"You look as pale as a ghost. Better try a little of Maria's blackberry cordial? No? Do you good, I'm sure, if you would," said Mr. Bradley. "You're taking this thing altogether too much to heart, sir. What possible difference can it make to John whether you pay for him or whether he had come to you as the others did? If yo'll will allow me to say so, I think it is a ridiculous distinction. Somebody paid for the ones you've got. If you'll allow an old neighbor to make a suggestion, I think you read those Yankee papers altogether too much and too seriously. It perverts your judgment. It's a good sight easier for those fellows up there to settle this question than it is for us to do it. They simply don't know what they are talking about, and we do. With them it's all theory. Here it's a cold fact. What in the name of common sense would they have? Suppose we didn't own and provide for and direct all these niggers, what on earth would become of'em? Where would they get enough to eat? You know as well as I do there is nothing on this earth as helpless and as much to be pitied as a free nigger. They don't know how to take care of themselves, and nobody is going to hire one. What in thunder do people want us to do? Brain 'em?"
"Oh, I know, I know," said Mr. Davenport, helplessly, looking far off into the beautiful valley, with its hazy atmosphere and its rich fields of grain. "I've thought about it a thousand times, and a thousand times it has baffled me. I'm not judging, now, for you, Mr. Bradley, not in the least. I feel myself too thoroughly caught in the meshes of our social fabric to presume to unravel it for other people. But—but in my position—for myself—it seems a monstrously wrong thing for me to count out this money and pay it over for John, just as if he were a horse. It makes me feel sick—as I fancy a criminal must feel after his first crime." Mr. Bradley laughed.
"You don't look it, Davenport! Criminal! Ha, ha, ha, ha! that's rich!"
Griffith moved uneasily and did not join the laugh which still convulsed his neighbor.
"For me it is wrong—distinctly, absolutely wrong. It is a terrible thing for me to say—and still do it—I, a preacher of God! For you, I cannot judge. 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' is what I always think in this matter. But for me, for me it is not right—and yet what can I do?"
Mr. Bradley laughed again, partly in amusement and partly in derision, at what he looked upon as the preacher's unworldly view, and what he spoke of with vexation to others as "Davenport's damned foolishness," which had, of late, grown to be a matter of real unrest to the neighborhood, in which it was felt that the influence of such opinions could not fail to be dangerous to social order and stability. It was as if you or I were to spring the question of free land or free money in a convention of landlords and bankers. Or, if you please, like the arguments for anarchy or no government addressed to the "Fourth ward," or the members of Congress. It was, in short, subversive of the established order of things, and neither you, nor I, nor they, accept quite gracefully such propositions, if in their application to ourselves, they would be a sore and bitter loss—if it would render less secure and lofty our seat on the social or political throne. We revolt and we blame the disturber of the old established order of things—the order, which having been good enough for our fathers is surely good enough for you and for me. In short, was not the way in religion and in social order of our fathers far the better way? Is not the better way always that of the man who owns and rides in the carriage? If you will ask him—or if you are he—you will learn or see that there is not the least doubt of the fact. If you should happen to ask the man who walks, you may hear another story—if the man who walks happens to be a philosopher; but as all pedestrians are not philosophers and since acquiescence is an easy price to pay for peace, it may happen that the man in the carriage will be corroborated by the wayfarer whom his wheels have run down.
And so, my friend, in the year 1852, had you been sitting counting out the six hundred dollars which must change hands to enable John to play with the little black baby on his knee, after his day's work was done, and to keep Sallie from the pitiful fate she dreaded, it is to be questioned if you would not have agreed with Mr. Bradley in his covert opinion that "Davenport's squeamishness was all damned nonsense," and that he might far better stop reading those Yankee newspapers. But be that as it may, the deed was done. The transfer was made, and the Rev. Griffith Davenport rode home with a sad heart and troubled conscience. He did not sing nor even hum his favorite hymns as he rode. His usually radiant face was a study in perplexity. When he passed the cross-roads he did not whistle to the robin who always answered him.
Selim's successor and namesake slackened his gait and wondered. Then he jogged on, and when he stopped at the home "stile" and Griffith still sat on his back, apparently oblivious of the fact that the journey was at an end, Selim whinnied twice before the responsive pat fell upon his glossy neck.
Jerry ran out. "Dinnah's raidy, Mos' Grif. Mis' Kath'rine she been a waitin' foh yoh."
The rider roused himself and dismounted, more like an old man than like his cheery, jovial, alert self.