Pompilard’s first great dinner, on being settled in his new home, was given in honor of the Maloneys. In reply to the written invitation, Maloney wrote, “The beggarly Irish tailor accepts for himself and family.” On entering the house, he asked a private interview with Pompilard, and thereupon bullied him so far, that the old man signed a solemn pledge abjuring Wall Street, and all financial operations of a speculative character thenceforth forever.
The dinner was graced by the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Ripper, both of them now furious Abolitionists, and proud of the name. The lady was at last emphatically of the opinion that “Slavery will be come up with.”
Clara had Esha and Hattie to wait on her, though rather in the capacity of friends than of servants. Having got from Mrs. Ripper a careful estimate of the amount paid by Ratcliff for the support and education of his putative slave, Clara had it repaid with interest. The money came to him most acceptably. His large investments in slaves had ruined him. His “maid-servants and man-servants”[[46]] had flocked to the old flag and found freedom. A piteous communication from him appeared on the occasion in the Richmond Whig. We quote from it a single passage.
“What contributed most to my mortification was, that in my whole gang of slaves, among whom there were any amount of Aarons, Abrahams, Isaacs, and Jacobs, there was not one Abdiel,—not one remained loyal to the Rebel.”
The philosophical editor, in his comments, endeavored to shield his beloved slavery from inferential prejudice, and said:
“The escaped slave is ungrateful; therefore, slavery is wrong! Children are often ungrateful; does it follow that the relation of parent and child is wrong?”[[47]]
Could even Mr. Carlyle have put it more cogently?
The money received by Clara from Mrs. Ratcliff’s private estate was all appropriated to the establishment of an institution in New Orleans for the education of the children of freed slaves. To this fund Madame Volney not only added from her own legacy, but she went back to New Orleans to superintend the initiation of the humane and important enterprise.
“Into each life some rain must fall.” The day after the dinner to the Maloneys intelligence came of the death of Captain Ireton. He had been hung by the fierce slaveocracy at Richmond as a spy. It was asserted that he had joined the Rebel Engineer Corps, at Island Number Ten, to obtain information for the United States. However this may have been, it is certain he was not captured in the capacity of a spy; and every one acquainted with the usages of civilized warfare will recognize the atrocity of hanging a man on the ground that he had formerly acted as a spy. The Richmond papers palliated the murder by saying Ireton had “confessed himself to be a spy.” As if any judicial tribunal would hang a man on his own confession! “Would you make me bear testimony against myself?” said Joan of Arc to her judges.
Much to the disgust of the pro-slavery leaders, who had counted on a display of that cowardice which they had taught the Southern people to regard as inseparable from Yankee blood, Ireton met his death cheerily, as a bridegroom would go forth to take the hand of his beloved.[[48]] It reminded them unpleasantly of old John Brown.