THE BROKEN SWORD

This work is respectfully inscribed to the
Daughters of the Confederacy
By the Author,
Who followed, as their fathers did, the "Southern
Cross."

[INDEX.]

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.]

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

[INTRODUCTION.]

"I have considered the oppressions that are done under the sun, and on the side of the oppressor there is power."

In the enforcement of the policy of Reconstruction in the South, the evidences were from day to day becoming so cumulative and decisive, that nothing but the discipline of an enraged party, coupled with the "spoils" principle, prevented the whole mass of the community from a universal expression of its desire to have it abandoned. Reasoning men everywhere felt that it must continue to multiply its mischiefs. "But," said its authors, "treason must be made odious, and the late insurrectionary States must feel that there is a higher law than that promulgated by their ordinances of secession."

The Spanish inquisition, now the abhorrence of all enlightened minds, was long sustained in many centuries by the tyrants' plea of necessity. In the burning of a thousand heretics the religious zealot saw the hand of God; in the destruction of a thousand sorcerers, the fanatic discerned the commonweal of the people; so in the whipcords with which the people of the South were so mercilessly scourged, there was found an antiseptic for the gangrenous wounds inflicted by the civil war. All these cruelties were legalized, while bleeding humanity was sinking under the burden of oppression. In the collision of exasperated passions, it is the temper of aggression that always strikes the first blow. The government of the South by carpet-baggers was essentially oppressive and inquisitorial. It was, in its practical operation, a pure and unadulterated despotism, superseding the protection guaranteed by the Federal Constitution to each and every State. It was under the dominion of an organized anarchy, with legislatures and courts of justice, subordinated to a lawless assemblage of unprincipled men calling themselves the representatives and judges of the people. Among its necessarily implied powers was that of confiscation; and numbered in its enumeration of brutalities, was a nameless crime that shocked the moral sense of mankind. Reconstruction came upon the South with fearful impulse.

Perhaps the "hour is on the wing," when a worthier hand will write the history of the institutional age that was sandwiched between the slavery civilization ante-dating the sixties, and that which minimized the pernicious power of manhood suffrage at the close of the century; or perhaps when that remnant that still survives in the weakness of age to

"Weep o'er their wounds, o'er tales of sorrow done.
Shoulder their crutch and show how fields are won."

shall have "passed over the river;" when the threnody of the "olden days" which to us is like the music of Carrol along the hills of Slimora, "pleasant, but mournful to the soul," shall be forgotten, some ambitious youth will uplift the veil; will take a glance of the whole horizon, and the south will unbosom her griefs that have been so long concealed. It will not do for a hand that drew the sword to guide the pen. By a law of our nature all passive impressions impair our moral sensibilities. Contact with misery renders us callous to those experiences; a constant view of vice lessens its deformity. If any expression in this humble narrative shall appear ill-tempered, let me say in the language of Themistocles at the battle of Salamis, "Strike, but hear me." The whole country has long since repudiated the dogma that "all men are born free and equal" and endowed with certain imprescriptible and inalienable rights. This heresy of course found its highest expression in the post-bellum amendments to the constitution, and the remedial statutes which made their efficiency complete. The war was the logical fulfillment of prophecies that had their forecast in the public councils before the nullification doctrine was forced upon the Senate by Mr. Calhoun. It sprang without extraneous aid from uninterpretable expressions in the organic law, which were finally explained away in the effusion of blood. Reconstruction, in the conception of men who provided the sinews of war, was the prolific aftermath; and in this harvest field, the gleaners plied their vocation with merciless activity, reinforced in their villainies by the freedmen, who, in an experimental way, were publicly evincing their unfitness for citizenship. The Civil war gendered this brood that filled the South with horror, and their disorders and tumults precipitated a crisis that plunged the Southland into a paroxysm from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. There was no refuge from an evil that was all-pervasive. The great war with its pageants and sacrifices, its banners and generals, its storming soldiery and reservoirs of human blood was almost thrust out of the memory as the patriots of the sixties stood face to face to the all-encompassing perils of reconstruction. They saw the flag of the Union—the almost lifeless emblem of the genius of their liberties—frown feebly at the promulgation of a law that disfranchised 300,000 American citizens. The old banner seemed to turn her eye to the eagle at her staff-head and ask him to lend her his wide-spreading pinions, that she might bend the wing and fly away from the polluted spot—from the embodied forms of evil and ruin. Almost every utterance of the complaining tongue that was syllabled into speech, was to this effect: "Will our country—our civilization—withstand the shock?" Our Southern characters had been enriched by an assemblage of all the treasures which refined intellect could accumulate; we had wisely built upon foundations of public virtue; our institutions had the permanency of age and respectability, and exhibited everywhere the fullest maturity of athletic vigor. The paroles of Southern soldiers amnestied them from arrest for past military offences, but the clothing which their poverty obliged them to wear marked the target at which the lawless and vicious shot at their will. Personal and State rights were abridged until nothing was left of the sovereignty of the barren commonwealths or the enthralled individual. There were no juries of the vicinage but negroes; and daily the broken-hearted people were unwittingly aggrandizing rapacious officials. To the most depraved of the negroes the carpet-baggers were constantly appealing with arguments that stirred their blood. This narrative will not in an historical sense deal with the subject of reconstruction; from its want of compactness and continuity it would prove inefficient as a lesson or a guide. We present, however, imperfect portraits of a few men and women who were unfortunately in the pathway of the storm that stripped the husbandman of the fruits of his labor, the Southron of his liberty, stifled the cries of the distressed, and rendered the tenures of property unstable and insecure. In no conjuncture in which this paroxysm of politics placed the former masters of slaves, did they abate their care and zeal for their betterment. Monuments of brass and sculptured stone are not sufficiently enduring to memorialize the virtues of the negroes of the old plantations of the South, who watched and waited for the avenging arm of Providence to right the wrongs of old master. May God's mercy rest and abide upon this scattered remnant, that, like autumn's leaves in the forest, have been blown hither and thither by the wraith of the tempest.

[THE BROKEN SWORD.]

[CHAPTER I.]

LOOKING BACKWARD.

I have surrendered at discretion to vagrant thoughts. Just as the idle school-boy will pause beside the limpid stream to watch its eddying waters as they go on and on, "never hasting, never resting," so I sit to-night in the haze of the years that are dead, with the mind sadly reminiscent, and I watch the shadows as they seem to sketch upon the memory the familiar faces of our loved and lost, and I hear their laughter and songs—grateful echoes from the realm of the long ago. I am gazing again upon the sepulchre of the old South, after the plowshare of war and reconstruction had run the last furrow. In the garnering of the red harvest did our men and women of the sixties maintain themselves with a proper decorum? Were they less patriotic, less self-sacrificing, less ready with heart and hand to divert the destructive revolution of principle than their fathers of '76, who in the upbuilding of republican institutions wavered not in their purpose; when the terror and ignominy of the scaffold were before them; when they knew their blood must cement the foundations of the structure they were rearing, and they themselves become the first sacrifice in the temple of liberty, which they were dedicating? In that epoch and since we have been making the grand experiment of self-government; not as Rome made it, when liberty there was only a name for licentiousness; not as Greece made it, when a demagogue swayed the deluded masses and lacked only a throne to make him a king; but with a constitution that should deserve the encomium of the people, for the unutterable blessings it should bestow; a constitution impervious to unjust exactions and unpatriotic suggestions, we hoped for a policy dictated in a spirit of compromise; but as I look back upon the eventful past, the first adventure of Gil Blas occurs to me. He had been furnished by his uncle with a sorry mule and thirty or forty pistoles, and sent forth to seek his fortune. He set out accordingly, but had not proceeded far from home, when, sitting on his beast counting his pistoles with much satisfaction, into his hat, the mule suddenly raised its head and pricked up its ears. Gil Blas looked around to see the cause of its alarm, and perceived an old hat upon the ground in the middle of the road, with a rosary of very large beads in it. At the same time he heard a voice addressing him in a very pathetic tone, "Good traveler, in the name of the merciful God, and of all the saints, do drop a few pistoles in the hat." Looking in the direction from which these words proceeded, he saw to his dismay the muzzle of a blunderbuss projecting through the hedge, and pointing directly at his head. Gil Blas, not much pleased with the looks of the pious mendicant, dropped a few pistoles in the hat and scampered away as fast as he could. This slight narrative presents to the mind of the writer the most perfect emblem of the pacific remedy of reconstruction in its beginning.

To the contemplative mind there is a melancholy pleasure in looking backward; as shadows will enter unbidden into the camera obscura, though every portal appears securely guarded; so memories will flit fantastically into the imagination when every approach seems closed against intrusion. I am looking backward, as it were, through a smoked glass, for a great sunburst is within the radius of vision, a sunburst that cheered our tired eyes with its thousand scintillant gleams in the hot days of August A. D. Nineteen Hundred.

Looking backward upon a picturesque civilization—upon the old homesteads and plantations of the South, with their hallowed associations and ideals—with their impedimenta not of human chattels, but of compact masses of freed slaves, the underpinning of that civilization in its concrete form.

I have asked the historian, the essayist, the chronicler, the clairvoyant, to aid me in the retrospection, but they answer dubiously. There is no trodden path that I may pursue. No friendly hand that I may clasp as I stride across fens and brakes, and morasses: even the echoes of receding footsteps, like the laughter of happy voices are hushed and dead "lang syne." There are faded letters however that I may read; broken swords and battered shields hanging upon decaying walls; moth eaten uniforms in garret and closet, that will guide me backward. The line of vision is traversed by unwieldy throngs of dilapidated men, in tattered gray clothes, without a federal head, without intelligent momentum, breaking up and dissolving like icebergs drifting southward; they are coming back home where there is neither grain for the sickle, nor hope for the husbandman: coming back to little cottages where lights in the windows kept burning for dear papa flickered and spumed, then died down into the rustic candlesticks, when the little watchful eyes so tired and weary, closed upon the moonlight that shimmered within the humble chamber.

Looking back over grave yards, where we reverently laid away our jewels to be placed by the Great Lapidary in His Crown by and by, when we shall all rise from our sleep and shine in His emitted glory. Looking backward over a strange realm, without boundaries or capitals, where there are no soldiers and no battle fields, and where every thing is so fragrant and ethereal. Here we may fashion pictures and weave around them gossamer draperies as insubstantial as this golden twilight.

Hard-hitting, rough-riding moss-troopers rode over the subjugated domains of the bewildered South, with swords that flashed and turned every way like Alaric's; rode hither to obliterate the past, its monuments, its shrines, its traditions; to scarify the old south with harrows and bayonets; its altars, its homes, its civilization, and to fetter with chains a great warlike people, with a purpose as fatuous as ever animated the swart maid of Philistia. Against this senseless vengeance, the South rebelled again with the same old defiance, the same old manhood. You may prod the wounded lion with pikes and sabres, but you cannot tread upon it with iron heels without hearing its roar and feeling its fangs. To these marauders, the old South was but a moor fowl to be plucked and eaten. To us she was dynastic, like Hapsburg, Plantagenet or Hohenzollern. To them the South was a huge incubator, out of which was hatched "Stratagems and treasons:" To us she was a Queen, still wearing the purple, still grasping the sceptre, as in past evolutions and crises. She was Our Queen when a full century ago, and before there was a cabin upon her plantations she pleaded for the emancipation of slaves and was insultingly asked to withdraw her petition by the Merchant Marine of Massachusetts. She was Our Queen when envenomed abolitionists were gathering the aftermath of the "Higher law proclamation;" she was Our Queen when Ossawattomie Brown unleashed his bloodhounds upon a fresher trail at Harper's Ferry; she was Our Queen when Sumpter ran up a flag that had never before fluttered in a gale, never before greeted a young nation with its maiden blushes, followed by the hopes, the prayers, the aspirations, faith and loyalty of ten million men, women and children; Our Queen when "old Traveler" was stripped of his dust covered housings and led ever so weary back into Old Mars. Bob's stables; Our Queen when the last cavalier wiped the blood from his sabre and scabbarded it forever. God grant she may always be Our Queen that we may be her liegemen, leal and right trusty in all catastrophes! Hence we go back to think of her, to write of her, though a widow bereaved of her husband, and a mother who has buried her first born. There is no sword now to gleam like a flash of light over the plumes of charging squadrons: there is no guidon to mark the line of direction through defile and mountain pass: no call of the bugle "to saddle and away," no thanksgiving like that of Jackson; "God crowned our arms with Victory at McDowell yesterday;" No smile like that of Lee as the Army of the Potomac with trailing banners was double quicking back to Washington. Ah! no, but the old South through her blinding tears is smiling still; her dear old face re-lighted by a fresher inspiration.

A trifling dash of time between 1860 and 1870, but events have been packed away within that decade, that would overlap the four corners of any other century in the calendar. Within those years were compounded somewhere in laboratories all the combustible elements of war and pillage; the casting the projectiles that would destroy a hemisphere. Broken hearts—crushed hopes—desolated homes, an enslaved country, wrongs, indignities, outrages, oppressions, all, all wrought by the cruel instrumentalities of great masters of tragedy. Here is an old mansion with turrets and esplanades and terraces long neglected and sadly out of repair. Here are great oaks of a century's growth planted and pruned by hands that have long since forgotten their cunning. Here are lapping waters singing in low sweet octaves as they did when poured out of the hollow of His Hand. Here is the old rookery out of which are ricochetting birds almost of every voice and plume. Here are cattle, red and dappled, cropping the meadow grass. Here are vast expanses clad in the refreshing drapery of nature, upheaving their grassy billows. Here are the crumbling cabins of the old slaves, in silent platoons that flank the old mansion, the earmarks of a picturesque civilization abused and denounced. Slaves, many of whom like the paintings of Titian and Murillo and Correggio in the great mullioned halls have come down from former generations. In yonder clump of soughing pines stood the little meeting house of the "cullud folks" on "Old Marsa's plantation." Here for decades they worshipped. In the little brook that glides along so cheerily singing as it goes, they had baptized adult "bredrin and sisterin." Here many of them had felt the touch of the Master upon the emancipated souls, and heard His voice in their spiritual uplifting, tenderly calling, and there when the gnarled and knotted hands had ceased their toil "Ole Marsa and Ole Misses" had laid them crosswise upon rigid, lifeless bosoms, that heaved not again with the pangs of suffering; and out yonder under the maples, hard by the little babbling brook, reverent and tender hands white and black had lowered the rude coffin and covered it up in "God's acre," and here around the little altar ole Marster, and Miss Alice and Mars Harry worshipped with them. No master, no mistress, no slave in this consecrated ground; no black, no white, in the invisible Presence; no hard times to come again; no tithing men, nor tax gatherers; no snarling, snapping wolf to snatch the gnawed bone from the hungry wife and her starving child. If the larder were empty the "great house" had an exhaustless supply. If clothes were rent there was "allus stuff in de loom;" If the clouds gathered for snow "ole marsa" would put on his great coat and knock at the doors and ask, "Boys, have you got plenty of good wood for the storm'?" If Joshua had the "rheumatics" or Melinda the "shaking ager," or little Jeff the hives, there were ointments and liquids, pills and lotions; and what physician was so kind; whose hands so soft and tender, whose voice so comforting and sympathetic as "ole missis's and young missis's?" There was the garden from which the negroes would market their vegetables; there was the little "water million" patch where little Jeff and Susan Ann would run out at midday, and thump and thump and thump and would as often run back with their mouths wide-open like a rift in a black cloud, "Mammy, oh! Mammy, dat great big water million is mo'est ripe—be ripe by Sunday sho," and their little black feet would knock off a jig on the bare floor; then there was the pig sty where Sukey the "sassy poker," in its sleekness and fatness, would grunt and frisk and cavort all the day long. Then there was "Ole Boatswain," the coon dog, lazily napping in the door—barking at the treed coon in his sleep; then there were the "tater ridges" and the pumpkins and the cotton patches; then there were the cackling hens and the pullets, the ducks and geese and guinea-fowls; the eggs that Hannah and Clarissa and Melinda had counted a score of times, and knew to a four pence a' penny how much they would fetch in the town; and "dere was de wagin wid ole Bob an' ole Pete wid pinted yeares, chawin' de bit same as it were fodder, ready to dash off fore dey wus ready;" and there were the inventoried assets in trade, "free forfs Hanna's and two forfs Melinda's and seben forfs Clarissy's," all tumbled in disorder, live stock and dead stock. And then "dere was Melinda and Judy a settin' a middle ships into de wagin, all agwine to de town." And when the heavy wheels would rattle with its human freight over the hard ground of Ingleside, as the moon was dipping its nether horn below the line of vision, and Clara Bell and Melinda "a singin' de ole ship of Zion," "ole Marster an' Missis an' Miss Alice would run outen de great house jes to see if Ned had fotched us all back safe an' sound. An' den when Christmas would come, de ole turkey gobbler would be turnin' an' twistin' roun' and roun' fore de fire drappin' gravy in de dish, and de barbeku would be brownin' and de lasses a stewin out de taters in great big ubbens, fo de flambergasted cookin' stobes cum about to pester folkes. And den dere would be ole Cæsar a shufflin' towards ole Marser's room, and little Jeff a sneakin' on tip-toe to ketch ole Marser's Christmas gift fore he seed em, an' Mary an' Polly creepin' like cats in Miss Alice's chamber, to get their stockins that Santy Claus had stuffed from top to toe; and den de clatter in de great dinin' room, when wid bowls of cream, and flagons of mellow ole rye, Clarissa and Melindv would be makin' egg-nog fur de fokeses, white and cullud, on de plantation."

Oh! this golden prime!

There were no black soldiers in greasy uniforms a hep, hep, hepping about the plantation; no firing of guns by riotous negroes on the roadside; no drunken, revelling wretches to slash and deface portraits, walls and corridors; no lecherous villains to accost and abuse defenceless and inoffensive women; no vigils to keep for fear of murders, burglaries and conflagrations; no angry forces and energies to quicken and compound; no wife to say to her husband, "Have you fotched any wittles back from the conwenshun? 'Fore God de chillun haint had narry moufful o' nuffin to eat dis blessed day, nor me nuther."

Ah, no! the blessing that was vouchsafed unto Israel, despite its rebellion, was all bountiful in this land. "I will give thee peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and there shall be none to make thee afraid."

Then war came with its unutterable horrors and tumults. The old tallow candles were snuffed out, and there were fears and alarms in the mansion and the cabin; the thoroughbred was brought out of the stable with yellow housings on, like the gelding of a knight errant, and the young soldier, dressed all in gray with buff revers, rushed out of the house and vaulted into the saddle. There were kisses and good byes—lost echoes now—as the cavalier, young and happy and handsome, rode away. Yes, rode away in the descending shadows, over the hills, through the glades, to Manassas and to death. Yes, rode away to the death wrestle—to where the guns were spitting fire.

