TIME AND CHANGE.
Time and change! Why add the latter word? Doth not the former include all? Doth not time sadly overcome all things?
And this Time, which, according to Sir Thomas Brown, sitteth on a sphinx, and looketh into Memphis and old Thebes, which reclineth on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams—or something to that effect. This old Father Time, so much abused, misused, has given ten years to Kennons, ten years to Philip and his second wife in the far away homes of the Mussulman, ten years to the little Althea, who has bloomed into a beautiful girl of fourteen, beneath the roof of her loving guardians, John and Juliet Temple.
Ten years! and the fiery war of words has been followed by the deadlier fire of arms; civil war has raged over the sunny South, destroyed loving homes, mutilated fair forms, blotted out countless lives, and sent multitudes of souls unshriven before their Maker; but thanks be to God, riveted bonds have been broken and the slave hath been set free! Grand as was the sacrifice, infinite was the gain.
"I thought," said Amy, when she stood on her mount of Pisgah, rolling up her melancholy eyes to the heaven, whence her deliverance had come, "I thought it would come some time, to our children, or our children's children, but not in my time, and to me! Moses was in de wilderness forty years; for what should I tink dat de Lord would gib us our liberty sooner'n to his own faithful servant? And we to have our'n in four years! But I knew it would come some time, sure as was a God in heaven. Hadn't we been prayin' and prayin', an' beseechin', an' how could de Lord stan' de prayers of such 'pressed, trodden people as we? Bress de Lord, O my soul, an' all dat is in me!"
Thousands like Amy sang their songs of deliverance. And like her, they arose from the sad waters of their Babylon, took their harps from the willows, seeking out joyfully new ways to lands of promise.
Those persons who had been kind, nay, even moderately just to their servants, were not at once abandoned. Some for months, some for years, were still faithfully served for hire. As a rule, however, the freed people scattered; but they went not far from their life-long homes. An innate love for early scenes and associations kept them where they might occasionally visit familiar persons and places.
Duncan Lisle was now a grave man of fifty. Threads of silver shone in his dark hair, but his tall form was erect and graceful as ever. He had become, in manner and speech, exceedingly reserved; his countenance wore almost habitually a melancholy, thoughtful expression. There were times, however, when his still attractive face lighted up with the old smile; and that smile revealed a gentle, noble spirit, still retaining its freshness unchafed by the carking cares and vexatious trials to which he had been daily subject. While to some men association with so peculiar and trying a nature as Rusha Thornton's might have brought moroseness and all unloveliness, Duncan Lisle, like the philosopher of hemlock fame, had turned his wife's shrewishness into a coat of armor, within which he preserved his soul serene, contemplative, and peaceful. This is saying very much for Duncan Lisle.
During the stormy period to which we have just referred, when the nation was in her throes of anguish, Mr. Lisle remained loyal to the Government. Aside from reason, common-sense, and humanity, he had seen more than enough in his wife's treatment of servants to disgust him with slavery. Though he took no active part, and, except when occasion required, preserved his usual reticence upon this subject also, he was nevertheless heart and soul upon the one side.
It is needless to observe that his wife was upon the other extreme. The idea of slavery was grateful to her intolerant nature. For herself she acknowledged no superior. The very God Almighty of Heaven she never took into her account. Had she been Lucifer among the angels, she too would have rebelled. Had she been daughter of Servius Tullius, she would have ridden over the dead body of her father. The golden rule was for others to practice, not for her; its Divine Author, the God-Man, was beyond her comprehension; His teachings fit but for underlings and slaves. Though scorning and hating the slave, she clung to slavery as if it were her life's blood. She poured forth all the venom of her nature upon the Northern foe, which was aiming to seize this petted horror from her grasp. She recalled often the tyrant's wish; like him would have given worlds had the subjects of Yankeedom but a single neck, that she might sever the Gorgonian head at one happy stroke.