The gentlemen of the party included Mr. Winslow, Mr. Semmes, Mr. Ripper, Captain Onslow, Colonel Delancy Hyde, and a youth not yet introduced.
Never had Vance showed his influence in so marked a degree as in the change he had wrought in Hyde. Detecting in the rascal’s affection for a widowed sister the one available spot in his character, Vance, like a great moral engineer, had mounted on that vantage-ground the guns which were to batter down the citadels of ignorance, profligacy, and pride, in which all the regenerative capabilities of Hyde’s nature had been imprisoned so long. The idea of having that poor toiling sister—her who had “fust taught him to make dirt-pies, down thar by the old duck-pond”—rescued with her children from poverty and suffering, placed in a situation of comfort and respectability, was so overpowering to the Colonel, that it enabled Vance to lead him like a child even to the abjuring of strong drink and profanity. Cut off from bragging of his Virginia birth and his descent from the Cavaliers,—made to see the false and senseless nature of the slang which he had been taught to expectorate against the “Yankees,”—Hyde might have lost his identity in the mental metamorphosis he was undergoing, were it not that a most timely substitute presented itself as a subject for the expenditure of his surplus gas.
Vance had collected and arranged a body of proofs for the establishment of Clara’s identification as the daughter of Henry Berwick; but, if Colonel Hyde’s memory did not mislead him, there was collateral evidence of the highest importance in those old letters from Charlton, which might be found in a certain trunk in the keeping of the Widow Rusk in Alabama. With deep anxiety, therefore, did they await the coming of that youthful representative of the Hyde family, Master Delancy Hyde Rusk.
The Colonel stood on the steps of the Astor House from early morn till dewy eve, day after day, scrutinizing every boy who came along. Clad in a respectable suit of broadcloth, and concealing the shorn state of his scalp under a brown wig, he did no discredit to the character of Mr. Stetson’s guests. His patience was at length rewarded. A boy, travel-soiled and dusty, apparently fifteen years old, dressed in a butternut-colored suit, wearing a small military cap marked C. S. A., and bearing a knapsack on his back, suddenly accosted Colonel Hyde with the inquiry, “Does Mr. William C. Vance live here?” In figure, face, and even the hue of his eyebrows, the youth was a miniature repetition of the Colonel himself; but the latter, in his wig and his new suit, was not recognized till the exclamation, “Delancy!” broke in astonishment from his lips.
“What, uncle? Uncle Delancy?” cried the boy; and the two forgot the proprieties, and embraced in the very eyes of Broadway. Then the Colonel led the way to his room.
“Is this ’ere room yourn, Uncle D’lancy? An’ is this ’ere trunk yourn? And this ’ere umbrel? Crikee! What a fine trunk! And do you and the damned Yankees bet now on the same pile, Uncle D’lancy?”
“Delancy Hyde Rusk,” said the Colonel solemnly, “stahnd up thar afore me. So! That’ll do! Now look me straight in the face, and mind what I say.”
“Yes, uncle,” said Delancy junior, deeply impressed.
“Fust, have yer got them air letters?”
“Yes, uncle, they’re sewed inter my side-pocket, right here.”