"Call it what you please, sir," said Bythewood, with an air of pleasantry. "I think our people have been roused at last; and if so, they have probably given him a lesson he will never forget."
"What do you mean by 'our people'?" the old man gravely inquired.
"He means," said Virginia, with quiet but cutting irony, "the most chivalrous people in the world! among whom the innocent and defenceless are more secure than any where else on the globe!"
"Precisely," said Mr. Bythewood, with a placid smile. "But among whom obnoxious persons, dangerous to our institutions, cannot be tolerated. As for this affair,"—carelessly, as if what had happened to Penn was of no particular consequence to anybody present, least of all to him,—"I don't know anything about it. Of course, I would never go near a popular demonstration of the kind. I don't say I approve of it, and I don't say I disapprove of it. These are no ordinary times, Mr. Villars. The south is already plunged into a revolution."
"Indeed, I fear so!"
"Fear so? I glory that it is so! We are about to build up the most magnificent empire on which the sun has ever shone!"
"Cemented with the blood of our own brethren!" said the old man, solemnly.
"There may be a little bloodshed, but not much. The Yankees won't fight. They are not a military people. Their armies will scatter before us like chaff before the wind. I know you don't think as I do. I respect the lingering attachment you feel for the old Union—it is very natural," said Bythewood, indulgently.
The old man smiled. His eyes were closed, and his hands were folded before him near his breast, in his favorite attitude. And he answered,—
"You are very tolerant towards me, my young friend. It is because you consider me old, and helpless, and perhaps a little childish, no doubt. But hear my words. You are going to build up a magnificent empire, founded on—slavery. But I tell you, the ruin and desolation of our dear country—that will be your empire. And as for the institution you mean to perpetuate and strengthen, it will be crushed to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of the war you are bringing upon the nation."