"Bress yo souls, fokeses," said Uncle Ned one day, as he leaned upon his staff like a sheik of the desert, "I looks back now und den, und peers lak I kin see ole missis way back yander in de war times, when de kannon was a plowin' froo de trees ober at Manassy, same as a sho nuff harrykin, und killin' a million of our federick soldiers at wun time. I seed her und Miss Alice cum outen de grate house, a fairly toting Mars Harry dat rainy day he rid off to de war, und Mars Harry he looked same as a gineral in all dem stripes und fedders, und Nelly she wuz jest a chompin' de bit und er pawin' de yurth lak she wuz moes afeerd de war want er gwine to hole out twell she und Mars Harry got dar; und den ole missis looked up in Mars Harry's face, und I seed her laf, do she wuz crying tu, und den I heerd hur say, 'My brave boy, how kin I ever giv yu up! Will yer git er furlow und cum home arter de battle? Und den Mars Harry he larfed too, und den I heerd him say, 'Oh mother don't be childish, I'm jest er gwine off fer my helth. I'm gwine to bring yer a yankee sord when we whups em and drives um tuther side o' de Pokomuc river.' Und den ole missis she put her pendence in every word Mars Harry tole her, kase when he rid off I heerd her tell Miss Alice dat her boy want agwine to be gone long, and dat de yankeys was agwine to give up fore dey fit ary battle; but bimeby, when ole missus seed dat Mars Harry mout not git a furlow, she jest gin herself up to die. All de day long pore old missis would walk up und down de piazzy a peekin' froo de trees und axin' me ef I spishioned he was gwine to git kilt, und den when she heerd dat our fokeses had fit de battle of Manassy, me und ole missis sot up all night long, jes a watchin' fer Mars Harry to ride back lak he rid off; but no Mars Harry neber didn't come back twell one rainy, grizzly night me und ole missis heerd a clatter down de road, und den we heerd somebody say, 'Wo! und den a passel ov soldiers cum up to missis easy like, and axed her if Mr. Seymo' lived dere; und when ole missis heerd dat word und seed de kivered wagin, she jes drapped down into de road dead. Pore ole missis! De soldiers took her up in dere arms und toted her into de 'grate house,' und dere was her and pore Miss Alice in hysteriks, and ole marser not a sayin' ary wurd but a chokin 'mos to def; und den de soldiers went back to de kivered wagin', and I heered 'em a draggin' outen it a great big box, and I seed dem totin it to de 'grate house' jes as easy and slow, wid dere milinterry hats offen dere heds in de rain, und den I node it was Mars Harry. When ole missis cum to, she made de soldiers take de led offen de coffin, und dere was Mars Harry a lyin' dere wid his eyes shot right tight, a smilin de butifullest all to hissef. Ole missis sot dere all dat nite lak a grate big statu, a runnin her fingers fru his hair an' a talkin' to him jes de same as if Mars Harry had rid back frum de war lak he rid off. An' den ole marsa he cum in und looked at Mars Harry a smilin' to hissef, an' I could see ole marsa shake an' shake, but he didn't say narry a wurd, an' he tuck Mars Harry's sord out of de coffin; den bimeby I heerd him say he was agwine to venge his death. Ole missis soon pined erway, cause Mars Harry was her eyeballs. I tells ye fokeses, dat was de most solemcholly site I ever seed in my born days. Poor ole missis didn't stay long arter Mars Harry died; she dun gon home too, an' I specks Mars Harry dun tole ole missis all erbout de battle of Manassy, an' how he fit an' how he got kilt; und erbout dat yankey sord he nebber didn't fotch back."

To a paternal ancestor of Colonel John Walter Seymour has been ascribed this prayer in battle, "Oh Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me." Then rising, he gave the command, "Forward, march! On, my lads!"

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 23rd of October, King Charles was riding along the ridge of Edgehill, and looking down into the valley of the Red Horse, a beautiful meadow, broken here and there by hedges and copses, he could see with his glasses the parliamentary army as they marched out of the town of Kleinton and aligned their forces in battle array.

"I never saw the rebels in a body before," said the king. "I will give them battle here." There were hot words around the royal standard. Rupert, a dashing young general, who had seen the swift, fiery charges of the fierce troopers in the thirty years war, was backed up by Patrick Lord Ruthven and Sir Walter Seymour, among the many Scots who had won renown under the great Augustus Adolphus and opposed fiercely by Lord Lindsey, an old comrade of the Earl of Essex, commander-in-chief of the rebel forces, who swore by all the saints in the calendar that he would not serve again in an army under a boy, referring to Prince Rupert, who was assigned by the king to command the army at Edge Hill that day.

It was to this circumstance that the country was indebted for the prayer aforesaid. The brave soldier, unyielding in his loyalty to the king, resigned his command as a general to command his company, and in so doing gave affront to Lord Lindsay and the king; but subsequently, at Scone, the king said to him, "You shall accompany me to London as a privy counsellor."

It was from this doughty ancestor of blessed memory that John Walter Seymour lineally descended. I have seen the old corselets, shackbolts, shields and trefoils of that chivalric era that belonged to the old baronet. Colonel Seymour had interested himself greatly in the literature of that institutional era that had so close a connection with the pomp and power of the Feudal system. He spoke learnedly too of the ideal purity of the social and moral code of the age.

The Colonel himself was no ignoble scion of so noble an ancestor. He had won his spurs and stars at Malvern Hill, and at the disbanding of the army he had covered the faded stars upon his collar with his pocket handkerchief until unobserved he could pluck them one by one and trample them underfoot. His haughty spirit could not brook the shame that overlaid him like a shroud when his sword passed out of his hands hilt foremost at Appomattox. He had taken the beautiful Alice Glendower from a neighboring estate as his wife twenty-six years ago, and now in the year 186-, though a shadow darkening and deepening lay athwart heart and home, the old man was still muttering curses long, loud and deep. He had fully assimilated the indignant spirit of Coriolanus. "I would they were barbarians (as they are though in Rome littered), not Romans as they are not though calved in the porch of the capitol." His only surviving child Alice was now in her twenty-third year. Harry, a princely fellow, a young lieutenant of cavalry, had fallen at the battle of Manassas and ever since that day the mother had steadily declined until now the end had almost come. The likeness of the dead boy was photographed vividly upon her heart and every tender chord was ceaselessly vibrating from the presence of a grief, that recreated fancies and memories that brought back to her the vanished idol. God's peace had settled upon the old home and its hearth stones, one beautiful Sabbath morning, as the Colonel, his daughter and old Clarissa had assembled in Mrs. Seymours's bed chamber. The light of the morning sun shimmered through open windows, and the shadows of the tree boughs like imprisoned fairies danced in cotilion upon the polished floor. "The birds are singing so sweetly to-day," observed the sick lady.

"Yes indeed, they are," replied her husband.

"My dear," she said as she turned her face to him, "I have been greatly troubled by a horrid dream."

"Land sakes alive ole missis," interrupted Clarissa, "don't yu pester yoursef to def erbout dreams these outlandish times. Dey is bad enuff goodness nose widout dreaming dreams. Ned he jumped clean outen de bed tother nite hollering for his ole muskit lak he was agwine to war—his eyes fairly a sot in his head lak a craw-fish and a tarryfying me to def and hollering 'fire! fire!' and a foaming at the mouf lak a mad dog, und duz yu know what I dun ole missis? when dat drotted nigger hollered fire! fire! I jes retched ober de table an' got de pale of water an' I put out dat fire fore Ned skovered whay hit war. Dat fool nigger walks perpendikler, now yu heers my racket." She laughed again and again as she continued: "And Ned he wanted to fight; he was most drounded."

There was little of sentiment and less of diplomacy in the character of Colonel Seymour; though he was exceedingly tolerant toward Clarissa with her little vagaries and superstitions. What the dream of the good lady was has never been known—the narrative was rudely broken off by the interruption of Clarissa.

Would you know sweet Alice more intimately? I cannot portray her as she deserves; her heart was like so many little cells into which were unceasingly dropping the honey of blue thistle blossoms of charity. In every den of wretchedness; in every hovel where squalor and disease disputed all other dominions, she was a beam of sunshine, giving warmth and cheer and joy. The little star-eyed daisies in the meadow would turn up their tiny faces to greet her with smiles as she would pass them day after day with the little basket upon her arm; God had put her here among these poor people—among the deluded negroes as his missionary, and I am quite sure He was pleased with her work. I cannot describe her beauty and grace of person better than in the natural and characteristic language of Clarissa "Miss Alice," she would say, "Yu is the most butifullest white gal I ever seed in de wurrel; yer cheek is jes lak mellow wine-sop apples, und yer eyes is blu und bright lak agate marbles, und yer teeth as white as de dribben snow, und when yer laffs, pen pon it, even de birds in de trees stops to lisen; und yu is jes as suple und spry as de clown in de show."

Golden tresses like a nimbus of glory adorned her queenly head. Eyes of blue graduated to the softest tint; cheeks that transfered the deep blush from tender spring blossoms. Something in her there was that set you to thinking of those "strange back-grounds of Raphael—that hectic and deep brief twilight in which Southern suns fall asleep." With Alice in her presence, Clarissa felt no evil; when the storm came with blinding fire, its fierce thunders, her refuge was by her side. She was her inspiration, her providence. The gentle hand upon the hot brow and there came relief; an old fashioned lullaby from her sweet lips and the fevered pickaninny in the cradle would turn upon his side and fall into a grateful slumber. A prayer spoken out of a heart touched by pity or sorrow, and instantly another heart would be uplifted in thanksgiving. She exercised too a power over the freed slaves that made captive to her will almost all the stubborn and rebellious negroes. Old Ned would have plucked out his eyes for her and cast them at her feet; so would Clarissa, so would Clarabel; so would old Caesar and Hannah and Joshua. Only these rebelled against her influence, to wit: Aleck, Miles and Ephraim. Clarissa would say to her young mistress so inquisitively, "Miss Alice, why don't yu git married? Peers like child yer is too sweet and pretty to live allus by yer lone, lorn self. Yer aint allers gwine to be 'ticin an butiful like yer is now. By and by de crow's foot is agwine to cum into yer lubly face and dere is gwine to be kurlikus and frowns in yo eyes jes lak yo mammy's; she used to be pretty und lubly jes' lak you, and whar is she now? De boys aint gwine to brak their necks over you when yer gets ole an' ugly, nuther. Now dey is lak a passel ov yallow jackets a swarmin' a-roun my house, and axin me dis ting an' tuther ting about dare sweetheart, and bress yo dear life I has to keep a patchin' up de fence whar dey climbs ober to keep de horgs an' cattle beastes out o de crap. Dey is afraid to cum to de 'grate house;' skeert of yu an' ole marser. Ole Mars John aint gwine to be here allus, nuther; see how cranksided he is gettin' an' so ill an' contrawy that we das'nt projec' wid him no mo; an' whar wud yu be chile in dis grate, big house und dis grate big plantashun wid de cussed niggers a marchin' an' a beatin' drums an' a shootin' guns lak ole Sherman's army, treadin' down de corn an' 'taters und a momickin' up de chickins und de sheepses und de cattle beastes? 'Taint agwine to do nohow. Dat it aint. I kin count fourteen portly yung 'uns dat wud jump clean akross de crick fer yer any hour God sends."

Alice could only silently hearken to the force of such plain, matter-of-fact reasoning, but poor girl, there was not a single niche in her heart into which she could lift an idol. Within the shrine there were nothing but soulless effigies, so faded and old and lifeless that they recalled only battle-fields and sepulchres. "Will her prince never come, into whose eyes she can see mirrored her own self, her soul in its beauty, love and happiness?" Do you ask? There is a medallion that hangs by a golden chain across her fair bosom. "How long had she worn it there," think you? Ever since

"She was a child and he was a child,
In his kingdom by the sea;
When she loved with a love that was more than love,
Alice and Arthur McRae."

[CHAPTER II.]

OUR SCOTCH-IRISH.

A person on entering the library in an old-fashioned mansion, situated in the heart of a country that was very beautiful in the landscaping of nature, at eleven a. m. of the 12th of November, would have observed a venerable gentleman reclining upon an antique sofa, plainly upholstered in morocco. The gentleman was reading from a book entitled, "The Life and Speeches of Daniel Webster." The stranger might have further observed, that the right hand of the old gentleman would now and again move with some energy of expression, as if he were punctuating a particular paragraph by an emphatic dissent. If the reader had been asked for an opinion as to the character and ability of the illustrious commoner, whose views were so logically expressed in the memoir, he would have said without hesitation, that "He possessed the acumen of the wisest of statesmen, but that his opinions as a strict constructionist were extra hazardous, indeed out of harmony with the true theory of a republican form of government—a government of co-ordinate states that had entered voluntarily into a compact for a more perfect union. But (he may have continued) against the doctrine of nullification, indeed against the ordinances of secession, the irony of fate, through this great man, projected an argument whose logic was irrefutable in its last analysis. Foreshadowed events put into the mouth of Mr. Webster a menace, whose uninterpretable meaning in 1833 was clearly understood when the baleful power of the storm swept from the high seas the last privateer with its letter of marque, disbanded the last armed scout south of the breakwater of the Delaware, and broke the heart of the greatest warrior since Charlemagne; a chieftain more honored in defeat than Hannibal, or Napoleon, or Sobieski, or the great Frederick. This master craftsman in the construction corps of the Republic; whose resourceful intellect engrafted a principle as fixed and inviolable into the Constitution as fate, propelled against the equity of 'peaceful separation' the weight of an overmastering influence. This menace to the South marked the tumultuous heart-beats of the commercial North, when it contemplated the separation of indestructible states. It made of the Republic a huge camp of instruction, into which the nations of the earth were perpetually dumping their refuse populations; it girdled the South with a cincture of embattled mercenaries; it imparted to the Constitution a disciplinary vigor; it gave to partisan legislation an inspiration; it gave to centralized power an omnipotent reserve that unnerved every arm, paralyzed every tongue, and rendered organized effort abortive in the crucial struggle for Southern independence. But, sir, (and the eyes of the old man would gleam as with the light of an overpowering genius), a government created by the States, amendable by the States, preserved by the States, may be annihilated by the States."

It was one of those leaky, bleak November days, when the weather, out of temper with itself, is continually making wry faces at the rain and the forest and the cattle, that a gentleman lately arrived from the auld town of Edinboro, shook the glistening rain-drops from his shaggy talma in the great hall of Ingleside, as he observed to the host with a smile, "Thot it was a wee bit scrowie, but the weether wad be fayre in its ain gude time." It was indeed one of those leaden days that occasionally comes in the Southland with the November chills, pinching the herds that are out upon the glades and meadows, when the winds sang in the tree boughs with a strange and melancholy rhythm. A sailor passing up the forward ladder from the forecastle to observe the weather would say, with a shudder, that it was a "greasy day," and that the sky and shrouds and storm-sails were leaky. Col. Seymour, upon ordinary occasions, was a gentleman of discrimination, and his judgment of character was fairly correct. Like the true Scotch Southron, as he was, he had his own ideals, his own loves and his own idiosyncrasies. He loved Scotland and her people, her memories, her history, her renown, her trossachs, her lakes, her mountains; they were his people, and Scotland was the "ain love of his fayther and mither." He had not forgotten the language of her beautiful hills and vales, though he was a boy when, with his parents, he bade adieu to his bonny country to find a home across the water in the Old North State, so prodigal and impartial in the distribution of honors and riches to all who came with clean hands and stout hearts. So when the neat and genteel Scotchman gave his name as Hugh McAden, the old man's heart impulsively warmed towards his guest, for he knew of a verity that a McAden everywhere was a man of honor—the name, an open sesame to the hearts and homes of Scotch Americans.

"I will make you very comfortable to-day, sir," he observed, as he escorted Mr. McAden to his library. There were great hickory logs, half consumed, resting upon the antiquated brass andirons in the fire-place, giving warmth and cheer to the whole room. The stranger, rubbing his hands vigorously, for they were very cold and stiff, observed interrogatively, "You do not let the chill ond weet coom into the hoose?"

"No indeed," replied the Colonel with a broad smile, "these inflictions are for other folks, whose liberty is upon the highways and in the forests in such weather."

"Ah, for ither fauk; maybe the naygurs," laughingly suggested the Scotchman.

"Yes, you can hear the guns in the woods, where they are hunting cattle not their own. You can see drunken squads marching upon the roads upon such a day."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "ond do ye call this free America? May-be ye hae no goovernment as ye haed lang syne, ond no law ither."

The Colonel assured the gentleman that public affairs were at sixes and sevens, and the negroes now held the mastery over their former owners, and their discipline was not over indulgent.

"Ond do the naygurs make the laws for sic as you?" he enquired in a startled way.

"Oh yes," replied the Colonel, quite seriously.

"Alack-a-day!" exclaimed the astonished man. "The deil take sic a goovernment, ond the deil tak sic a coontry, ond the deil tak the naygurs! Coom to Edinboro, mon, where there is not o'ermuch siller, but where ivery mon is his ain laird, ond his hoose is his ain hame. Ye ken fine that I am a stranger hereaboot. Ond will the naygurs harm a poor mishanalled mon like me?" he enquired in alarm. The Colonel, with an effort to conceal his mirth, reassured his friend that no harm would come to him.

"Ond wad ye say," the Scotchman interrupted, "that amang the naygurs ond sic a government, that a puir body wad hae the protection o' his ain queen?" he again asked, with his fears still unsubdued. The amiable host, shaking from an effort at self-control, again remarked that the carpet-bag government had made no attempt at personal violence upon strangers, and that he was as safe here as in his own city of Edinboro; and the Scotchman laughed away his fears.

"Sic an auld fule!" he exclaimed in great glee. "I am hardly masel in these lowlands," the Scotchman continued, as the conversation changed into more agreeable channels. "Ye hae na moontains ond bonnie hills hereaboot," he continued, as he looked from the window upon the low-lying fields and meadows.

"But, my friend," replied the Colonel, "if you will abide with me for awhile you will quite forget your mountains, for there is a charm and freshness in the landscape here when you become familiar with it."

"I am sure of thot," quickly answered the guest; "but ye ken fine that a puir body must abide in his ain hame. What wad a man do in th' Soothland wi' his beezeness in Edinboro?" And the Scotchman smiled as he asked the unanswerable question. "Ah, well," the Colonel replied with an assumed dignity, "you would do as we do."

"Ond what is thot?" asked the Scotchman.

"Swear and vapor from early morn to dewy eve."

"Ah! thot wad na do, thot wad na do," he replied, horrified at such a suggestion, "The meenister in holy kirk wad discipline a puir body, ond the deil wad be to play. I guess I'll gang hame agen ond do as ilka fauk do in th' auld toon."

The Colonel had not been so happy in many a day as with the plain, matter-of-fact Scotchman, in a sense, a type and representative of his own people, and a man who could speak so eloquently of the fadeless glory of old Scotland.

"Hae ye nae gude wife ond bairns?" he enquired.

"Yes, an invalid wife and an only child, sir," said the Colonel, as tears began to gather in his eyes. "My only son, sir, was slain in battle some years ago."

"Ond was it for sic a goovernment as ye hae noo, that ye gaed up your bonnie lad to dee?" he asked quite innocently.

The old man bowed his head in silent grief. He could not answer, and he walked across the room and looked out upon the murky sky—a funereal coverlid, it appeared, laid over the grave of poor Harry.

"Puir lad," uttered Mr. McAden, half aside, as he drew his handkerchief across his face and gazed abstractedly into the blazing fire. It was quite an interval before the Colonel was able to subdue this paroxysm of grief that had quite overcome him, and, availing himself of the earliest opportunity to excuse himself, withdrew from the room. To Mr. McAden the moment was fraught with sincere sorrow. He had unwittingly opened the sluice-way at the veteran's heart, and great tides, crimsoned, as it seemed, with the blood of poor Harry, were pouring into it. He could find no surcease only in the oft-repeated exclamation of reproach.

"Sic an auld fule! Sic an auld fule! But I thocht the mon was o'er happy in the love of his gude wife ond the bairn. Haed I thocht thot the lad had deed in battle, I wad na gaed him sic a sair thrust in his auld heart."

The Colonel retired to his own chamber to repair the injury that had been done to his feelings, and presently he returned with a smiling face, accompanied by his daughter, and he said, introducing her.

"This sir, is my daughter, Alice."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. McAden, rising with extended hand, "The lassie is like the sire, Coonel. I can see the fayther in her een."

"And the counterpart of her mither in all except the een," replied her father.

"You ond the gude wife ond the lassie must coom to Edinboro, Coonel; ye ken fine thot her rooyal men ond weemen are i' th' groond noo, ond there are memorials here ond there in the auld kirk-yards where their puir bodies are laid, but our men ond weemen still are vera fayre ond gentle, ond we niver put our een upon a naygur. Ond, now thot I can abide nae langer wi' ye, will ye nae tell me a wee bit o' the history o' our ain fauk in the Soothland, for ye ken fine thot the auld anes wad be askin aboot this ane ond thot ane, in fine all aboot the Scotch in your ain coontry, when I gae hame to Edinboro."

