To the Colonel’s not very clear geographical conceptions the white Americans south of Mason and Dixon’s line were, with hardly an exception, descendants of noblemen and gentlemen; while all north were, to borrow the words of Mr. Jefferson Davis, either the “scum of Europe” or “a people whose ancestors Cromwell had gathered from the bogs and fens of Ireland and Scotland.”[[13]]
Colonel Delancy Hyde revelled in those genealogical invectives of a similar tenor by a Richmond editor, whose fatuous and frantic iterations that the Yankees were the descendants of low-born peasants and blackguards, while the Southern Americans are the progeny of the English cavaliers, betrayed a ludicrous desire to strengthen his own feeble belief in the asseveration by loud and incessant clamor; for he had faith in Sala’s witty saying, that, if a man has strong lungs, and will keep bawling day after day that he is a genius or a gentleman, the public will at last believe him.
The Colonel never tired of denouncing the Puritans:—“A canting, hyppercritical set of cusses, sir; but they had some little fight in ’em, though they couldn’t stahnd up agin the caval’yers,—no sir-r-r!—the caval’yers gev ’em particular hell; but the Yankee spawn of these cusses,—they hev lost the little pluck the Puritans wonst had, and air cowards, every mother’s son on ’em. One high-tone Southern gemmleman—one descendant of the caval’yers—can clare out any five on ’em in a fair fight.”
By a fair fight for a descendant of the cavaliers, the Colonel meant one of two things: either a six-barrelled revolver against an unarmed antagonist, or an ambush in which the aforesaid descendant could hit, but be secure against being hit in return. One of the Colonel’s maxims was, “Never fire unless you can take your man at a disadvantage.”
His sire having been unluckily cast in a petty lawsuit, “by a low-born Yankee judge, sir,” Colonel Delancy Hyde drifted off to the Southwest, and gradually emerged into the special vocation for which the unfortunate habits of life, which the Southern system had driven him to, seemed to qualify him. He became a sort of agent for the recovery of runaway slaves, and in this capacity had the freedom of the different plantations, and was frequently applied to for help by bereaved masters. Every man is said to have his specialty: the Colonel had at last found his.
In the survey which Peculiar took of the assemblage in Charlton’s office, he saw that Charlton himself was separated from the rest in being behind a small semicircular counter, an old piece of furniture, bought cheap at a street auction. By getting in the lawyer’s place the negro would have a sort of barrier, protecting him in front and on two sides against his assailants. Behind him would be the stove.
Stealthily throwing open the closet-door he glided out, and before any one could intercept him, he had fastened Charlton’s arms in a noose, and was standing over him with upraised knife. So rapid, so sudden, so unexpected had been the movement, that it was all completed before even an exclamation was uttered. The first one to break the silence was Charlton, who in a paroxysm of terror cried out, “Mercy! Save me, officers! save me!”
Iverson, one of the policemen, started forward and drew a revolver; but Peek made a shield of the body of the lawyer, who now found himself threatened with a pistol on one side and a knife on the other, much to his mortal dismay.
“Put down your pistol, Iverson!” he stammered. “Don’t attempt to do anything, any of you. This g-g-gentleman doesn’t mean to do any harm. He will listen to reason. The gentleman will listen to reason.”
“Gentleman be damned!” exclaimed Colonel Delancy Hyde. “Officer, put down your pistol. This piece of property mustn’t be damaged. I’m responsible for it. Peek, you imperdent black cuss, drop that rib-tickler,—drop it right smart, or yer’ll ketch hell.”