"To what do I owe the very great pleasure of this visit, Mr. Wingfield?" he said grimly.
"I have come to ask you what you have done with Dinah Morris, whom, I have every ground for believing, you have caused to be kidnaped from my mother's house."
"This is a serious charge, young gentleman," Andrew Jackson said, "and one that I shall call upon you to justify in the law-courts. Men are not to be charged with criminal actions even by young gentlemen of good Virginian families."
"I shall be quite ready to meet you there, Mr. Jackson, whenever you choose; but my visit here is rather to give you an opportunity of escaping the consequences that will follow your detection as the author of the crime; for I warn you that I will bring the crime home to you, whatever it costs me in time and money. My offer is this: produce the woman and her child, and not only shall no prosecution take place, but I will remain silent concerning a fact which affects the honor of your son."
Andrew Jackson's face had been perfectly unmoved during this conversation until he heard the allusion to his son. Then his face changed visibly.
"I know nothing concerning which you can attack the honor of my son, Mr.
Wingfield," he said, with an effort to speak as unconcernedly as before.
"My charge is as follows," Vincent said quietly: "I was imprisoned at Elmira with a number of other officers, among them your son. Thinking that it was time for the unpleasantness that had been existing between us to come to an end, I offered him my hand. This he accepted and we became friends. A short time afterward a mode of escape offered itself to me, and I proved the sincerity of my feelings toward him by offering to him and another officer the means of sharing my escape. This they accepted. Once outside the walls, I furnished them with disguises that had been prepared for them, assuming myself that of a minister. We then separated, going in different directions, I myself being accompanied by my negro servant, to whose fidelity I owed our escape. Two days afterward an anonymous writer communicated to the police the fact that I had escaped in the disguise of a minister, and was accompanied by my black servant. This fact was only known to the negro, myself, and the two officers. My negro, who had released me, was certainly not my betrayer; the other officer could certainly have had no possible motive for betraying me. There remains, therefore, only your son, whose hostility to me was notorious, and who had expressed himself with bitterness against me on many occasions, and among others in the hearing of my friend Mr. Furniss here. Such being the case, it is my intention to charge him before the military authorities with this act of treachery. But, as I have said, I am willing to forego this and to keep silence as to your conduct with reference to my slave Dinah Morris, if you will restore her and her child uninjured to the house from which you caused her to be taken."
The sallow cheeks of the old planter had grown a shade paler as he listened to Vincent's narrative, but he now burst out in angry tones:
"How dare you, sir, bring such an infamous accusation against my son—an accusation, like that against myself, wholly unsupported by a shred of evidence? Doubtless your negro had confided to some of his associates his plans for assisting you to escape from prison, and it is from one of these that the denunciation has come. Go, sir, report where you will what lies and fables you have invented; but be assured that I and my son will seek our compensation for such gross libels in the courts."
"Very well, sir," Vincent said, as he prepared to mount his horse; "if you will take the trouble to look in the papers to-morrow, you will see that your threats of action for libel have no effect whatever upon me."