The subject referred to by the Scotchman was full of a picturesque interest, and no man in the Southland took a higher delight in imparting such information as he could command, than Colonel Seymour. Turning his old arm-chair so that he could observe his guest more closely, he began:

"The characteristics of these people are ineffaceably impressed upon our civilization. Indeed they are as deeply grounded into the religious and social soil of North Carolina, as though they had taken root like the rhododendron under the rocks and in the fissures of our hills and mountains. The Scotch-Irish American, with gigantic strides, has at last sat himself down upon the loftiest pinnacle of our 19th century civilization. He has never yielded to oppression; he has never compounded with evil. These brave people, bringing hither the virtues of their fathers as well as their own, have given North Carolina its most luminous page. They made the earliest industry of the Cape Fear—the industry of colonization. It was an industry that sought to provide homes for the people, and to dignify labor and life in the midst of surroundings that taxed every resource of action, and the ultimate verge of human daring; an industry that employed the plainest instruments—the axe to hew down the forest, and the plow to turn the furrow. Their primitive sires in these early settlements did not control those powerful auxiliaries that now multiply the skill of man; nor did they enjoy the aristocracy of the recognized power of wealth. They cared nothing for mammonism, that some philosophical crank has defined to be a physical force that makes men invertebrates. Here was life with the struggle of pioneers; a struggle for place rather than for position; for homes rather than castles, that prepared the intellect for a higher development, and man for ultimate power. The victory of the axe and plow were the pre-ordained antecedents to the victory of the forum and pulpit, and the triumph over the crude obstructions of nature was the divine prophecy of undisciplined toil. Out of the ruggedness of such an epoch came forth a condition of virtue and integrity; of honest and honorable convictions; of sincere patriotism; of a race of men who looked to themselves only, and originated within this scant domain the literature of economic life. It was here that the domestic sentiment displayed its captivating charm. Nowhere on earth was there a more generous love for children, and whenever this attribute of the heart appears, the prophetic benediction of Christ, as childhood lay in His hallowed arms, is fulfilled. Here was social life, too, in its freedom, picturesqueness and animation, without demoralizing conditions. Away northward and southward, bays and rivers stretched their wedded waves, hills holding in their dead grasp the secrets of centuries; the ancient miracles of fire and water where chaos had been transfixed in its primeval heavings; all these were here subject to the mighty mastery that men should eventually exert, and side by side with humble homes, arose schools and churches—emblems of the power and purity of the people. Here the ambassadors of Christ were persuasive with tongue, fervent in spirit; they felt that their religion was more ancient than government, higher than any influence; more sacred than any trust; a religion that was benevolence in its gentlest mood, courage in its boldest daring, affection in its intensest power; philanthropy in its widest reach; patriotism in its most impassioned vigor; reason in its broadest display; the mighty heart that throbbed through every artery; fed every muscle; sped the hidden springs of an electric current through every nerve. Such were and are "oor ain fauk in th' Soothland."

"Ah, I ken fine," replied the Scotchman with enthusiasm, "that your forebears came from the hielands, and yoor knowledge of the gude fauk in yoor ain coontry quite surprises me. Did ye not say that yoor fayther ond mither came from Edinboro?" he inquired with animation.

"Yes," replied the Colonel, "in the good old days; and they lie buried side by side in the little cemetery over the hill yonder, where I shall rest after a wee bit."

"These are bonnie lands hereaboot, but there is mony a glade in auld Scotland where a puir body may sleep as tranquilly," said the Scotchman with feeling, "ond when I dee my sepulchre shall be near the auld hame where there are no naygurs ond no sic a goovernment, in th' shadow o' th' auld kirk o' my fayther ond mither."

[CHAPTER III.]

THE ASSASSINS OF THE PEACE OF THE SOUTH.

To the people of the South the infliction of the carpet-bag government was an outrage that "smelled to heaven." The changed character—the degradation of the South was a deplorable consequence—it was the inoculating of a virus into the circulation of the body politic that it will take a century to cleanse.

The power of attainting and confiscating, forbidden by the law from a full knowledge of its lamentable use by the factious parliaments of Great Britain, was shamelessly exercised by local jurisdictions of the South until nothing was left to the most virtuous of patriots but their name, their character, and the fragrance of their great and illustrious actions, to go down to posterity. A stranger coming to any legislature would have taken it at one time for a disorderly club-room, where ignorant and vicious partisans, white and black, were assembled to lay plans for their own aggrandizement and the prostration of the country. At another time he would suppose it to be a hustings for the delivery of electioneering harangues; at another, an areopagus for the condemnation of all virtuous men; then a theatre, for the entertainment of a most diverted auditory; always a laboratory for the compounding of alarms, conspiracies and panics. In the deliberations of the members there was no check to the license of debate, or the prodigal expenditure of money; no voice to control their judgments of outlawry and sequestration. Radamanthus himself, in some stage of his infernal process, would at least listen to his victim; "First he punisheth, then he listeneth, and lastly he compelleth to confess." The inventors of mythology could not conceive of a Tartarus so regardless of the forms of justice as not to allow the souls of the condemned to speak for themselves; but reconstruction, trampling upon all laws, denied to the long-suffering people of the South the right to plead their innocence in the face of the concentrated accumulation of frightful accusations,all founded upon the "baseless fabric of a vision."

Centuries ago the last saurian died in the ooze of the bad lands in Kansas, but by an unnatural law of reproduction the carpet bagger and scalawag, with the same destructive instincts, with the same malodorous presence, found its bed of slime in the heart of the South and disported with a devilish energy. Monsters of malice, spawning evil gendering fanaticism, focussed their evil eye upon the millions of freedmen, whose destiny and happiness were closely interwoven with their old masters; with masters who had yielded their swords but not their honor; who were "discouraged, yet erect; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not conquered." The poor negro, under the seductive charms of these human serpents, languished, and languishing, did die.

The carpet-baggers preached to the negroes an anti-slavery God, from the gospel of hate, of revenge. Slavery was the tempest of their poor souls, and revenge must assuage the swollen floods. "The thronged cities—the marks of Southern prosperity and the monuments of Southern civilization," said they, "are yours, yours to enjoy, to alienate, to transmit to posterity. Your empire is established indestructibly throughout the new South. This land shall not be permitted to remain as a lair for the wild beasts that have clutched at the throat of this republic to destroy it. We have heard the cries of our Israel in bondage, and we have come to give you the land that flows with milk and honey." Poor black souls! What a delusion! The day will surely come when the curtain shall be drawn and the deceivers, active and dormant, in this dark tragedy, shall be dragged before the footlights to receive the curse of an indignant reprobation. Poor negro! He is starving for bread and they give him the elective franchise. He begs to be emancipated from hunger, and they decree that he shall be a freedman.

Who will dare assert that the pride, the patriotism, the spirit of the South was not alarmingly compromised by the issues of the Civil War?—a war that was the exercise of both violence and discipline by sovereign authority. We are told that wars are an evil, come when they may; they are just or unjust, moral or immoral, civilized or savage, as the ingredients of violated rights—demand of reparation and refusal—shall be observed, neglected or abused. Perhaps the prostrated South should have been advertent to this fact before she delivered the first blow. But whether right or wrong, when the armies were disbanded, when it yielded its organic being—its sovereignty—to overwhelming resources and numbers, the law of nations laid upon the paramount sovereignty obligations which have never been performed, either in letter or spirit. The government that re-instated its authority was bound by a circle of morals, including the obligations of justice and mercy, reciprocally acting and reacting.

The emancipation of five million slaves was a supplemental act of war; a renewed declaration that the tramp of embattled armies should echo and re-echo from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, until the foot of a slave should not press its "polluted" soil. Their enfranchisement was neither an act of war or of exasperation, but an act of diplomacy, extra-hazardous as results have shown, with the effect of humiliating the conquered South. It introduced throughout the South a sacrilegious arm against the fairest superstructure of Christian manhood the world has ever known; stamped the history of the nation with dishonor, and betrayed the proudest experiment in favor of the rights of man. It taught the freedmen, through the vicious counsel of intriguing, designing demagogues, that their liberty was still insecure; that to accomplish it in its ultimate triumph and blessing, the savage axe must be laid at the root of the social institutions; that they must lay violent hands upon the men, women and children who had made their emancipation an accomplished fact. Hence a war whose horrors should be accentuated by the lighted torch was inaugurated, and an inglorious campaign of reprisals by placable tools, whose zeal to preserve what they now purposed in their blind fanaticism to destroy, was a few years before as ardent and persevering.

Poor, pitiable, deluded human beings, who as chattels real—impedimenta of Southern plantations—had guarded the peace of the home, and many of whom were faithful unto death!

Reconstruction superimposed an artificial citizenship—a citizenship essentially lacking in every resource of intellectual strength—it was without ideals or examples for the government of the freedmen of the proud Southern commonwealths. The allegiance of the negroes was as friable as a rope of sand; they were without a definite conception of the responsibilities of sovereignty—without a fixed principle to guide them in governmental policy—with impulses of brutish suggestion, and under masters more inexorable, more exacting than those they had deserted upon the abandoned plantations. How painful was such a crisis that split up the old South into disgraced and bleeding fragments!

We come to speak for a moment of the microbes that ate their way into the hearts of the seceded commonwealths, while the ruins of southern homes were still smoking; and before the blood of chivalrous southrons had dried upon our battle-fields. I commend the chalice to the lips of those who will deny the truth of what is herein written and desire that such a man might realize a bare modicum of what was suffered and endured. The elective franchise was the panacea for every evil; an antispasmodic, when there were occasional exacerbations in the public mind; our fathers valued the elective franchise because in its patriotic expression was the covenant of freemen.

When our hopes were feeblest, and our horizon darkest, the scalawag fled like a hound to the sheltering woods whence he sallied forth like an outlaw. The reddened disc of the sun that went down at Appomattox gave him an inspiration for his hellish work, and he went out in the gloom of the starless night, declaring with a more vicious temper than did Henry of Agincourt "the fewer the men the greater the honor" or in its appropriate paraphrase "the deeper the pockets the greater the spoil." His philanthropy and selfish interests never clash. He claimed always to be rigidly righteous, and was seen in the camp-meeting and the church sanctified and demure to a proverb. He spoke of the poor negro in paroxysms of charity—a most rare benevolence which employed its means in theft and crime; a charity which performs its vows and gives its alms with money plundered from the freedmen. The scalawag like other unclassified vermin was without respectable antecedents; with an acute sense of smell like the "lap-heavy" scout of the Andes, he sought his prey when there was no fear of the approach of man. As an Irish barrister once wrote upon the door of a plebians' carriage, "Why do you laugh?" so the humorist of the sixties could have written upon the shirt-front of the scalawag "Why do people hold their noses?" He was never mentioned by naturalists, unless under some other name he was paired off with the vulture. In reconstruction days the transformation of this abortion of nature from vulture to serpent was made without the break of a feather or the splitting of a talon. With a seductive grimace he whispered into the open ear of the freedmen "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt not surely die." He was as much an augury of evil as the brood of ravens that once alighted upon Vespasian's pillar. Had he been seen plying his vocation in the first empire Napoleon would have said to Fouche, "Shoot the accursed beast on the spot." The carpet bagger when not fighting the pestiferous vermin in the Chickahominy swamps was pilfering. He went into the army conscripted like a gentleman; he came out of the army at night when the back of the sentry was turned and without a furlough, like a patriot. These twain were the autocrats of the new south, which had its christening in the blood of heroes; they were the furies that rode the red harlot around the circle, when her flanks were still wet with human slaughter, and her speed was increased by the jeering negroes. When Sister Charity in an occasional fit would fall unconsciously into the receptive bosom of her black lover in the prayer-meeting, with the wild exclamation "Bress Gord I sees de hosses und de charyut er cumin!" they would clap their hands in joy and shout, "Persevere in the good cause my sister." When old deacon Johnson upon some happy suggestion from the "sliding elder" would turn up the white of one eye, they would turn up the whites of the others; and when deacon Thompson came around for alms for the heathen, they would slip under the pennies a brass-button and inwardly thank God they were not like the poor publican or the hypocritical pharisee. Their first meeting with the freedmen was flattering and agreeable; it was an expression of frail vows of love, sweet but not permanent, which bore but the perfume and dalliance of a moment; it was the fusing of units of power for the purpose of spoil, and plunder. Sambo had prayed ardently for this revelation, and it had come. The scalawag, carpet-bagger, and freedman were parties of the first part, second part and third part in the tripartite agreement, until the negro became the party of no part or the worst part, and he began to mutter to himself in vulgar doggerel:

"Ort is er ort und figger is er figger,
All fur de white man und none fur de nigger."

When Sambo stole from the store to increase the joint stock-in-trade, the plunder was checked off in the invoice and Sambo was checked off in the penitentiary; if the firm went into liquidation it was because its active and suffering partner went into jail. If the poor negro died with assets the carpet-bagger "sot upon de state" like a carrion-crow upon a putrid body. These human harpies were natural sons of the commune.

The dirty co-partners opened up business in the south, as soon as Sherman's army had crossed the border, under the attractive firm name and style of "The Devil broke loose in Dixie." The iron-hoof of war had so cruelly scathed the bosom of the south that it was like an overripe carbuncle; it required a little scarifying and savage hands might squeeze and sponge at will.

Credit was prostrate; society was disorganized, treasuries empty; debt like a huge fragment of ice slipping away from the glacier upon the mountain, was gathering volume and momentum as it rolled on and on, and the poor old tottering, reeling country was still struggling on like a bewildered traveller, followed by wolves, and overshadowed by vultures. Corruption and ignorance were the only passports to power. No modern instance of wrong and oppression can approach this Fructidor of the sixties in the South. Human ghouls not so black as these vomited out, the Carbonari of Italy, the Free Companions of France and the Moss Troopers of England.

This condition of things, we dare assert, is without a parallel in the history of any people, in any civilization. Even when Rome was swayed by the keenest lust for conquest and dominion, their legions conquered the barbaric states, not to degrade or destroy, but to attach them to her invincible arms. Savage vengeance never went so far as to place the slave above the master by way of retribution. This was the exciting cause that brought into fullest display the natural law of reprisals and retaliations upon the part of the Southern people.

The first prominent cause of public disturbance of which the carpet-baggers were the authors was a most thorough and secret organization of the negroes in all the counties into Loyal Leagues; in many instances armed and adopting all the formula of signs, pass-words and grips of an oath bound secret organization. When the negro is asked why he votes the Republican ticket his simple answer always is, "Why Lor bress your soul Marsa, we swo to do dat in de League." That simple answer by this new suffragist, this new automaton of the ballot, is a full explanation of the political solidity of the negro vote: With such an element to work upon, ignorant and degraded, the carpet-baggers, fierce and rapacious, have found themselves in Mahomet's seventh heaven in the South.

It is a subject of interest and maybe of admonition to the people North and South, how political institutions, in an age of the highest civilization and under the most explicit constitutional forms, may be changed or abolished by a process of partisan policy, when inaugurated in a spirit of hate, revenge or avarice. Pseudo-philanthropists may talk never so eloquently about an "equality before the law" when equality is not found in the great natural law of race ordained by the Creator. That cannot be changed by statute which has been irrevocably fixed by the fiat of the Almighty. The result of this mongrel combination of carpet-bagger, scalawag and negro; this composition of vice and ignorance and rapacity, was plainly seen everywhere. Robbery and public plunder were rampant in the State capital. The expenses of government were at once increased five hundred per cent. Verily the pregnant suggestion of the carpet-bagger that the only way to bring down the white people of the South to the level of the negro was to tax them down, was carried out with a sweeping vengeance. These thieves and robbers, who had fastened themselves like vampires upon the public treasury, and unlike the leach, did not let go their hold when full, were still gorging themselves by new methods of plunder. No such rate of taxation upon the same basis of property valuation has ever occurred in the history of the world. A tithe of this rate of taxation lost to the crown of England her thirteen American colonies. All the county auditors, county treasurers, trial justices in the courts of record were utterly incompetent and utterly corrupt. The juries in the courts of records were mostly negroes, summoned by negro sheriffs, and the pardoning power in the hands of venal and truculent governors was shamefully prostituted. The most unblushing villainies and crimes were either officially condoned or remitted and forgiven.

The people were taxed by millions; millions were paid out, and no vouchers were ever taken or found.

In the face of such universal misrule, speculation and tyranny, there could be no greater misrepresentation of the truth than is contained in the oft-reiterated accusation, that the white people of the South are fierce, aggressive and defiant in their conduct towards those placed in authority over them by the Federal or State law. Aggressive and defiant! How vain and worse than useless would such conduct be against the overwhelming power of the tyrants who oppose them. It is against all the instincts of life, when despair has taken the place of hope.

Defiant? Does the poor unresisting hare, when trembling with frenzied apprehension under the feet and wide open jaws of the hound exhibit much defiance, or much hope of victory in a death struggle with its cruel and merciless foe? It makes no resistance—no motion or attitude of battle for life except that involuntary and spasmodic action produced by pain and suffering.

[CHAPTER IV.]

TYPES AND SHADOWS.

The development of the negro, educationally, has been embarrassed by natural causes that he has been unable to overcome. In a great variety of instances he has failed to be actuated by an intellectual or benevolent reason. In the evolution of the negro from a savage to a slave, from a slave to a freedman, and from a freedman to a citizen, only in exceptional instances has he been able to originate a theory or experiment that has been profitable to himself or others. No high state of civilization has ever originated from them. History teaches us that a nation may pass through an ascending or descending career. It may, by long-continued discipline, exhibit a general, mental advance; or it may go through other demoralizing processes, until it descends to the very bottom of animal existence.

Man is distributed throughout the earth in various conditions: in temperate zones he presents the civilization of Europe and America; in torrid zones the ignorance and nakedness of the African. It was out of the stewpan of the equator that the negro was fished—with all the features and instincts of a barbarism, from which he is slowly emerging—by cruel and irresponsible traders. The religious ideals of the negro are vague and indeterminate. They are intensely superstitious, and believe, as their ancestors before them, in sorcery and witchcraft. Although their powers of origination are inefficient, they readily imitate the manners, customs and idiosyncracies of their masters, and frequently exhibit a superficial polish. They are emotional rather than practical in their religion. They are not naturally revengeful or vindictive, and they have shown a sentiment of gratitude that greatly endeared them to their owners. When war was flagrant, and they felt that it was waged for their emancipation—that the institution of slavery was menaced by Federal arms, in unnumbered instances they held in sacred trust millions of dollars worth of property and the lives of thousands of defenseless human beings, who held over them, without challenge, the rod of domestic government.

Under all exasperating causes up to and during the war, hundreds of slaves remained loyal to the interests and authority of their masters.

Conditions, however, highly inflammatory, developed passions that made them brutish, dishonest and cruel. Their emotional religion and their prejudices acted concurrently. The carpet-bagger found these unlighted fagots distributed everywhere throughout the South; he had only to entice them by delusive promises; he had only to say to them, "Will you be slaves, or freedmen?"—to put into their hands a new commission, and into their hearts a new faith, differentiated from the old in order to kindle the fires of hate and revenge.

The Freedman's Bureau in the South was the nineteenth century Apocalypse—a revelation truly to the poor negroes, who had devoutly longed for its coming. The event, they thought, would be distinguished by their sudden enrichment; its huge commissariat would leak from every pore with the oil of fatness; officials, patient and sympathetic, would stand at its portals to distribute pensions and subsistence, and the star-spangled banner waving from the masthead would bow its welcome to all who came. Something for nothing was their great law of reciprocity. Four million slaves fastened themselves like barnacles upon this odious institution, an extremely partisan agency, deadly and inimical—hostile to the peace of the South and the interests of her people. These slaves, maddened by their misery, looked back upon the ruined plantations, and laughed when they felt that the whirlwind of retribution had swept over the land.

Aleck, a former slave of Colonel Seymour, but whose rebellion to the slightest authority had latterly been shown by expressions cruel and insulting, and who affected a social equality with the carpet-baggers, halloed over the picket fence in the small hours of the night, to Johua, who was now eighty years of age:

"Hay, dar, yu franksized woter! hez yu heerd de news, ur is yu pine plank ceasded? Hay, dar, Joshaway! De bero man is dun und riv wid de munny, und he lows dat he is ergwine ter penshun off de ole isshu niggers fust."

"Aye, aye!" exclaimed Joshua, almost mechanically, as he aroused himself with an effort, and rubbed the sleep out of his dimmed eyes, "Don't you heer dat, Hanner?" he asked his old wife. "Ergwine to penshun off de ole isshu niggers fust! Grate Jarryko! Who dat er woicin' dat hebbenly pocklermashun outen dar in de shank o' de night? Haint dat yu, brudder Wiggins?"

