Why the broken planter has taken passage on the little “stern-wheeler” is due to two distinct causes. It suited him as to time, and also expense.
On the Mississippi, and its tributaries, a passage in “crack” boats is costly, in proportion to their character for “crackness.” The “Belle of Natchez,” being without reputation of this kind, carries her passengers at a reasonable rate.
But, indeed, something beyond ideas of opportune time, or economy, influenced Colonel Armstrong in selecting her. The same thought which hurried him away from his old home under the shadows of night, has taken him aboard a third-rate river steamboat. Travelling thus obscurely, he hopes to shun encounter with men of his own class; to escape not only observation, but the sympathy he shrinks from.
In this hope he is disappointed, and on both horns of his fancied, not to say ridiculous, dilemma. For it so chances, that the “bully” boat, which was to leave Natchez for Natchitoches on the same day with the “Belle,” has burst one of her boilers. As a consequence, the smaller steamer has started on her trip, loaded down to the water-line with freight, her state-rooms and cabins crowded with passengers—many of these the best, bluest blood of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Whatever of chagrin this contretemps has caused Colonel Armstrong—and, it may be, the older of his daughters—to the younger it gives gladness. For among the supernumeraries forced to take passage in the stern-wheel steamer, is a man she has met before. Not only met, but danced with; and not only danced but been delighted with; so much, that souvenirs of that night, with its saltative enjoyment, have since oft occupied her thoughts, thrilling her with sweetest reminiscence.
He, who has produced this pleasant impression, is a young planter, by name Luis Dupré. A Louisianian by birth, therefore a “Creole.” And without any taint of the African; else he would not be a Creole pur sang.
The English reader seems to need undeceiving about this, constantly, repeatedly. In the Creole, simply so-called, there is no admixture of negro blood.
Not a drop of it in the veins of Luis Dupré; else Jessie Armstrong could not have danced with him at a Natchez ball; nor would her father, fallen as he is, permit her to keep company with him on a Red River steamboat.
In this case, there is no condescension on the part of the ex-Mississippian planter. He of Louisiana is his equal in social rank, and now his superior in point of wealth, by hundreds, thousands. For Luis Dupré is one of the largest landowners along the line of Red River plantations, while his slaves number several hundred field-hands, and house domestics: the able-bodied of both, without enumerating the aged, the imbecile, and piccaninnies, more costly than profitable.
If, in the presence of such a prosperous man, Colonel Armstrong reflects painfully upon his own reduced state, it is different with his daughter Jessie.