"Yaw," Aleck replied, "dis is me, sho. De bero man hez dun und sont me to norate dis pocklermashun to you und Ned."

"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed Joshua, again excitedly. "Hanner," he continued, "ef yu ever seed a cricket hop spry 'pon de hath, jess watch dis heer ole isshu jump inter his gyarments."

As the negro was groping about in the dark for his ragged clothes he said half parenthetically, "Dat dare voice fetches to my membrunce de scriptur agen, whay hit says "Fling yo bred into de warter und hit is ergwine to cum out a ho cake." Yu is er shoutin', sliding-baccurd mefodis Hanner und don't pin yo fafe to providence but to grace, und grace is ergwine to keep you perpendikkler in Filadelfy meeting-house, but hit haint ergwine to fetch no horg meat nur taters nudder, dis side of de crick. Hit wur providence dat fotched dat bero man into de souf-land wid de munny to de ole lams of de flock. Don't yu see?"

"I sez ole lams," snapped Hannah; "ef day wuz de onliest wuns gwine to be penshunned off, yu'd be stark nekked as er buzzard, kase yu is dun un backslewed wusser dan a scaly horg."

"Grate Jarryko!" ejaculated Joshua, "How's a mishunnary ergwine to back slew, tell me dat? Kase you jined Filadelfy church, you haint got all de liggion in de world. Dare's Zion und dare's Massedony und dare's de baptizin crick und den dares fafe und providence. Don't you see Hannah? I'm ergwine to ax yu enudder pint rite dare," continued Joshua. "Who dat way back yander in the dissart, dat de good Lord fed wid ravens, when de rashuns gin out? Pend upon it, dat woice out yander imitates de woice of the proffit Heckerlijer, dat flung his leg outen jint, er tusselling wid de harkangel."

"Twant Heckerlijer" answered Hannah sharply, as she threw a splinter of lightwood upon the embers. "Yu's allus a mysterfying de scriptures when yu's er spashiatin erbout dem proffets; yu haint never heerd no such a passage as dat from de circus rider, nur de slidin elder nudder; ef dat cum outer de scriptur, hits by und 'twixt de misshunaries, und day is fell frum grace same as yu."

"Now yu's acting scornful agen de misshunarys" replied Joshua contemptuously, "Ef you ever gits to hebben, let me pete dat ergin; I sez, ef you ever gets to hebben yu's ergwine to hole a argyment wid de possel Joner, und den yu's ergwine to be flung outen de gate."

"Whay did yu get dat possell frum?" asked Hannah with irritation. "Whicherway is de sebben starrs Joshua?" She asked as she changed the subject.

"Day is skew-west over yander," said Joshua as he went to the door to look out into the night; "Und bress de Lord" he continued, "peers lak day is a nussing de bero man und de munny er standin' disserway purpundikkler, fo und aft?"

"Is yu ergwine to de town und hit pitch dark?" enquired Hannah. "How in de name of Gord is yu gwine to get to de tuther eend of de crick, und yu bline ez a sand mole flung outer de ground?"

"Now yu's er flingin' a damper on my ambishun ergin. How's I ergwine to fetch de munny back epseps I gits to the tuther eend?" asked Joshua crustily. "Duz yu speck me to slew frum wun eend to the tuther lak a skeeter hork? Tell me dat."

"Lors a massy" he cried out in pain, as he danced around the room on one foot, "fur de hebbins sake fling dat ole free-legged cheer outer dis house into de mash. Grate Jarryko! de debble has sho got hisself tangled up wid de harrydatterments of dis house. Yu mouter knowed dat pizened cussed impelment was ergwine to cum in contack wid sum of my jints."

"Yu jess nuss dat ole hoof of yourn in boff hands lak dat," said Hannah provokingly "twell I strikes a lite und den I'm ergwine to clap fur yu to dance er misshunery reel."

"Don't tanterlize me no mo Hanner wid dem reels und me in all dis rack und missury! Grate Jarryko! Dis heer ole happy sack haint ergwine to hole all dat munny," observed Joshua, after a moment and still groaning with pain.

"Den you mout take de bofat, und de blu chiss, und den dare's de wheel borrer und de steer kyart. Fetch all yu kin Joshaway, fur me und yu is ergwine to need hit every bit und grane. Dat ole beaver of yourn wid de tip eend er flipperty-flopity disserway und datterway, same ez a kyte in de gale is jamby gin out, und den dares de lan, und de grate house, und de hosses und de kerrige, und de peanny forty, und de kalliker kote, und de snuff, und—und—"

"'Don't fling no mo unds—unds—at me," interrupted Joshua in disgust, "epsep yu aims fur me to drap rite back into de bed, whay I wur wen de proklermashun isshued."

Hannah made no answer to this effusion of temper, but going slyly to an old chest in the corner, she took from it a bottle containing a gill or more of ardent spirits and giving it to the old negro, said, "Anint dat ole jint wid dis good truck, Joshaway, hit will swage de missury."

Joshua looked up with a countenance beaming like the full moon coming out of a black cloud, and playfully said to his old wife, "Honey I kin swage de missury mo better disser way;" drank it down and then exclaimed, "Bress God, dat sarchin pain is dun und gon."

"Dont you forget honey," said Joshua again, patronizingly as he was about stepping out of the door with his stick and haversack, "dat nex Saddy, arter dis Saddy cummin, dem dare high steppers dats gwine to cum home wid me dis arternoon is ergwine to raise a harry kane 'twixt dis house und de federick sammyterry whay old Semo und dat secesh gubberner is ergwine to preach de funeral of ole Ginurul Bellion, lately ceasded, und when me und yu gits into de kerrige, great Jarryko! I'm ergwine to hole dem rones disserway, und whern day gits 'twixt de flatform und ole glory, I'm ergwine to histe 'em up on dare hine legs, jess so, see!"

Old Hannah clapped her hands with joy and laughed again and again "Bress Gord" she exclaimed with excitement; "yu is same ez a yurling colt yoself Joshaway, I'm ergwine to give yu a moufful of fodder and shet yu up wid de steer, kase de way yu's a histing up yo rare legs und er chompin' de bit, yu's ergwine to eat up de gyarden sass same as de steer."

Joshua looked scornfully at his wife and observed with a fierce scowl, "Day haint no passifyin' wun of dese backslewed mefodiss epseps yu's er totin every bit of de strane yoself, fo I gits back wid de kerrige und de hosses," he continued quite earnestly "Yu mout move all de harry detaments outen de house, ready fur de grate house, und yu mont rent dis house to ole Semo pervidin' he pays de rent, und you mout turn de munny over to de darters of de sammytary siety."

"Ugh! Ugh! I heers yu; fetch dem nales und de snuff Joshaway!" Hannah halloed as Joshua now in a good humor limped away in the darkness singing merily;

"When I was ergrwine down de field,
De blacksnake bit me on de heel;
Und ez I riz to fire my best
I run ergin a yaller jacket's nest.

"Yaller jackets indeed" echoed Hannah as she proudly tossed her aged head, "when Joshua fetches dem rones und kerrige, dare haint ergwine to be no yaller jackets on me ur him udder."

The village was thronged with the black wards of the government, when Joshua arrived wearied and hungry. Allured by expectations that had been most wantonly excited, the negroes flocked into the town with trunks, valises, travelling bags, some of them of the most primitive description, within which to put their pensions. Flattering expressions came from truly loyal hearts, when the agent of the freedman's bureau ascended the court house steps to address the freedmen. His very presence was like the sunlight over the darkened land, but alas; he was the man who was to pass out to each and all of the misguided negroes the cup of disappointment and bitterness, and they in their nakedness and stupidity would drink its lees with the desperate resoluteness of fanatics.

Joshua stood with his old skinny hands clasped upon his bosom, looking up in an attitude of reverence.

"Grate Jarryko!" he said to himself; "Ef dis bellion hadn't upriz de ole isshu nigger mouter been way back yander a totin' de grubbin hoe fur Jeff Davis, de secesh, und de ole bull whup er natally cryin fur de po niggers meat. Ef Hanner seed dis site, she'd jine de mishunary's, kase she mouter node dat providence had sont dat bero man und hit is mo better dan grace."

The old negro saw the diamonds glittering upon the enameled shirt bosom of the agent and he said again in rapture.

"Day is same ez de starrs in de hellyments."

He saw a huge chain dangling from his neck, and he exclaimed.

"Grate Jarryko! ef de ole ship of Zion wur to git shipracked in Galilee, yu mout grapple her wid dat dare chain und hit mout hole twell de harrykin swaged."

The old negro was lost in wonder, and at last overpowered by fatigue, and the press of the throng, he dropped out of line and fell asleep upon an empty crate. How long he slept does not enter into the chronicle. There were mischievous boys then as there are now, and whilst he slept they collected from old bureau drawers one hundred dollars of brand new confederate treasury notes of the issue of 1864, and placed them loosely in his beaver and covered it over with his red pocket handkerchief. Upon awaking, Joshua rubbed his eyes, and then his knees and his elbows; looked around dazedly, and exclaimed.

"Consound my buttons, ef de bero man haint dun und penshuned off de niggers, und gon; und dis heer nigger a drapped back to sleep, lak a idgeot, wid nary cent of de penshun. Grate Jarryko! I knows what Hanner is ergwine to say; she's ergwine to ax me erbout de hosses, und den she's ergwine to aggravate me wid providence dis, und grace dat, und mishunary heer, und meferdis dare. Ef yu'd pervided yoself wid sum of dat grace down at Filadelfy meetin' house Joshaway, she's ergwine to say, you mouter fotched de rones und de kerrige too. Grate Jarryko! hit peers lak provedense hez dun und flung de fat in de fire arter all."

Taking up his old hat, the confederate money went scurrying here and there; the old negro looked around him suspiciously, and exclaimed in an excited way.

"Grate Jarryko! whicherway did all dis munny cum from? hit wur provedense dat time und no mistake; now yu sees Hanner which wun of dem meeting houses is got de under holt; Yu's dun und hilt to grace, und me runs wid fafe, und whicherwun is got de munny? Tell me dat?"

Whilst Joshua was sleeping, Hannah was busy hammering and packing the scant furniture for its removal to the great house, and at high noon everything was out of doors. The squealing pig was fettered like a convict, and old Boatswain, the coon dog, was tied and howling like a catamount. Joshua placed the money into his haversack, with the nails and snuff, looked up at the setting sun, and said to himself.

"I mout let Hanner pick out dem hosses, und de kerrige, kase she mout not like de rones."

The old negro struck a bee-line for home with the further observation.

"Grate Jarryko! ef hit warnt fur Ganderbilt, I specks dis ole nigger mout be de richest man on de top side of de yurth."

He paused for a moment and said.

"I dun und forgit; I'm mo'est sho Hanner is ergwine to ax fer sperrets fur her griping missury."

And he stepped into the nearest groggery and purchased a pint or more with the money an old friend had given him.

"Now den ole town, I bids yu farwell twell yu sees me und Hanner in de kerrige."

As Joshua was going on toward home his mind became speculative. Great schemes in a crude way were thought of, and he said to himself.

"Now dat de munny is dun un riv, ef I ketches Hanner wun mo time wid a hoe in her hands, I'm ergwine to git a vorcement. She mout take lessons on de peanny-forty from dat white gal in de grate house und play de hopperatticks arternoons arter me und her hez driv over de plantushun und seed to de craps. When I gits home I'm ergwine to berry dis munny under de tater hill und I haint ergwine to let Hanner spishun whay I keeps hit, kase she'll buy all de hosses in de Newnited States und finely hit will all be gone. I'm ergwine to fling de whup und pull de ribbuns myself, und ole Semo de secesh jess got to git outen de grate house. Lemme see how dese sperrets tastes," he said. And he reached in his ole haversack, got the flask and put it to his mouth. "Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle; umph," he said, smacking his lips, "dat is sho good truck. Is yu got gumpshun nuff ter count dis munny, specks it oversizes your judgment, ole hoss," and he began to count upon his fingers, "five hundred, hundred fousand, hundred million. Great king! what am I gwine ter do wid dis munny; ef ole Mars Linkun cud see Joshaway now, wid his freedom und de grate house und de plantashun und de hosses, he wud larf und larf frum wun eend of his mouf to the tother. You see's now Mr. Bellyun what yu is dun und dun fur yosef crackin de whup ober de po nigger."

A distance of two miles had been placed between the old negro and the village and he had two more miles to go. One mile ahead ran with a swift current the black waters of Chowattuck, but there was a substantial foot log thrown across it, and it was ordinarily safe. Joshua had gone but a little farther when he wanted to sample "dem dar sperrets agin," "Pen upon it, I nattally feels dat ar truck er oozin outen my toe nails." The "tikler" was turned up again, and gurgle, gurgle, gurgle sang the fiery spirits. The money now had greatly multiplied; the trees upon the roadside were somersaulting, and the road itself, like a serpent, was twisting in and out about his tangled legs. Joshua stopped in sight of the water with the observation.

"Hole on dar ole hoss, what is yu ergwine ter do, dis munny aint ergwine to tote yu ober dis crick; ole glory back yander aint gwine ter heer yu hollow, what is yer gwine to do?"

He put his hands upon his old knees, and rubbed them down, brought his coat sleeves with a fierce swing across his cavernous mouth, fetched a grunt or two, then planted his feet upon the foot-log.

"Studdy yosef ole hoss, studdy yosef, ef yu draps inter dis heer crick und gits drounded, it's ergwine to bust up ebery scalyhorg in der souf."

Three times he tried to walk the log and as often fell off before reaching the water.

"Konsoun de crick," he muttered, "hit hadn't orter be heer no how, er pesterrin fokses er cummin und er gwine; pears lak now de bellion is dun und fell dere is a dratted crick at ebery crook in de rode; blame my hide ef I aint gwine ercross ef I has ter crawl lak a santypede; I kin straddle de dratted fing un I kin git ercross arter a fashun, but what is I gwine ter do wid de happy-sak und de munny? I is bleeged ter use bof hands ter hold on to de dratted log when I slips und slides, und I kaint tote de happy-sak in my mouf, kase I haint got but one ole snag in my hed, and hit is in de furder eend; consound it, whay it hadn't orter be no how. I kin tie de happy-sak to de kote keerts, und den ole hoss, yu und me kin land on de tother side of de crick lak a kildee. Ef I was ergwine tother way dar wud be a passel ob kaarts cummin dis way; dey is allus gwine de rong way at de rong time." So argued Joshua as he fastened the haversack to the only button on the back of his coat.

"Now den ole buttun, ef yu was ter brake loose, un drap yu wud werk bigger strucshun dan a yeth-shake, dat yu wud. Provedense is ergwine to do hits part ef Hanner is dun und dun hern."

Slipping and sliding, the old negro was approaching the other end of the foot log; his heavily weighted coat skirts thumping against his shanks, when he was sliding along under an overhanging cypress bush about midway of the deep channel, "kerchunk" some heavy object dropped into the water.

"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed the old negro alarmed, "what a tremenjous mockisun snake dat was a drapping off dat dar bush; I'm ergwine ter git erway frum dis crick, sho yo born."

Slipping and sliding he finally got to the end, and with the observation "Peers lak I feels mity lightsum in de hine parts," he put his hand behind him to feel for his haversack, and found it gone.

The loss of the treasure for the moment confused the old negro, then he began to cry and swear, until his grief at last found expression in the exclamation:

"Grate Jarryko! Dem passages o' scriptur erbout fafe und erbout grace und erbout proverdense got twisted und tangled togedder into a loblolly, und bress de Lawd, dis heer happuning is de eend of it all."

He then looked back upon the raging flood, utterly forlorn, and plaintively addressed himself to his situation:

"Now, whot's Hanner gwine ter do erbout dem hosses und de kerrige und de grate house, und dey kivered up in dat sloshy graveyard—drownded to def in de turkle hole? Dat ole button dun und broke loose und drapped in de werry wustest place on de top side o' de yeth. Now Hanner she's ergwine ter say hit wuz de sperrets. Well, den, how did de sperrets git inter de button? Dat's de pint. She mout say ergen dat ef dem sperrets hadn't got mixed up wid de ankle jints dat dis nigger mouter slewed ter disser eend und hilt on ter de munny. Well, den, how cum de drotted crick in de middle o' de rode? Dat's er nudder pint. Dis heer missury dun und cum erbout twixt Hanner und de debbil; dats de how. She er drapped back yander, er singin',

'Hold de fort, fer I'm er coming'

und er spectin' de hosses und de kerrige, und bress de Lawd she dun und flung de fat in de fiar her own sef. How's I ergwine ter hole de fort wid de ammynishun in de dratted crick? I haint ergwine ter put de blame on de sperrits, kase hit hadn't orter go dare. She mout er node dat ole buttun warnt ergwine to tote dat strane, und dat hit wus ergwine ter brake loose und drap fust er las. How wus I er gwine ter git ter dis eend epseps I had fafe in de button? Now she mout say ergin dat I hed orter slewed across fust und den slewed back und fotched de munny. Bress de Lawd, how wuz I ergwine ter know de munny wuz gwine to stay at de tuther eend und I at disser eend? Tell me dat. Twixt de scalyhorgs und dat Mefodis meetin house, dare's ergwine ter cum a slycoon in dis lan' yit."

As Joshua approached his cabin he looked up and saw his old wife sitting in a dilapidated rocking chair, surrounded by the scant furniture, and singing:

"Tis grace hez fotched me safe dis fur.
Und grace gwine take me home."

He stopped abruptly and began to groan and mutter.

"Grate Jarryko!" he exclaimed, as he vigorously rubbed one foot against the other, "Ef yu's spectin' dem rones to tote yu in de kerrige to Filadelfy meetin' house, hits ergwine ter be by und twixt mo better grace dan yu's got, ur me udder."

The old negro looked up again over the broken rim of his beaver, and he began to mutter again, "Grate Jarryko! Ef dat fool nigger haint dun und gone und turned de house inside outtards! De debbil hez sho broke loose in de middle ships o' dis ole plantashun, und dem evil sperrets is in cohoot wid won ernudder."

At this point Hannah observed Joshua zigzagging across the field without horses or carriage, and her wrath was exceeding fierce.

"Pend upon it," she exclaimed, "dat ar ole nigger fool de werry eyeballs outen yo hed. Gwine ter fetch de rones und de kerrige! Grate king! Ef de good Lawd spares me twell den, when de jedge cums er roun' ter de kote, I'm ergwine ter git me er vorcement. Mont ez well go inter cohootnership wid a billy gote, widout ary moufful o' fodder ez dat ole black idgeot."

When Joshua came within hailing distance, Hannah halloed to him; "Whay hez yu been all dis nite Joshaway? Here I'se sot und sot ever sense daylite down, in de jam of de chimney und every now und den hit peeerd lak I heerd dem rones er plumputy plump down de rode, er cummin same ez a sho nuff harrykin, und bress Gord heer yu cums ergin wid de drunken reels lak er ole hoss, wid de bline staggers, mommucked up wusser dan a kadnipper; Look at dat ole bever hat, er layin' dare pine plank lak a turkle trap sot bottom uppards."

Joshua heaved one or more sighs as he blurted out in a drowsy way; "Dem dare hosses yu heerd down de rode, er blickerty blick, dun und got drownded to def in de crick last nite."

"Grate king!" exclaimed Hannah wrathfully; "ef de good Lord spares me twell den, when de jedge gits to de kote, I'm gwine to git me a vorcement."

"Und me too;" ejaculated Joshua as he stretched himself upon a plank for a nap.

[CHAPTER V.]

PATRIOTIC MEN DELIBERATING.

At the hour of 3 p. m., in the early autumn of 186—, several representative gentlemen met by previous agreement in the library of Colonel Seymour. This congress of Southern leaders of the old school, after the interchange of the usual courtesies, resolved themselves into "A Committee of the Whole upon the state of the Union," with Judge Bonham in the chair, and was addressed at length by Governor Ainsworth. This gentleman had honored his state as one of its Senators in the Federal Congress; again as Secretary of the Navy, and had filled by successive elections the office of Governor for three terms. He had reached that mellow age when the intellect becomes largely retrospective. The manner of this distinguished statesman was singularly individual. In early life strongly inclined to the contemplation of perplexing political questions, he possessed a graphic, nervous force—a kind of untamed vigor—a raciness of flavor in speech that belonged only to the individual who thought for himself. There were few men more richly endowed; his intellect was of the highest order—clear, rapid and comprehensive—combined with an extraordinary facility of expressing and illustrating his ideas, both in conversation and debate. He possessed a rich imagination, a rare and delicate taste, a gentle and sportive wit, and an uninterrupted flow of humor, that made him the delight of every circle. Nor were his moral qualities less deserving of respect and admiration. He was generous, brave, patriotic and independent. He was the slave of no ambitious or selfish policy; the hunter of no factitious or delusive popularity; he spoke the language of truth, justice and wisdom. A "throb of gratitude beat in the hearts of the people," and the sentiment of an affectionate respect glowed in their bosoms for the "old man eloquent." His speeches, too, were essentially characteristic, abounding in keen satire, humor, and frequently in the most direct and idiomatic language. Given to intense conviction rather than to subtle discernment, and devoting his unusual ability to studied effort, he could, whenever he felt so inclined, "strip the mask from the hypocrite, and the cowl from the bigot."

This was the man toward whom the patriotic sentiment of the country was directed; the man who might, by possibility, lash the raging Hellespont into submission. "But what avail," said he as he leaned heavily upon his staff, "are arguments and protests? Can we charm the serpent into harmlessness by the feeble chirping of the wren? Can we tranquilize the country by indignant declamation?" Then with an effort he assumed a poise still more dignified and serious, as he continued:

"Gentlemen, when the seas are lashed into a rage, no matter who are the mad spirits of the storm, they cannot say to their tumultuous waters, 'thus far shalt thou go, and no farther, and here shalt thy proud waves be stayed.' There are other powers in motion beneath its surface, which they wist not of, and whose might they can neither direct or control. I have stood upon the shores of the mighty ocean, and observed the forerunners of the coming storm. I have heard the moan of its restless waters in the caverns of the great deep, and have seen the upheaving of the billows, which rose, and raged and tossed as foam from their bosoms, the wild spirits that gendered the tempest. I envy not the triumph of those who have troubled the waters; who have laid waste the South, who have beggared her proud people. I had rather stand with my countrymen powerless, but brave and unyielding, than to wield the thunderbolts of Jove, if I must employ their power and resource in wrong and oppression. When the last spark of Roman liberty was extinguished; when no voice but that of Augustus was heard, and no power but that of Augustus was felt, his venal flatterers vied with each other in deifying their god, and degrading those firm, defiant spirits who stood for their country and its tranquility. Cæsar had subjugated the world, all but the dark unbending soul of Cato. In a catastrophe, such as this, let that band of patriots to which it is my pride to belong, share in the spirit of the last of the Romans; that spirit which scorns to bow before any earthly power, save that of their beleaguered country.

The reconstruction government has purposely demoralized the economic conditions which contributed to the prosperity of the South. Full well it knew that the wealth of the people depended upon their labor. There was a time when plunder was the great resource of the nations of the earth. The first kingdom was sustained by pillage and conquest, and great Babylon, the glory of the Chaldean empire, was adorned by the spoils of all Asia; the Assyrian was plundered by the Persian, the Persian by the Macedonian, and it at last devoured by the Roman power. The wolf which nursed its founder, gave a hunger for prey insatiable to the whole world. There was not a temple nor a shrine between the Euphrates and the salted sea that was not pillaged by these marauders. The tide of ages, century after century, had rolled over the last fragment of Roman power; the light of science had broken upon the world, before mankind seemed to realize that our Creator, dead aeons ago had said: 'By the sweat of his brow man should eat his bread all the days of his life.'

Wealth is power, and the wealth of a nation is its labor, its abundant control of all the great agencies of nature employed in production. The products of human labor, its food and clothing, like the fruits of the earth are annual, and God in his wisdom has adjusted human wants to their power of production. Like the bread from heaven the dews of every night produce the crops, and the labors of every day gather the harvest. What, but an almost boundless power of consumption and reproduction has given to the South its athletic vigor, and yet the enfranchisement of the negroes has been a fatal blow to every industrial interest. It has left our plows to rot in the furrow, and our plantations to grow up in briers and brambles.

That liberty, which ranks in our organic law next to life, is subjected to the caprice of those who happen in the ever varying conditions of human affairs to be placed over us as masters. The South believed that the theory of the government derived its chiefest captivation from its regard to the equal rights of all its citizens and from its pledge to maintain and preserve those rights. It assumed to proclaim the happiness of the people to have been the object of its institution, and to guarantee to each and to all without limitation the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property.

It has been reserved for the power of oppression, in its active and diffused state, to give effect to the unhallowed innovation upon the rights of the South.

Reconstruction is the Gethsemane of southern life. God's law is higher than man's law. Man's feeble statutes cannot annul the immutable ordinances of the Almighty. Those whom God has put asunder, let no man join together.

Who could have foreseen that in the first century of our existence African freedmen would rule sovereign commonwealths, and become the judges of the rights and property of a race who had ruled the destinies of the world since governments—patriarchal, monarchical or constitutional—was known to man?

The true, sincere and rational humanitarian looks with sorrow upon the future state of the misguided negroes; for when this institutional age shall have passed away, he sees the exodus or extirpation of this disturbing element in the social and political conditions of the more powerful sovereign race. The authors of the infamous policy have written their hic jacet against our civilization.

No where can there be found in the history of any country where the civil and military policy have been so basely prostituted, or where the safeguards of liberty, life and property were ever entrusted to freed slaves—human chattels; slaves who never for a moment have been in a state of pupilage. It is an epoch that marks the decadence of the manhood and civilization of a great nation—homogeneous, prosperous, enlightened and happy. The nearest approximation to this era of ruin—of social degradation—was when the slaves in Rome were enfranchised by order of the emperor, and conditions there were totally dissimilar. Whilst they enjoyed certain rights and prerogatives of manumission, they were still held to duties of obedience and gratitude. Whatever were the fruits of their toil and industry, their patrons shared or inherited the third part, or even the whole of their acquisitions. In the decline of this great empire, the proud mistress of the world, we are told that hereditary distinctions were gradually abolished, and the reason or instinct of Justinian completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy. In the eye of the law all Romans were equal and all subjects were citizens. The inestimable character was degraded to an obsolete and empty name. The voice of a Roman could no longer enact laws or create the annual ministers of his power.

"It may take many generations perhaps, for moral changes are slow, to put out all our lights of knowledge that are now beaming from every cottage in the South; but one after another they will be extinguished, and with them the beacon torch of liberty. When the white men of the South shall come to see how things are, and to realize the downward tendency, physical, intellectual manhood will make a throe to regain the height it has lost, and if it fails, a storm will arise from the elements they are compounding, that will break somewhere and spend itself with desolating fury. They cannot degrade a people who have been enlightened and free, prosperous and happy, without igniting a mass which they can no more control, than they can the central fires of Vesuvius.

"Up to the commencement of hostilities between the North and the South, there were in the South millions of people employed directly or indirectly in the honest and wholesome avocation of agriculture, and by its great encouraging system, sustained in a condition of existence, both moral and physical, equally as prosperous and independent as any other agricultural people in any other region of the earth. They were white men who piece by piece built up the whole superstructure, and thereby reinforced the country with so much labor and skill; furnished so much mutual employment for that skill and labor, aided as they were by so many instrumentalities of toil and agents of production. What a country it was—supplied by this system from the labor of our own hands and workshops, with all the machinery, fruits of the earth, and all the needful fabrics of human skill. This great system comprehended every class and every source of material wealth. Under this system our people prospered. The white population of the South came by descent from a parent stock, that from the foundation of society had governed in wisdom and moderation the most enlightened countries of the world; who had written every constitution, fought every battle, endowed every charity, established every government, introduced every reform that has given to the world its christian development and progress.

"When these extra-hazardous reconstruction acts were submitted to the Legislature of the South, they refused to "chop logic" with the Reconstruction party. It would have been contrary to the experience of mankind, and an exception to all the teachings of history, if in the high excitement then prevailing—the exasperation of the people—the outrages threatened and inflicted, the South had yielded one jot or tittle or swerved from its honest, patriotic convictions. The transition was from a state in which the integrity and intelligence of the white race, ennobled by centuries of meritorious service, had ruled; to a government by a black race that less than five generations before had been hunted like wild beasts in the jungles of the dark continent; who were handcuffed and decoyed into slave ships, and who had been slaves until the proclamation of President Lincoln emancipated them in the territory protected by the U. S. Army. The transition was to a condition of things in which white men to the number of three hundred thousand were disfranchised and deprived of the right to vote and to hold office, and the enfranchisement of more than a corresponding number of benighted negroes with the right to vote and hold office. The transition of the slave, was too sudden—too alarming—too degrading. No people who were proud of their traditions, their institutions, could have looked upon such a change with complacency; nor seen their local government pass into the hands of their slaves—irresponsible, illiterate, brutish, rapacious, without being goaded into violent resistance.

"It has been remarked 'Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name.' If the gift of the elective franchise enabled the negro to protect himself in his rights of person and property, the denial of it to the white man took away from him that protection and that right. They went even to lower depths, and by the election and registration laws basely surrendered into the hands of the carpet-baggers all power. The judiciary, the last refuge of the unfortunate and oppressed is stricken down and stripped of both ermine and respectability. The ballot box—the sanctuary of freedom—the ballot box—the only secure refuge of liberty—the ballot box, the armory where freedom's weapons are wont to terrify tyrants, is made the charnel house in which the assassinated liberties of a defenceless, prostrated people are buried; is made the dice box in which are staked and played for by the freedmen of the South the revenues of plundered commonwealths. What wonder in this lust for power men should become strangers to the people they govern, outlaws to honesty and patriotism.

"They know no law but that of force, and no God but Mammon. They ply their theft upon every citizen, enthrall him with taxation, deny him the right to be seen or heard or felt at the ballot box or before the court. In the train of these outrages and indignities came a flood of unwholesome oppressive laws, creating new offices, increasing the salaries of incompetent and truculent officials, multiplying the cost and expenditures of government, and correspondingly increasing the burdens of taxation. Then came martial law, militia campaigns, loyal leagues, murders, arsons, burglaries, rapes, and a reign of terror and intimidation to make the way for the easy perpetration of the most monstrous and unparallelled wrongs, frauds and outrages that ever cursed the earth. The South, like a beautiful captive, was turned over to be deflowered and defiled. She could only cry in her desperation—"I am within your brutal power, and gagged and pinioned must submit."

"Our elective judiciary has contributed immeasurably to the vicious, demoralizing spirit of the age." The intelligent and upright judge is the representative of the law in its simplicity, sufficiency and learning. He is the living exponent of its justice. Whatever the law is will appear in him, and whatever it does will be done through him. The different departments of industrial activity center in him. The plowman in the field, the smith at his anvil, the miner in the earth, the operative in the factory, the banker at his desk, are all a vital part of his being. He is the foremost agent of providence in keeping up the natural distinction of race and position. His creed is that men are not to be antagonists, but friends. Differ they must in usages and institutions, in habits and pursuits; but in his opinion they differ, not that they may be separated, but for a truer sympathy and a compacter union. Mountains and seas insulate, language and religion differentiate men, but the law in its economical administration corrects these things into the elements of a genuine brotherhood. The fortunes of the world, so far as they are delegated to human care, are in his hands. The peaceful progress of society is blended with his personal integrity. Commonwealths, corporations and individuals vest their wealth, their reputation, their security in him, and if any one man more than another is under the most sacred of earthly obligations to be an example of the highest integrity, the most exact justice, the noblest virtue of thought, word and action, it is the judge of our courts of record. No feudal baron—no courtly knight—ever had the power that may now be exercised by him.

"Our civilization pledges us to the sway of moral principles; its rule is imperative, because we have assumed the title of men, domesticated our hearts, and accepted the religion of Jesus Christ. Judicial life, by the earnestness with which it has acted in the past crisis of our state and national history, by the patriotic devotion and interpretation of the constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof, by its conservative temper in resisting fanaticism, vice, corruption and fraud has shown itself a watchful guardian of the momentous trusts confided to its keeping. The honest, learned judge has pledged himself for the faith of contracts and treaties; he has jealously guarded the institutions of the country and bravely upheld them as the embodiment of our doctrines and our hopes. The traditions, laws and customs of the country have been committed to him, and with the ever active jealousy of encroachment, he has not disguised his fears of centralization or oppression. Hitherto, irrespective of all party relations, the judicial system was slowly but surely working out the great problems of domestic prosperity. Times have changed, however, and we have changed with them. Our present elective judiciary is indeed the black vomit of reconstruction.

"It may be seriously questioned whether under any circumstances the elective system is adequate for the purpose designed. All classes, high and low, sooner or later come before the tribunal of justice. Its judgments and decrees affect the humblest, as well as the most powerful individual and control the strongest combinations of men. We know that it is utterly impossible to keep the nomination and election clear of mere political influences and those of the worst kind. It is said that revolutions never go backward; nevertheless in the teeth of the adage I confess that I can see no better way of selecting judges than the mode pointed out by the unamended constitutions and the laws and by the general good sense of mankind. I believe that this method is wise and conservative, in harmony with our institutions and sufficiently democratic to satisfy the people. All the rest is faction, demagogism and cabal. The judge should represent no interest, no party, only the law; he is an umpire between man and man, between the individual and the body social.

"What is required in the judge is ability, learning, integrity. In public station it is as necessary to be thought honest as to be so, and the moment the popular mind once takes in the true position of the elective judge, the moment that it perceives the magistrate to be possessed of neither true power nor real dignity, and exposed perpetually to temptation, that moment the influence and usefulness of the judge will be destroyed. Their judgments in such cases will be received without respect and obeyed only so far as they can be enforced, and if the people shall ever break down and trample under foot the defences of unpopular power; the Judiciary will be scouted from their seats, their filthy and tattered ermine will be torn from their backs, and they will be driven out into hopeless ignominy as the meanest of sycophants, and the most truculent of demagogues.... A hundred and eighty years ago the English parliament, sick of the miseries resulting from a corrupt judiciary, changed the tenure of the office, abolished their dependence on the sovereign and made the tenure of their existence dependent on their good behavior alone. From that time to this the English judiciary has risen in character and influence. With us the system is elective. The judicial candidate, like a fish monger, goes with his wares into a market overt. He advertises his opinions—his promises, he makes his pledges, he puts a premium upon the ballot, he weighs to a nicety the purchasable value of negro electors. The rival candidate does the same, and hence the office is purchasable at the price of manhood, integrity, learning and capacity. Thus the whole machinery of the courts is run with an eye single to making political capital for the radical party and intensifying their hatred toward the South.

"And now gentlemen," the governor said in conclusion, "our meeting here to-day will be without its influence upon a power that can 'kill and make alive.'"

At the conclusion of the speech of the governor, it was resolved that messengers should be sent to the president with full power to enter into any treaty or compact for the maintenance of peace and order, and that Governor Ainsworth and Colonel Seymour shall be charged with the execution of the mission.

[CHAPTER VI.]

THE MILLS ARE GRINDING.

It was the hour of high noon that a gentleman and lady alighted from a carriage at the foot of the mansion of Colonel Seymour without previous announcement. The gentleman was a person of attractive presence and perhaps forty-five years of age. The lady was not attractive, a little patronizing in her manners, and perhaps thirty-five years of age. Their patois was that of English people; to an artistic ear, however, this may have appeared feigned. Their manner in the presence of the host was unconstrained; indeed they expressed themselves with unusual freedom. The gentleman gave his name as Mr. Jamieson, and the lady as his niece, Miss Harcourt, both of them lately arrived from London. He had interested himself, he said, in scientific researches for the past few years, and was now pursuing an inquiry that he hoped would be of practical use to the South. The "London Society," whose agent he was, was seeking from all available sources the most exhaustive information about the negro in his gradations from the savage to the citizen; and he took occasion to say that his principals had been greatly astonished because of the alarming strides the negro had made in a country that, less than a century ago, made the British power tremble in its very strong-holds. He would be pleased to ask if this sudden transition from slavery to freedom had not reversed the orderly procedure of the government in respect to its administration in the South. To this inquiry Colonel Seymour replied, quite epigrammatically, "that the world had no precedent for the revolutionary measures which were being enforced in the South."

The stranger continuing, observed that he had desired this interview before exploiting a field untried and perhaps dangerous; and he would be greatly obliged if his host would be as frank and communicative as possible.

In the course of this interview, the arguments employed by the stranger disarmed the old man's suspicions, and in a confidential way the Colonel told Mr. Jamieson that he would communicate his knowledge of the matters as far as he could, but feared it would not be of much value, as he was under suspicion by the Federal authorities; having fought under Lee in the many battles of the South, he was still vehemently protesting against the invasion of his own country by the carpet bag government.

"You were, then, a Confederate soldier?" inquired the stranger.

"Yes, and was paroled at Appomattox," sententiously rejoined the veteran.

"Now, my dear sir, you greatly interest me; may I inquire your rank in the Confederate army?"

"I was a Colonel of cavalry, sir."

"Were you at Gettysburg, sir?"

"Yes, and was wounded as we were falling back to the Potomac."

"Gettysburg! Ah, yes!" the stranger observed reflectively; "this battle was quite disastrous to the South, I believe, and was claimed by the North as a great victory."

"And what upon the face of the earth have they not claimed?" excitedly replied the veteran.

"Ah yes, they are a boastful people," said Mr. Jamieson. "I doubt not they claimed victories they never won. You of course are still of the opinion that the South was right?"

"No opinion about it. I know she was right. We never resorted to hostilities until our institutions were assailed."

"I am sure your statement is correct, sir," said the Englishman. "While our government, then in the control of a radical ministry, was officiously unfriendly to the South, your government had a great army of sympathizers in England who deplored its downfall; indeed, the president of our society was an active sympathizer with your country, and the bank in which he was a director, upon his private account emitted bills of credit that were used by the agents of the Confederate government in the purchase of materials of war. I presume, sir," continued the Englishman, "you would have no hesitation in going to war again if the same casus-belli existed?"

"No indeed, sir."

"And you are of opinion that it would not be treasonable to oppose the policy of the government in respect to its acts of reconstruction?"

"If armed with adequate power, I should not hesitate in respect to my duty in the premises," replied the veteran with a show of temper.

"I am very glad, sir, that you have been entirely frank with me," said the stranger, "and I fully appreciate your feelings. I suspect that you do not think that a strongly centralized government in any contingency is the least oppressive form of government?"

"Assuredly not, sir. Nature has established a diversity of climates, interests and habits in the extensive territories embraced by the Federal government. We cannot assimilate these differences by legislation. We cannot conquer nature. Other differences have been introduced by human laws and adventitious circumstances, very difficult, if not impossible to be adjusted by Federal legislation, hence the necessity of local legislatures with adequate powers, and a general government with its appropriate powers."

"I presume, sir," said the stranger, "that you cannot conscientiously support the reconstruction measures of Congress and the president?"

"I cannot and will not, sir," responded Colonel Seymour with emphasis; "and if you were advertant to that point of time in the history of our late war when, from sheer exhaustion, the South laid down its arms, you would not ask the question. There were hundreds of thousands of patriotic men in the North, who, upon the question of the emancipation of the negro, concurred in its propriety, yea, its necessity, but who denounced those reactionary measures that were crystalized and enforced with cruelty against the South. In our judgment these measures were not only extra-hazardous, but inherently oppressive. It would have been a pernicious power in the hands of an intelligent, conservative, law-abiding people, but most deadly in the hands of ignorant, unscrupulous and truculent officials. You must remember that the South, in a metaphorical sense, was an immense area sown in grain ready to be harvested, with its hedges trampled under foot and destroyed, and inviting cattle and swine to enter and devour. The herds came greedily through every gap, and like the wild beasts upon our western prairies, depastured and consumed almost the whole."

"How wonderfully recuperative have been the energies of your people sir," interrupted the stranger.

"Yes, but will you allow me to proceed?" replied the Colonel; "We believed that when the war ended, the people of the South relying upon the pledges made by the union generals in the field before the armies were disbanded; on the negotiations preceding the surrender; on the proclamation of President Lincoln; and the publications of the press; as well as upon the terms actually agreed on between Grant and Lee, and Johnson and Sherman, at the time of the capitulation of the Confederate armies; that when resistence to federal authority ceased, and the supremacy of the constitution of the United States was acknowledged; and especially after the ordinances of secession were repealed, and an amendment to the constitution, abolishing slavery wherever it existed, was ratified by the legislatures of the insurrectionary states; that a full and complete restoration of the southern states to their former position of equal states would at once take place; and after the exhaustion of such a war they hailed the return of peace with satisfaction; they acknowledged defeat; accepted the situation, and went to work to rebuild their waste places and to cultivate their crops. The men who composed the union armies, found on their return home, a healthy, prosperous, peaceable and well organized society; while the government with a prodigal hand freely distributed pay, pensions, and bounties. It was not so in the south; society here was disorganized; the strain upon the people to supply the armies in the fields had exhausted their resources; labor was absolutely demoralized; the negroes being freed, in their ignorance and delusion were not slow to understand their changed condition, and became aggressive, riotous and lawless. Under such circumstances it was impossible to restore harmony in the civil government without the utmost confusion; yet so earnestly did our people struggle to return to their allegiance and thus entitle them to the protection which had been promised, that from the day of the surrender of the Confederate army, not a gun has been fired; no hostile hand has been uplifted against the authority of the United States, but before breathing time even was allowed, a set of harpies, many of whom had shirked the dangers of the battle field, pounced down upon our people to ravage, plunder, and destroy. All remonstrances, entreaties, resistances were stifled by the cry of treason and disloyalty and by the hollow pretence that the plunderers were persecuted because of their loyalty to the Union. A system has grown up in the South with obstinacy, whereby great protected monopolies are fostered at the expense of its agricultural labor; then follow the series of offensive measures known as the reconstruction acts; but one further observation sir, and I have done. The English people had no just conception of the oppressions want only inflicted upon the South; of the insolence and rapacity of the carpet-baggers and freedmen who were made our masters."

There was quite an interval before the stranger replied.

"Your address sir has been a revelation indeed; it is a lesson of great educational value and I sincerely hope I may hear you again. Would you care to present your views in writing?"

The Colonel without any suggestion of evil said to the stranger. That possibly at some future day he might find the leisure to do so.

"And now you must allow me to thank you, before leaving, for the courtesy you have shown. I shall take pleasure in reporting this interview."

Colonel Seymour upon entering his wife's chamber remarked to her "I have found a friend in need; an Englishman who was delightfully entertaining and who represents certain humanitarian interests. I expect to hear something very flattering to the South when he submits a report to his principal."

Mrs. Seymour who had passed that period in life, when she could look hopefully upon anything, observed quite sadly. "I hope it is so, my dear husband; I hope the future has very much happiness in store for you; but I am suspicious of strangers who seem to have no other business with you, than to obtain your views upon the unhappy events that are girdling our home as it were with a zone of fire." "Ah," exclaimed the husband, "you do not understand, perhaps your opinion will change in a few days."

"I hope so" the sick lady replied feebly.

We pretermit events more or less irritating to follow the urbane Englishman. The reader has perhaps surmised that he was an agent of the secret service bureau. This was true, as Colonel Seymour learned to his sorrow, within forty eight hours after the man and the lady dropped out of the wide open arms of the old mansion. But how could a southern gentleman withhold knowledge when sought under such a disguise. He spoke as he felt; and if the weapons that he used to punctuate his expressions were boomerangs that impaled him on its points, he could not help it. Anywhere, everywhere, he would have spoken his convictions without concealment, without equivocation. Laflin came to Ingleside; came to foreclose a poor man's liberty, without a day of redemption. The old man saw the offensive carpet-bagger approaching the mansion and met him sternly with the interrogatory. "What is your business?"

"Ah!" sneeringly answered the carpet-bagger, "that is a fine question to ask a gentleman. Do you recognize that seal sir" he continued, handing the old man an official requisition bearing the broad seal of the department of justice upon it "you will perhaps conclude, sir, that it will be compatible with your safety to return with me; I promise you a safe conduct to Washington."

"I will go with you" replied the old man with all the suavity possible, "but you will allow me to prepare for the journey."

"Certainly sir," said Laflin, "but I must see that you do not provide yourself with arms."

"I do not want my house polluted by your presence," cried the old man in the vehemence of his feelings.

"Then you shall go as you are," gruffly replied the carpet-bagger.

Alice had but little to say to the man, knowing that entreaty or expostulation would be unavailing, and Clarissa slunk away from him as if he were the forerunner of the plague. When the Colonel arrived in the village he saw the white-haired governor with his overcoat upon his arms, and his valise and umbrella upon a chair beside him. He knew intuitively that their missions were the same, that their destination was Washington.

"What are you doing here governor?" asked Colonel Seymour.

The dejected man replied deliberately, "I am going to Washington sir. May I ask your destination as I observe you are traveling too?"

"You see my guide, do you not," answered the Colonel with a frigid smile.

"Yes and I am informed he is mine also; so we shall not get lost on the route shall we?" answered the governor lugubriously. "I presume we shall have a suite of rooms at the old capital," asked the Colonel provokingly.

"Perhaps so, if the President doesn't invite us to the executive mansion. I hope he will do this as I have no bank account North, and but little currency in my pocket," replied the Governor in irony. "By the way Colonel," continued the Governor, "did you have an elegant gentleman and his niece to call upon you a few days ago? Quite an interesting man was he not? I hope we shall have a good report from him when he returns home."

"And were you confidential toward this man?" asked Colonel Seymour.

"Why yes, quite so," replied the Governor innocently. "I found him so agreeable and so intelligent withal, that I told him all that I knew and I am expecting great things when I hear from him."

"Do you think, Governor," asked the Colonel quizzically, "that the Englishman has given us free transportation to Washington to be examined and punished as suspects?"

"Why my dear sir" replied the old Governor, "you alarm me. Is it possible we are the dupes of a government spy so clever and intelligent?"

"That is my opinion, sir," replied the Colonel.

"Is it possible? My, my, my!" he ejaculated, and sank back in the upholstered seat, and after awhile fell asleep.

These were men who had made the wager of battle for eleven proud commonwealths and lost; men coming now with their patriotism repudiated, to be told that their traditions were treasonable, their principles insurrectionary; to be badgered into compliance; to be scourged into submission; men who believed with a living faith that they had given American reasons for convictions that ought not to be challenged, coming now heroically to receive their doom.

The Governor, on entering the great judgment hall with Colonel Seymour, was surprised to see in the person of the chairman a highly honored colleague upon the committee of ways and means in the congress of 1858. The recognition was mutual, and the distinguished chairman descending from the dais, demonstratively grasped the old Governor's hand, exclaiming, "My dear sir, what has brought you here?" The excess of joy experienced by the Governor quite overcame him, and for a moment he did not answer, but he replied after awhile as coherently as he could, that he had never been informed of the charge against him.

"Ah!" replied the chairman sympathetically, "That is indeed regretable, but the discipline of this court does not contain within itself the germ of an arbitrary prerogative. No man, however bitter may be his opinions shall be condemned unheard." The Englishman, under the alias of Mr. Jamieson appeared as a witness in the person of Jonathan Hawkins.

It is unnecessary to go through the trial that followed. "You are at liberty," said the chairman, at its conclusion, "to go wheresoever you will. You shall be safeguarded while you remain in the city, and we shall exert our utmost to protect you and your interests at home. Mr. Laflin," he continued, "you will procure passports for these gentlemen whom you have brought here without a pretext of reason."

Our old friends, taking up their hats and canes, returned their grateful thanks to the honorable commission, whose judicial fairness was so praise-worthy; and turned their faces homeward; the Governor exclaiming through his clenched teeth, "The infamous, villainous Englishman!"

"Why, bless my soul, Governor," exclaimed the Colonel in a startled tone, "What an opportune moment to have carried out the wishes of our meeting!"

"What meeting do you refer to sir?" asked the Governor in surprise.

"Why, my dear sir, had you forgotten that we were deputized to visit the authorities in Washington at the meeting presided over by Judge Bonham?"

"Well, well, well!" ejaculated the Governor, "I verily believe, sir, if peace is not speedily restored to the country that I will become a driveling idiot."

The Colonel adroitly changed the subject by observing, "It has occurred to me that if the practical operation of the reconstruction acts was directly in the control of the authorities in Washington, we should see that they are our friends; I am sure that the sentiment of the Northern people is in favor of the restoration of the South, and would counteract the vicious primary mischief resulting from a criminal abuse of power—I mean that power that is centralized in the Southern States."

"I am looking for conservative measures myself from the wise men who are in charge of the government," replied the Governor. "The infernal spoils system in the South, if not checkmated, will destroy the country. This same spoils principle has been the cause of more wretchedness and guilt, individual and national, than any other in the history of human suffering. It is the incentive alike to the burglar who breaks and enters your house at night and the highwayman who waylays your path and takes your life; that, rising from individuals to multitudes, it is the impelling motive to all the plunderings and desolations of military conquests; it forces the gates of cities; plunders temples of religion; the great despoiler of private rights and national independence. It was the spoils system that united the barbarians of the North and finally overthrew the vast fabric of Roman policy law and civilization; and it is this principle, worse than war, that has shaken to their foundation our free and happy institutions.

Perhaps we shall meet at the cemetery to-morrow, if there are no English spies around," suggested the Governor.

"Yes, yes; and adieu until then," replied the Colonel, as they alighted from the cars.

Dare goes joshaway, now, wid Ole Glory strowed er roun' him, steppin lak a rare-hoss over de tater ridges.

[CHAPTER VII.]

A POLITICIAN OF THE NEW SCHOOL.

Uncle Joshua was the color guard in a volunteer company of negroes, whose muster roll, like a thermometer, ran up into the nineties. As he shook out the folds of the scarlet-veined banner of the free one morning in his cabin, he observed to his old wife, "Hit peers lak dat dare wus ernudder wun o' dem possels, ef my membrunce sarves me rite, dat toted de flag fur Ginrul Farryo when he wus er heppin disserway und datterway froo de dessart; but I moest furgit dat gemman's name. Twant Absurdam, I'm moest sho, und hit twant Jack-in-de-bed, nudder. Duz yu reckermember dat possel, Hanner? Yu und de locus preacher is erquainted wid all dem aintshunts."

"Umph!" grunted Hanna, "yu's gwine fur back fur sumbody to tote de flag. Ef yu hez gin out why don't you fling hit over to Efrum? Ur is yu aiming ter immertate dat aintshunt?"

"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed Joshua, irritated by such a question. "Duz yu see dat fodder foot, und duz yu see dat shuck foot? Well, den, when de leftenant sez 'hep, hep, hep, hep, hep—fodder foot, shuck foot!' I'm ergwine ter fling dem footsies out disserway—see? Und I'm ergwine ter tote ole glory fo und aft, jess so, twell I gits ter be de ginrul, und den I'm ergwine ter fling dem identikle footses in de saddle, disserway, und uprare de rone on his hine shanks, jess lak dat."

"Umph!" grunted ole Hannah, "To be sho yu's jess rivved out o' de babboon show! Yu's er sho nuff limber Jack—jest ez suple ez a yurling gote, ebery bit und grane!"

"Now, den," continued Joshua, without heeding the ridiculous interruption, "I wuz studdin up dat possel, when you flung yo mouf inter de argyment."

"Wuz dat gemman a Mefodis ur Mishunary?" inquired Hannah, provokingly.

"Grate Jarryko! How's I ergwine to know dis fur back? Kin I skiver er humans clean clar ercross de dissart, und retch back ter de eend o' de yeth, wid dese wun-eyed specks? Ef he hilt on to grace, he wur a shoutin Mefodis; und ef he run wid Proverdense, he wur a Mishunary; und ef he hilt on ter sumfin wusser, he wur a harrytick. Dat's ez fur ez I'm gwine, doubt I node fur sartin. I'm moest sho, do, he wur a Mishunary, kase he didn't drap back when he cum in contack wid de water."

"Grate king!" snapped Hannah, as she kindled into a passion. "Wuz yu dare? Yu talks lak dare warnt no Mefodis mixed up wid dem harryticks; gwine on wid yer warter in de bilin dissart! Better git de Zion bushup to larn yu de scriptur."

"Oh, my sole!" groaned Joshua. "Ef hit warnt fer de Mishunarys in dis Soufland, dare mout be a wusser war dan ole Jeff Davis de secesh's. I'm ergwine ter ax yer wun pint mo, und den me und Ole Glory is ergwine ter hit de grit fur de conwenshun. Which wun o' dem slidin elders o' yourn hilt a confurence in dat dissart whey dare warnt no warter, und no chickens nudder, und whay de po parished up Mishunary hed to furrige er roun fer dare dinner? Now den!"

There were shops and bazaars scattered here and there about the public streets of the shire town within the recesses of which sat colored women selling their merchandise; now and then accentuating some passing pageant by the clapping of hands and other noisy demonstrations. There were disorderly, ruffianly negroes, in greasy uniforms, neither brigaded or disciplined, patrolling the country, discharging their muskets at random; and about the premises of Colonel Seymour there was a squad, more or less menacing, marching and counter-marching in the carriage way near the mansion, and the old man in his desperation cried out "Oh that I could gird the sword upon my thigh, like the man Barak, and could smite these devils to the earth."

"Mars Jon," interrupted Clarissa, "yer mout as well let dese devilis niggers lone; de Lord is agwine to slam dem to de yearth fore dey knows it; he is agwine to vour dem up lak hoppergrasses; day a ransakin all ober creashun fur franksized niggers to wote de yaller ticket in de convenshun; mout as well hab so many billy goats a wotin fur ole Abrum Laffin, de meanest, low downest scalyhorg in de wurrel. Yander goes ole Joshaway now, wid ole glory strode er roun him, steppin lak a rare-hoss ober de tater ridges agwine to de town." And she pointed to a group of four crossing the field from Joshua's cabin, marching under the stars and stripes, that swung lifelessly over old Joshua's right shoulder. We had just as well go with Joshua and witness the proceedings. The first observation the old negro made as he came up was this, "How much is de boss agwine to gib fur wotin fur him to go to de legislatur?"

"Agwine to giv yer, yer axes," replied a partisan of Laflin. "Yer dun und got freedom, haint yer? yer dun und jined de milintary cumpny, haint yer? Yer is de most selfishes nigger dat I ebber seed. Is yer aimin to git de whole kommisary flung in? What mo dos yer speck?" continued the black partisan. Freedom haint nebber made de pot bile at my house nary time, und it haint nebber fotched no sweetenin dar, und it haint put no sperrets in de jimmyjon, und it haint nebber sot out no taters nudder, und wid all dis lustration in de land, it haint agwine too, nudder. Jess as well be a naked snow-bird wid nary whing as wun ob dese franksized niggers. Too much freedom in de lan now, und not nuff horgs and catfishes. I'se been a wotin und a wotin eber since de belyun fell—a trapsing to de town bakkards und furruds, und I haint nebber got nuffin but freedom yit—not eben de rappins ob my little finger; und I has been hep, hep, hep, hep, heppin in de miluntary cumpny ober tater ridges und fru de brier patches und de skeeters, und de cap'in haint nebber said nary time, Joshaway, I'm agwine to put yaller upperlips on yer jacket, und I'm agwine ter gib yer a sord wid a wheel. Nary time hab de boss axed me how much meal I had in de gum, ur how much taters I hab in de hill; und I haint nebber had but wun little speck ob munny sense freedom cum in de lan, und den it wus Federick munny. Ef I dont git nuffin bettern dat I has got, und dat mity quick, dis po nigger is agwine to drap outer de ranks into de sametary. Dis here war has turned loose a passel ob niggers all ober de kentry wid dere freedum und muskets, und bress Gord dere aint nary turkle in de swamp, nur catfish nudder, yu mout say; und eben de sparrers when dey sees a nigger a cummin shakes his tail, und sais 'ugh, ugh; I'm agwine erway frum here.' Ole mars Jon had rudder de hoppergrasses wud kivver de hole lan, und de tarypin bugs too. Eber time de boss gits lected he ups and sezs, sez he, 'Josh, de nex time I runs I'm agwine to make yer er magistreet, so yer kin sot on white fokses, und bress de Lord, dat time haint nebber cum yit.'"

"Shut dat big mouf ob yourn," sharply commanded Laflin's constituent.

"I haint agwine to do dat, nudder," saucily replied the old negro. "Ef de boss don't gib me er dram, ur sumfing when I gits to town, I'm agwine to wote fur tuther man. De ole ooman tole me to ax de boss fur a kaliker kote; sed how dat she wus jam nigh as ragged as a skeer-crow. Hanner is a gitten monstrus tired ob freedom, und dese franksized niggers—yer heers my racket. Aye! aye," he exclaimed patriotically, "dars ole glory now a shinin froo de trees," and with that the bandy shanked negro cut a pigeon wing in the middle of the road; and sure enough, the banner of the free, displaying its broad stripes and bright stars was nodding its welcome to its African heroes, who had worked out their emancipation with ploughshares and scythe blades.

"I knows," the negro continued in rapture, "when I sees dat butifullest flag er wavin und see-sawin dat dere is bound to be a stummic full ob good whittles sumwheres, but I's monstrous skeert hits agwine to gib out fore hit gits to me." And just now the faintest tintinnabulation of an asthmatic brass band broke upon old Joshua's ear like the sound of a dinner horn, on a long, dry summer day. Joshua braced up for the home stretch and began to take long slouchy strides, as if he were on the old parade ground again. Calling out to his comrades "Forrud, march to de town; hep, hep, hep, hep, hep, eyes to de front, charge, bagonets!" As he approached the rallying ground of the Laflin hosts, a recruiting agent from Laflin's opponent, took him by the arm and said patronizingly, "Let me put a bug in your ear, ole man."

Joshua jerked away with the startled cry "No sar, no sar, don't do dat white man, kase I kaint heer good no how, und ef yer puts dat ar bug in my yeer, how in de name ob Gord is I ebber agwine to git him outen dere eny more, and hit mout be a horned bug ur a stingin bug. I'll fite eny man dat puts a bug in my yeer, dat I will; stan back, white man; dont cum nigh me wid nun ob dem creeturs."

"You don't understand me, my friend" replied the scalawag, "our side are home folks, bred and born right here, and we know what we can do for our colored friends when we get to the legislature, and we are going to buy plantations for our men, and we are going to make our old friends like you sheriffs."

"Dats a mity heep ob promisin, white man," replied the negro suspiciously, "How menny shurrufs is yer agwine to hab in dis county?"

"Forty seven," replied the Scalawag.

"How menny jail houses is yer agwine to hab," asked the negro.

"We are going to do away with the jails," said he.

"Is?" exclaimed Joshua in surprise. "Ugh, Ugh! forty-leven shurrufs in dis county und all clecting taxes at wun time, Grate Jarryko, dar wont be nary tater, nur nary horg, nur nary ole settin hin—nur nary nigger in sebenteen fousan miles ob dis place. Saks a live, white man, dos yer aim to massercree fokes fo und aft? Whar wus yer when dey fit de war enny how?"

"Oh, I was at home raising breadstuffs for the poor," he answered.

"Raisin which fur de po, boss?" enquired Joshua.

"Breadstuffs," he replied.

"Und did de po git dey share?" asked Joshua.

"Yes, indeed," the scalawag answered.

"Und wus yer in de pennytenshun when yer raised dat truck?" further enquired Joshua.

"No, indeed," he said.

Joshua gazed comically into the face of the politician as he said; "Lemme look at yu rite good wid boff eyes, wid dese ole specks on, disserway; dare. Haint I seed yu afore?"

"Perhaps so; I cant say" replied the scalawag furtively.

"Ugh! Ugh!" exclaimed Joshua.

"Haint I seed yu at Zion's meeting house wun time, at de stracted meetin? Dat time sister Cloe drapped back into er concushun und yu wuz de yarb doctor dat fotched her too, und yu tuck yo pay outen de munny dat wuz gwine to de orfins?"

"No, no, you are thinking of some one else I am sure."

"Und hit warnt yu nudder dat drunk up de sakryment de dekons stode away under de mussy seat?"

"No, indeed! why do you ask such a question?"

"Kase," replied Joshua quite saucily, "dem dare too eyes of yourn puts me in membrance of dat scalyhorg in de scriptur whay wuz drug outer de kote house ded, him und Sofy Mariah, too, kase day made er mis hit erbout dat lan."

"Oh Jerusalem!" retorted the scalawag "Lets get back to the subject."

"Jess so! Jess so!" exclaimed Joshua, laughing, "yu sees yu's dun und kotched, und yu aims to drap back in de convenshun agen."

"We pay one dollar in gold and a jug of whisky to every Laflin man that votes with us. Do you hear?" observed the scalawag.

"Now yer is er a gettin down to de pint," exclaimed the negro smiling. "Is yer man agwine to git lected?"

"Certainly, certainly, sir."

"Dats all right, den, when dos I git de munny und de sperrits, fore I wotes ur arterwurds?" asked Joshua dubiously.

"We don't pay in advance," replied the scalawag.

"Don't, hey?" exclaimed Joshua.

"Well Laflin], he do, und I mout wote fore I git de pay, und yer man mout not git lected, den my wote wud be flung away, und de munny und de sperrits too, dats de pint. Yer see, boss," Joshua continued argumentatively, "us franksized woters is bleeged to make er leetle kalkerlashun und den ef we gits disappinted its kase de white fokses obersizes de niggers. Don't yer see how de cat is agwine to jump, boss?" he whispered confidentially, "yer mout put de spirits in de jimmyjon now, und I mout take a drap ur too fore I wotes und yer mout hold back de munny twelt yer man is lected; how dos dat do?"

"All right," announced the scalawag. "You come with me." And old Joshua in his "hop, step and go fetchit" way followed the politician until he brought up squarely against one of Laflin's lieutenants, who took him savagely by the limp paper collar.

"Wher's yer agwine lak a struttin turkey gobbler, wid dat white man, yer fool nigger? Don't yer know dat ar white trash will put yer back in slabery?"

The rival candidates were running for the legislature. On one side of the court house square were aligned the adherents of Laflin, the carpet-bagger; on the other side the adherents of Hale the scalawag. Each was haranguing the black sovereigns of the South—men who in other fields had toiled ever so hard for their country, but whose hands were unskilled, and whose minds were untutored in this the grandest of human endeavors—the building up of an immense superstructure that shall stand "four square to all the winds that blow."

Each candidate had his claquers, slipping into rough, horny hands the paper representative of manhood, intellectual, patriotic manhood—manhood compromised by no overt act of treason.

Every star and every stripe upon that magnificent banner just overhead accentuated the fact that in devious wanderings over blood stained battle fields, fire scathed villages, homes and plantations it had followed manhood suffrage as faithfully as it did the tithing agent throughout the South. Suspended above the heads of the free men, across the street, was this blood-red warning "No man shall vote here who followed Lee and Jackson." Vain delusion; as if there could be treason under that flag; or traitors lurking in its shadows like mad Malays! Stranger still, that the dust of Jackson should re-animate hearts that had been broken in a catastrophe, too terrible to be uttered by patriots. Strangest of all, that living heroes should gather at a banquet where toasts were spoken in frantic curses of the brave by fanatics! To the right were barrels of whiskey on tap; to the left were huge piles of yellow tickets with appropriate devices upon them; and to the front waved over a bloodless conquest the "Star Spangled banner," just as triumphantly as it did at the head of the charging battalions of Lee and Jackson in Mexico, just as proudly as when the Southern cross yielded its sovereignty upon the ill-starred field of Appomattox. Crimsoned to a deeper blush to-day methinks because it is made to dishonor Lee and Jackson, who shall live forever in the pantheon of history—as men worthy of emulation, as heroes whose fame is already written upon amaranthine tablets.

"Who sees them act but envies every deed—
Who hears them groan and does not wish to bleed;
Great men struggling with the storms of state,
And greatly fallen with a falling state."

"Welcome, my son, here lay him down, my friends,
Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure
The bloody corse and count those glorious wounds.
How beautiful is death when earned by virtue."

About high noon Joshua, with his old beaver caved in on both sides and one skirt of his blue coat torn away, was seen to oscillate, as it were, betwixt the whiskey barrel on the Laflin side and the rum barrel on Hales' side, and doubtless, so far as his vote was concerned, preserving a strict neutrality, that is to say, in the plantation language of the old negro, "Bress de Lawd, I was so flushtrated wid dat meextry o' rum und sperrits dat I flung in six wotes fur de cyarpet-sacker und er eben haf dozen fur de scalyhorg." The result officially declared, made the agreement between Joshua and Hales' manager about the payment of money "arter yo man is dun und lected" a nude pact.

Laflin was nominated, and in his address to his constituents flattered himself that the nomination came unsought and with practical unanimity.

"Our enemies," said he, "shall feel our power, and you will be asked to co-operate in such manner as will place you above them in this government. Can I depend on you?"

"Dat yer kin!" came from a hundred throats. "Hurrah for de boss! He is de ginrul fur dis kentry, und he will lick out de white trash! Yes siree!"

Such were the exclamations that deafened the ear and horrified the sense. Joshua was too drunk to be offensively partisan. He lay in the street waving his old beaver hat and hurrahing the best he could for Laflin, as he held on to "de jimmyjon," and singing in a drunken, maudlin way —

"Dis jug lak a ribber is er flowin,
Und I don't keer how fast it flows on boys, on;
While de korn in de low groun is er growin,
Und dis mouf ketch de stuff as it runs."

When Joshua got home next morning the sun was blazing like a great ball of fire from the mid-heavens. Both skirts of his old blue coat were gone. His old beaver was flopping and hung limp and crownless over his right eye, and his old wife paused in her work in her garden to observe the dilapidated negro as he approached his cabin. She could hear him muttering to himself, "Talk erbout de niggers ergwine ter de conwenshun, und er runnin dis here kentry, und er gittin de eddykashun und er bossin de white fokeses, ef ennybody is er mint ter gin me wun dollar fer my pribileges, I'm ergwine ter sell out, und I mout tak pay in Federic munny."

"Ergwine ter sell out, is yer!" exclaimed Hannah with a grunt.

Joshua looked up startled, and pushing the broken brim of his old hat from his eyes, he saw it was Hannah who had interrupted his soliloquy, and she continued in ridicule, "Yu is too brash, Joshaway; yer mout git ter be presydent, den yer cud git er cote wid two skurts to hit. Yu keep er wotin und er wotin, und bimeby yu is ergwine ter be wun ob dem Mishunary possels wid whings, same ez er blue herron."

Joshua saw that his wife was making him ridiculous, and he slunk away into the old cabin and fell asleep upon the rickety bed.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

MEMORIAL DAY.

The patriotic men of the South who had so valorously insisted upon their rights throughout the deadly passage at arms, felt that now the war was over, that the country should settle down on the great common principle of the constitution—the principle that had triumphed in 1780. They had an intuitive abhorrence to confiding extravagant power in the hands of the corrupt and ignorant. They could not understand how the Union could be preserved by the annexation of eleven conquered provinces, and asked themselves the question, "Will not the light of these eleven pale stars be totally obscured by a central sun blighting and destroying every germ of constitutional liberty?" The Union, said they, was safe in the hands of President Lincoln. Rome was safe when Cincinnatus was called from the plow, but she was torn asunder by the wars of Scylla and Marius, and history is more or less a repetition of itself.

Despite the catastrophe that overlaid the South because of the unhappy issue of the war; the gravity of which enemies, both domestic and foreign, have scandalized by calling it "rebellion," despite the fact that disbanded forces were still prosecuting their conquests, not against disciplined armies in the field, but against men, women and children, in the lawful pursuit of peace and happiness, with a vengeance hourly reinforced by new resources and fresh horrors, and with a terror that mastered our fettered souls; our people felt that there was at least one refuge from the blast of the tornado—still a sheltering rock to which they could flee from the cruel cloud-burst.

In passing the eye rapidly over the outline of the circumstances in which persecution originated; in reviewing the cause that unsettled the deep foundations of social life, the southern people felt that there were hallowed spots of ground so strongly buttressed in the hearts of the people that the violence of the storm could not rustle a leaf or shake a twig; that these consecrated precincts they could lawfully appropriate, and as to this claim, the carpet-baggers with all their hosts of misrule had the honor, magnanimity and mercy to forget, forgive and forbear. Here at least there could be no intrusion, because the baser passions were fenced upon the outside; and amid this sad continuity of graves the heart would be uplifted in gratitude to God, who in his great mercy had given to the nineteenth century and to the South, such undying examples of patriotism and valor. Here lie the bones of men who dared to say, when the political system of the South was strangely inverted, that it was such a menace to southern institutions that it could not go unchallenged; a palpaple violation of the public faith. To what other convulsions and changes are we predestined? they asked. Shall we leave our character, our civilization, our very being to the unresisted assault and prepare such an epitaph for our tombs? Shall we declare ourselves outlawed from the community of nations? "Nay, war rather to the cost of the last dollar, and slaughter of the last man." Such was the sentiment of the men who sleep so peacefully in these graves. Such was the sentiment of the men, women and children, who to-day stand over these graves to honor the brave, and to reproduce a fresh page in history, and lay it reverently by in our southern Valhalla.

Col. Seymour was the orator of the day. "Stonewall Jackson," his old commander, the subject, and his friends, Judge Bonham and the ex-governor honored auditors. The old governor, whitelocked and furrowed, in introducing the orator observed with a proper decorum. "For what Stonewall Jackson and his brave men did, we have no apologies to make here or elsewhere. I had rather wear here," said he, striking his aged breast, "a scar from the victorious field of Manassas, than the jewelled star of St George, or the Victorian Cross."

I can reproduce in a fragmentary way parts of the patriotic address which I herein give to the reader, to show that there was "life in the old land yet."

"My Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen:

"One year ago to-day, with the reverence of a pilgrim, I stood by the grave of Stonewall Jackson; and I remembered that every battle order he ever wrote, every victory he ever won, was a thank offering to the christian's God.

"I thought, too, of the thousand highways that rayed out from citadels of oppression, barricaded with human bones. I thought of the seas of human slaughter, whose redundant tides flowed on and on as libations upon the altars of ambition.

"I saw as it were the faded crowns and the crumbling thrones of dead despots, who once girdled the earth with a cincture of fire, and marked its boundaries with the sword, writing again their achievements where mankind might read and wonder.

"I saw again the accusing throngs of pensioned widows from the Moselle, the Rhine, the Danube, the Nile, and wherever else the scarlet standards of fanaticism flaunted their challenge, hastening to record their anguish, where the tyrants had memorialized their deeds.

"I saw everywhere the badges of speculative knavery, of incorrigible wrong; Cossacks all, who knew no law but force, and no patriotism but greed.

"I thought of the Spaniard, riding to the stirrup-leather in the blood of babes in the Netherlands; of the Hun and his proclamation 'beauty and booty,' and I thought of the angel of God's mercy proclaiming an armistice; giving a refreshing peace to the saturated earth after these monsters were dead, and I bowed with a profounder reverence at this hallowed grave in the valley of Virginia.

"I thought then of Alcibiades at Abydos; of Alexander at Issus; of Scipio at Zama; of Hannibal at Cannae; of Pompey at Pharsalia; of Cæsar at the Rubicon; of Napoleon at Marengo; and I thought, as Vattel thought, that warriors such as these failed to prosecute the rights of their countrymen by force.

"I thought of the keen blade of the assassin that cut in twain the heart of Alcibiades; of the dagger of Brutus; of the murder of Clitus; of the hemlock; of the suicide's sword at Thrapsus; of the assassination at Miletus; of the fifth paragraph in the will of Napoleon; and then I thought of the bleeding earth these warriors had scarified and scourged, until they were drunken with excess of human slaughter; and then I looked back over the tide of centuries for a single example of disinterested patriotism, and I bowed my head once more to hear a protest from principalities in their orphanage, and commonwealths in their sorrow.

"I thought again of Jackson, as he knelt in prayer, when the great guns were signaling the issue of battle, as with hands uplifted to heaven he was supplicating his Father to guide and guard his poor country in her sore hour of travail, and I thought if there were a Pericles somewhere, who from the foot of our American Acropolis would sound his fame, the 'bloody chasm' would be bridged by a single span.

"A little more than three years ago, by the violation of a plain order, the tears of a nation, magnanimous and patriotic, rained down upon and extinguished almost the last camp fire of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Within that short period events, like chasing shadows, both clouded and glorified the perspective of history. Within a like period of time this great country, by a vigorous discipline, has completely obliterated lines and boundaries that once circumscribed the ambition of men. A trifling order methinks of Jackson, but it cancelled our charter of freedom, it rendered a nude pact our declaration of independence. It was only the nod of the head of an unlettered peasant at Hougomont, but it sent somersaulting into the sunken road of Ohain the steel clad cuirassiers of Napoleon the great; dipped the imperial purple starred with bees, into the silt of the English channel, and paragraphed the capitulation of Paris with the civil death of the great emperor. Such are some of the pivots upon which great crises rotate.

Forty eight years after the Scotch-Greys pierced the uplifted visors of the old guard, there glided down the echoing corridors of time this sententious order; "Shoot down without halting the man who dares to cross the lines to-night."

The catastrophe that rode as a courier upon the flank of this order, hacked the sword, unnerved the arm that was carving out of a heart of fire a civilization whose altars and whose shrines were relumed by the torch of liberty; but the God of battles, amid the carnage, called a halt. It was a night of exasperation, of despair. Ten million people watched, as watchers never watched before, the last flickering of a life that laid down its all, at the altar of love and duty. Those ten million people kept their vigil like vestal virgins, and saw, alas, the frenzied spirit of hate and wrath snuff out the candle and heard the groans of the victim of his own blunder, as he cried out in his delirium, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."

There has been now and again an illustrious personage, who appears to us to have been mirrored upon the foreground of events like some titanic silhouette. The irony of fate has dealt with such a man, as the creature of an hour, holding him in thrall in time of peace, to become the storm spirit in some great crisis. When he dies the face of history is saddened and obscured, and a twilight like that observed under Southern skies, falls upon the world. Such a person may be fitly called the courier of fate; or better still, the tragedian of revolution. He cannot be weighed or measured by the definitive judgment of contemporaries. When he dies the stride of conquest is checked; sword blades dripping with human blood are thrust back into scabbards. In war, he is its inspiration; its providence.

I make no allusion just now to that splendid effigy that is yet discerned in the haze that lowers over Vienna, Berlin and Moscow; that incomprehensible tutor of strategic science, who with sword and cannon cut a red swath through the capital cities of Europe; and partitioned the world into two dominions, as if he were only dividing in twain an apple. I speak not of him, whom this man that "embarrassed God," found a waif, and made a giant, whose death hastened to its decline that splendid imperialism that the great Napoleon erected on the ruins of the commune.

The fall of Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville thrust betwixt the Confederacy and independence a pall so dense, that it could not be cut asunder with the sword.

I can compare Stonewall Jackson with no hero, living or dead. He stood in the foreground an unique personality—a phenomenon. With the genius of war he appeared almost supernaturally mated. Whether his unparalleled victories were the result of combinations essentially tactical, of methods logically conceived, or of an intuition that almost without arrangement forced its power upon vast evolutions, will perhaps never be known.

The plain profile of this man reminds one of the hard-hitting, rough-riding Roundhead. His dispatches smacked of the Calvinism of Ireton and Cromwell. "God blessed our arms at McDowell yesterday." Wherever there was a downpour of leaden rain Jackson and the "Ironsides" would have been in accord. His was the spirit that resolved combinations in his favor. His masterly apprehension of issues diminished the carnage by plucking the fruit before it was fully ripe. In war as elsewhere he was absorbed by a fatalism, such as Mohammedans sum up when they say "What is to be, will be." Napoleon, like an astrologer, believed in a star; Jackson, unlike an astrologer, believed in Him who made the star and lighted it in the candelabra of night.

A few years ago an American asked a halting, mutilated soldier of the Old Guard to tell him how Napoleon died? "The great Emperor dead! He will not die," was the sententious answer from the man who had fought under the shadow of his eagles at Wagram and Marengo. It was with something of this vague, indefinable superstition, of this heroic belief in "Old Stonewall" as their providence that one of the "Old Brigade" would hearken dubiously to such a challenge, "Tell us how Stonewall Jackson died?"

Critics who have judged with more or less asperity have said that his capacity as a commander was limited to the manoeuvres of a corps. Strange fatuity! A score of battle fields prove the opinion false. If such had been the case, the history of Port Republic, Harper's Ferry, Groveton and Winchester would have been written the other way.

I saw this imperturbable man at Cold Harbor. Again he reminded one of the "predestined" leader of the Ironsides. "If the enemy stand at sunset, press them with the bayonet." All commands issuing from him found their climax in this supreme order. The hero of Toulon never caressed the fire throated 12 pounder more ardently than did Jackson. He would have swept every obstruction from the field with a single battery, or failing in this would have "pressed" them with the bayonet. His camp fires are now extinguished. The old army of the Shenandoah is an aggregation of phantoms. Winchester, Port Royal, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville appear as mirage reminiscences rather, that steal unbidden upon the soul when its depths are full of darkness and shadows.

"We walk to-day listlessly over the great, rough, heroic life of Stonewall Jackson, but on either side of us are monuments and memorials to his renown ever brightening to a higher luster.

It is a stern business, this going to war. Reconciliation is problematical, more frequently impossible. The public pulse in 1861 was intensely excited. One boastingly said upon one side that all the blood that would be spilt, could be wiped up with a silk handkerchief. Another on the other side with equal bravado answered that he would live to call the roll of his slaves from the foot of Bunker Hill, and thus there was boast and badinage until the "Anaconda" turned his many-hued scales to the sun on the 21st of July, 1861.

The scene from the northern point of view was exceedingly dramatic—a magnificent host all in tinsel—a composite picture of carnival and war. A flash, as of gunpowder; a blazing up as of dry heath; a shout ever so frightful, and half infernal, and the whole universe seemed wrapt in flame and wild tumult. But the fire has died out; tumultuous passion is allayed; the old South with its mountains and glades, rivers and valleys, the stars above its sodden ground beneath, is still there.

"Jackson believed in the southern cause, as if it had been a revelation from God. Cromwell said, 'Let us obey God's will' while he whetted his sword blade to drink the slaughter of women, and nursing babes at Drogheda. Jackson said, 'Let us obey God's will,' whilst bringing to the altar the offering of universal emancipation.

"Jackson believed that the war of invasion was a heartless crusade against mankind and womankind, and the civilization of the South, and the higher law proclamation was the aftermath of the pernicious broadcasting of seed sown by Horace Greely, Gerritt Smith, and Joshua R. Giddings. The old stubble required to be ploughed under, said they; unhappily in seeding the ground they scattered here and there dragons' teeth and forthwith there sprang up armed men.

"Jackson believed that the 'Grand army' in holiday attire, with flaunting banners and careering squadrons, were an aggregation of iconoclasts, fierce destroyers of images, creeds, institutions, traditions, homes, country. So believed he when the 'Anaconda' with panting sides drew back to strike.

"Man to man, bayonet to bayonet, cannon to cannon, bosom to bosom, here was challenged the asserted right of coercion, of frenzy against frenzy, patriotism, anger, vanity, hope, dispair; each facing and meeting the other like dark clashing whirlwinds."

Hither sped Jackson with the swoop of the eagle, down the valley from Gordonsville to fresher carnage, to a bloodier banquet. Hither he came with as high a resolve as ever animated Peter the Hermit, to plant upon the sand dunes of Palestine the fiery cross; whether right or wrong, cannot now be known. The formula by which he may be judged is yet undiscovered.

Eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, and Jackson with folded arms, occupies the plateau near the "Henry House." Just beyond is a dark confused death wrestle. Forty thousand athletes against eighty thousand athletes; two hundred odd iron throats perpetually vomiting an emetic of death.

Hope within him burns like a freshly lighted fagot. There is a quiver in the hardened nerves; the old sun-scorched cap is in his hand; the lips are slightly parted; the order given, and the 'old Stonewall Brigade' is hurled like an immense projectile upon ranks of human flesh. There is a halt, a recoil; cannon spit out their fire, their hail, their death upon bosoms bared to the shock. 'There stands Jackson like a Stonewall.' Under that name he was baptized with blood at Manassas. Everywhere that faded coat and tarnished stars were the oriflame of battle and the old brigade followed them as if they had been the white plume of Navarre.

This incomparable leader never failed in a single battle from the day when with 2800 men at Kernstown he held in check 20,000 men and covered the retreat of the army from Centreville to Manassas, where he cut their communications and decoyed their columns into the iron jaws of Longstreets reserves. Such achievements were not accidental. No manoeuvre could mislead the clear judgment that presided serenely in that soul of fire. It is not too much to say that the conqueror of Port Republic was an overmatch in strategy and technique of war for his opponents.

He's in the saddle, now fall in—
Steady! the whole brigade!
Hill's at the ford cut off; he'll win
His way out with ball and blade.

What matter if our shoes are worn—
What matter if our feet are torn—
The foe had better ne'er been born
That gets in Stonewall's way.

There were other attractions there, too; flower girls had brought hither, not the funereal cypress and willow, but bright and beautiful carnations and violets, and streaming about the heads of the throngs were battle flags, torn and tattered—almost shredded by shot and shell—cross-barred with blue, with pale white stars like enameled lilies peeping out of the azure ground. Lifeless eyes and voiceless lips now, had cheered these flags with the same joy that once greeted the eagles of Napoleon. Withered skeleton hands now, had borne them at the head of charging squadrons and battalions, the guidons of victorious armies—the guerdon of a nation's trust and faith. If out of the cold, dead white stars could come again the old gleam of light as it lighted up the line of direction over the mountain passes of Virginia and the valley of the Shenandoah, what a halo of glory would encircle Winchester and Gordonsville and Chantilly! how dramatic the narrative; how truthful the history; how inspiring the reminiscence; how fully and completely vindicated the Old South—the lost cause! But there is no light in the stars, and the broad bands of blue upon the blood-red field are disfiguring scars upon the face of an incident long since closed, and closed forever, full of tragedy and patriotism.

The old Governor was exceedingly complimentary towards his old friend, Colonel Seymour, "for his patriotic address," and very cordially invited him to visit him at his home.

Alice had formed new acquaintances, and Clarissa too had honored this most interesting occasion with her presence. She had carried a basketful of flowers that had been carefully plucked and assorted by her young mistress, and with very tender hands Alice had placed them in a stone urn at the foot of a grave that seemed to have been more profusely decorated than the others. Indeed, it was the grave of the soldier boy who had been the first to fall in the terrible holocaust of war.

"Miss Alice," Clarissa asked quite feelingly, "Haint yu dun und fotched back to yo membrunce dis here po sojer boy dat fout in de battle of Manassy, und was brung back home to pine away und die? Me und yu seed him arter he got home, und hit made my flesh creep und crawl lak katterpillers when I seed how de yankeys had mommucked up dat po chile. Dare wus wun arm all twisted kattykornered twell you couldn't tell pine-plank whedder it growed wid de fingers pinted disserway or datterway, und den dare wus er hole in de buzzum dat yu cud farely see de daylight on de tother side. Grate king! De yankeys mouter shot dat po chile wid a steer kyart; he wus de wustest lookin' humans I eber seed in my born days, und he wus de onliest chile of his po mammy. Dare's her grabe too. Dare day lay side by side, und de Lord in hebben only knows what day's dun und sed erbout dis here war up yander. I'm ergwine ter v strow dese lillies o' de walley on boff on em. Po fings, I hopes und prays day has dun und gon froo de purly gates whey dare aint no war, nur tribulation of sperrets nudder." And the old negro knelt reverently at the graves and placed the white flowers upon them. As she rose from the solemn service she said feelingly to her young mistress, "Pend upon it, missis, sumbody's bleeged to suffer fer all dis gwines on epseps dare aint no troof in proverdense nur grace nudder. Miss Alice, bress yer life, Gord aint ergwine ter suffer his people ter be mommucked up in no sich er fashion. Now dar is dat po 'oman lying out dare; ef de yankeys hadn't kilt her onliest son, she would be right here ergwine erbout spreddin flowers on de grabes o' dese po sojers, und she'd er heerd ole marser a speechifying to all dese fokeses."

Alice was not in the humor to indulge Clarissa in further observations. She was thinking of a grave over yonder in old Virginia, and wondering if some fair hand was not arranging the flowers and tenderly placing them upon the grave of her boy lover.

The setting sun was shooting little slivers of gold from its beautiful disc all around the cemetery, and the shadows from magnolias and weeping willows were deepening and darkening all the while, when the Colonel, his daughter and Clarissa drove home in the old barouche, tired out with the fatigue incident to the day and its burdens.

[CHAPTER IX.]

THE BROKEN CRUSE.

The lights were burning with a soft glow one night in the mansion when the announcement was made by Clarissa that a gentleman stood without, desiring an audience with the old master. The gentleman introduced himself as Mr. Summers (half apologetically), a reconstructed rebel. There was a moment's pause in which, by the shimmer of the lighted lamps, Colonel Seymour saw that the visitor was quite an elderly man, without beard and with soft white hair. His address was easy and insinuating. He was neatly clad in black cloth, and impressed Colonel Seymour as being a man of affairs. Together they entered the library, the Colonel observing that he conducted all business transactions in that particular room just now. Considering the unusual hour at which the visitor had arrived, in connection with the unpleasant incidents of a quite eventful day, there was nothing reassuring in the visit: the times were critical, to say the least, and his own situation so entirely defenceless, that he felt as if "vigilance was truly the price of liberty." So he addressed the stranger in a manner quite emphatic—

"May I enquire, sir, to what circumstance I am indebted for the honor of this visit?"

"Why, certainly, sir," replied the bland stranger. "But will you permit me first to ask after your health and that of your family? How are you, sir?"

"My family—that is my wife—is quite unwell, sir. She has been an invalid for many weeks, and I fear there is no possible hope of her recovery," said the Colonel.

"Ah, that distresses me greatly; perhaps her condition is not so bad as you fear. May I ask after your health, sir?"

The Colonel hesitated for a moment, and then observed, deliberately, "Physically, I am quite well, sir."

"Did I not see you, sir, when we were re-crossing the Potomac on our mad flight from Gettysburg at the lower ford?" enquired the stranger.

"Mad flight!" echoed the veteran with ill-concealed wrath. "Have you such a conception of the orderly retreat of our great army without the loss of a gun and without the capture of a man, as to characterize it as a mad flight? Were you a Confederate soldier, sir, and do you insult my intelligence, my loyalty, yea, my bravery, sir, by this challenged inquiry?"

"My dear sir, if the statement pains you I will recall it instantly. Pray excuse me. I was Major of the 7th Virginia Cavalry, and as the army halted at the ford I saw an officer, a Colonel, who was badly wounded and who with great difficulty sat his horse on that occasion. I now see that the officer whom I then saw is the gentleman I now address, and I heartily crave your pardon for the rash expression."

"Very well, then," replied the Colonel. "We are Confederate soldiers again, and will make our future assaults upon the enemy, if you please, and not upon Lee's army, that whipped the enemy at Gettysburg; yes, sir, whipped them and fell back, sir, because our base of supplies was menaced by the flooding of the Potomac, sir," fairly hissed the old man in great excitement.

"My dear sir, why this excessive warmth?" cried the stranger; "I am sure we understand each other; but, my dear sir, the war is over—why make imaginary assaults upon an imaginary enemy? We are entirely in accord. We entered the army because we then believed we were right, and—"

"Knew it, sir, knew it, and know it now, sir, know it now, sir," fiercely interrupted the Colonel.

"Will you allow me to ask, my dear sir, do you recall those events with any degree of pleasure?" asked the stranger.

"Yes, and no. When I realize that then and now, the enemy with unbounded resources was eternally casting into the vat of pernicious fermentation every act, thought and suggestion that was doubtful in interpretation, and brewing a concoction as nauseous as the black vomit of the red harlot herself, and eructating it upon us—the recollection is painful; but when I remember that every sword thrust into their vitals was the act of a patriot, I delight to recall events that crowned the old South with undying glory."

"Allow me one other observation, if you please," asked the stranger in a tentative way. "Admittedly the South was right, but, my dear sir, do you think it possible that men like yourself who gallantly fought for a cause they sincerely believed to be just may not impress their individuality upon an era that promises so much for the betterment of our condition as a people?"

"Barely possible, I imagine," replied the Colonel.

"Are you inclined to favor a proposition that has in contemplation the election of negroes to office."

"No sir; such a proposition, in my opinion, would be so abhorrent to our ideals of sovereignty that I should consider myself a traitor to the South and her people. Should I endorse such a proposition, it would be an act of self degradation."

"But, my dear sir," argued the stranger, "you will pardon me if I should say that every man must look out for his own safety. Patriotism to a great extent, is a matter of sentiment, and a great man once said 'It is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' You of course will not yield to such an interpretation, nor would I ask you to do so, but, sir, we must let the dead past bury its dead. We must live in the present, and we must as skilled architects build for future generations a superstructure that shall challenge the admiration of men yet unborn."

"That is to say, if I understand you," interrupted the Colonel, "you propose to inoculate the South with the poison of your infamous reconstruction policy, to engraft upon our institutions a new and dangerous character, and besides other atrocious enormities to establish the spoils principle—its temptation to licentiousness—the watchword to animate your corrupt followers to a savage and unscrupulous warfare, sparing neither sex nor age, practicing every species of fraud and hypocrisy, confounding right and wrong, and robbing the innocent and virtuous of their only treasure, their manhood and womanhood. What is your proposition, sir," he exclaimed vehemently, "but a proclamation to the venal and depraved to rally to the standard of a chief, who, like the leader of an army of bandits, points to our God-forsaken country, and says to your plunderers, 'This shall be the reward of victory.' This is no exageration, sir; disguise it as you may, your proposition leads to brigandage and ruin."

"But, my dear sir," replied the stranger, "you have so disarmed me by your arguments that I fear my mission to you will be without avail—will you allow me to proceed, sir? We deplore the fact, sir, that our most virtuous men are still braving the dangers they might, with a little circumspection avoid; still plunging headlong, as it were into great heated furnaces whose doors are open to receive them."

"How would you advise, sir, that we can protect ourselves, so we will not be utterly consumed, but only roasted here and there" asked the Colonel epigrammatically.

"Ah, you trifle with serious matters" replied the white haired stranger. "There is one way, sir, and one way only—adopt this, sir, and the country will honor you with its blandishments. Take the tide at its flood, and co-operate patriotically with those who are enforcing manhood suffrage without respect to educational or property qualifications, and the suffrages of the adult freemen, white and black, will be cast for you for congress."

"Ah, a tempting bait," exclaimed the Colonel, "but it has a rancid negroish scent, and the hook is too sharp—too sharp sir. Do you intend to do this thing?" continued the Colonel interrogatively.

"Assuredly, sir," the stranger replied, with might and main.

"Then sir," shouted the indignant man, "this interview ends now."

"One more word," pleaded the stranger, "and I have done—please bear with me a moment. The Central Executive Committee, of which I am a member, feeling their great need of your invaluable services have commissioned me to make known to you their earnest desire, that you will accept a nomination, from the party, for Congress upon the reform platform."

"You mean your ultra radical platform," suggested the Colonel.

"No, not exactly that," replied the stranger, "they desire further, if however you will not accept, that you will submit your views upon the perplexing subject of negro or manhood suffrage."

"And you are sure your committee will act upon suggestions from me?" he asked.

"I am quite sure they will," answered Mr. Summers.

"Then, sir, please ask your committee, as a special request from John W. Seymour, to put the negroes to work upon the farms; and the carpet-baggers out of the state, and hang the scalawags by the neck until they are dead, dead, dead, sir."

"Tut, tut, tut," exclaimed the old man excitedly, "you are beside yourself. Remember, my dear sir, that you are sowing the wind, and by and by strangers will reap the whirlwind. Good night, Colonel Seymour, I hope you will think better of the matter.

As the white haired stranger passed out of the door, Clarissa, who was closing it after him, enquired of her old master, "Mars Jon, what nice farderly ole man was dat ole gemmen? he peared lak he wus mity sorrowful. Iseed him put his handkercher to his face lak he mout be weepin; what did yer say to him, ole marser, dat upsot him so bad?"

"Without deigning a reply Col. Seymour enquired of Clarissa what the shouting and halloing at her house last night meant?"

"Did yer heer dat racket Mars Jon? I spected yer wus asleep. Twant nuffin epceps Ned und Joshaway er cuttin up der shines. Dem niggers been to town und cum bak drunk as horgs in de mash tub und sed how dat dey had jined de milintery cumpny, und was agwine to clur up de po white trash in de kentry, fo und aft; when yer hurd dem dey wus er hollern to Ellik how dat de boss sed dat dey mout go to de town und draw de lan und de mule und de penshun, dat dey wus agwine to git dern nex Saddy. Lans sake, ole Marser, I specks we's agwine to have orful times in dis kentry—de niggers turned loose lak blaten sheepses er shullikin und a pilfern erbout ebery which a way. Ole fokses used to say dat when de tip eend ob de moon wus rite red lak, dat yer mout look out fur wars und yurthshaks too, und I seed dat ur site las nite 'twixt midnite und day und it fotched what de ole fokses sed rite back to my member'nce. I'd hate powerful to see any udder bellion in dis lan, dat I would. Not ef day is ergwine to shoot steerkyarts und wheel-barrers clean froo our federick sojers, lak dey dun de last time. Grate king, Mars Jon, what sorter ammynishun did dem dare yankeys shoot outen dare kannons ennyhow? Frum de way our po sojers wuz tore to pieces, dey put me in membrunce of ambylances, und powerful big wuns at dat; Grate king! I natally heers dare po flesh er sizzing dis minnit. Is you sho ole marser dat de good Lord is ergwine to fetch all dem arms und legs und heds togedder, eend fur eend at de resurreckshun, so our sojers is ergwine to know pine plank which is dere'n, und dey drifted disserway und datterway in de cornfields of Manassy und Chuckkermorger und de Bulls Run? Grate king!"

Contemporaneously with the coming of the troubles that were well nigh overwhelming the old veteran and his beautiful daughter, the death of the wife and mother came as it were the knell of doom—the giving away of the last arch in the compact fabric of human life, the snapping of the last filament in the web of destiny—the leaking of the last drop of oil from the broken cruse. With her, the heart could be nerved to extraordinary endeavor; with her, ever so many bright colors could be painted upon the angry horizon; with her, the sunset heavens would diffuse a glamour, all radiant and glorious, as if the angels were kissing its banners into crimson and with deft fingers were garnishing the leaky clouds with prismatic hues; with her, the little birds upon sportive pinions would syllable their songs into the dialect of love. But she was passing away—passing away like the shadowy vapor that clings for a moment to the mountain's crest, like the resplendent star that shimmers more beautifully as it is dipping its disc below the western verge, and bids us good night—like the breath of the crushed flower that exhales its aroma for a moment, and is gone. Passing away from a home that is darkened by shadows, passing away from the hearts that are consumed into dead white ashes.

What black stygian waters were rushing vehemently against the fretted casements of these poor souls. Ties that are sundering here are binding into a glorious sheaf loves and affections up yonder, as imperishable as God's great throne. Passing away from the frigid griefs that are soon to environ old Ingleside, when the blood in its channels is to pause in its circulation, when a negro, vile and savage lacerates the dear, dear face of her beautiful daughter, and her precious blood follows the thorns. Passing away before the proud head of her noble husband is bowed in ignominy, when the shackles of a felon encircle arms—enslave hands that never struck a blow, except for his bleeding country. Passing away to plead in her own glorified person to a merciful Father to speedily unite the three in the realm of joy, where there are no shadows and no griefs.

Poor Alice knew as by revelation that the lifeless form before which she was kneeling and weeping was not her mother. Oh, what a royal welcome, what a banqueting upon love there will be by and by, when the terrors of the horrid reconstruction shall so chill her young blood that it will cease to flow, by and by, beyond the sighing and the weeping.

Tenderly, yea reverently, the body was placed into the casket and removed to the parlor, just under the portrait of her dear soldier boy who went to heaven from the gory field of Manassas. Friends had gathered into the room and the man of God read from the blessed Book, "I am the resurrection and the life." The solemn discourse was almost concluded when ruffianly booted feet were heard in the verandah, and a loud knock was heard at the door. Armed, uniformed negroes had come—come like an Arctic gale, chilling and freezing heart and soul—with a mandate to snatch the living from the dead.

Laflin himself would not have pursued the poor wretch within the barred precincts of the sepulchre. The infidel powers of the East would have paused when they saw this "truce of God." But there was no order of adjournment in the message which they brought. "Forthwith" was the unequivocal command and "forthwith" was now. They had come to take the broken-hearted man, though he clung to the casket; come to prod him with bayonets if the rigid limbs did not respond quickly to the command, "Quick time—March!"

Once or twice, through sheer faint, the poor old man fell out of line and against a black guard who violently pushed him into line with the imprecation—

"D—n yu, git back inter yer place, er I'll stick my bagonet clar froo yer."

He was arraigned before three white men and four negroes, and in the presence of whom stood the white-haired stranger, Mr. Summers.

The Colonel did not clearly comprehend the character of the accusation against him. He had been informed by no one except in a general way. Perhaps he would learn as he followed Mr. Summers in his address to this tribunal.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Summers, continuing his speech, "whilst it was my plain duty to report upon the case of Colonel Seymour, I do so with the hope that he may be given a day to answer; indeed, gentlemen, I pray that you may not deal harshly with this old man, who is now in the sere and yellow leaf. You say that you will require him to turn his back upon the traditions of the past—upon the ancient landmarks; that he shall fraternize with our party, in fact become one of us, or his condition shall be made intolerable and his life burdensome. Spare the rod, gentlemen, for his sake and for the sake of his only child."

"What have you to say for yourself, sir," asked the chairman frigidly, addressing himself to Colonel Seymour.

"Sir, I am an old man. One more turn of your wheel—the tightening of the cord ever so slight—and a life worthless and burdensome will drop at your feet. The standard of truth, virtue and patriotism has bowed its once lofty crest, and is now prostrate in the dust. All that was beautiful and lovely in this land of our fathers is sinking, rotting, dying beneath the blight and mildew of your accursed lust of power. Why should I survive? My life, sir, is behind me. You ask me to be your slave. Sir, your bondage is inexorable—it is the life of an outlaw, a traitor, a felon. You ask me to be your friend, and I should consort with thieves; I should crucify every principle of a man. You ask me to be your candidate—my consent would be an act of stultification. Sir, against your savage principles I swear an eternal hatred and wage an interminable war."

The feeble old man sank back exhausted into his seat.

"We intend," exclaimed the chairman with great deliberation, "to scarify the old wounds of the rebels until they bleed afresh. Sixty days, sir, within which to prove your loyalty. You can retire sir."

Thus ran the order, marked with three blood-red stars. * * *

'Kase de high shurruff he dun und seed what wuz ergwine ter cum arter de bellion fell, und he flopped ober ter de publikins'——'Ole Mars Jon haint ergwine ter flop nowheys,' replied Clarissa.

[CHAPTER X.]

FREEDOM IN FLOWER.

Ned, who was now in his seventy-third year, was drinking to intoxication from the cup the carpet-baggers had lifted to his lips.

He sat in the shade of a mulberry tree near his cabin furbishing his musket for the next company inspection, and stopping now and then to observe the sportive pranks of a domesticated raccoon.

He heard the irritable voice of his old master calling him from the verandah of the mansion, and observed with gravity to his wife—

"Jes lissen at dat! Golly! to be sho ole Semo dun und furgit dat dis Soufland is konkered und de niggers sot free. Haint dat a purefied scandle? De werry fust munny I gits outen de bero, arter I pays fur de claybanks und de lan und de grate-house, I'm ergwine to uprare er silum fer dat po stractified creetur way out in de big woods, twixt dis plantashun und de crick, whay he kin call 'Ned, Ned!' und nobody's ergwine ter ansur but de blue herrons. Don't yu heer his gwines on, Clarsy? Jeemes' ribber! don't yu heer dat ofe he's dun und swore! Sposin de surcus rider had er heerd dat cuss wurd he flung at me und yu? Golly! he'd histe him upon de horns o' de haltar twell he riggled same ez er fettered wezul. Dat makes me sez whot I duz erbout dese ole isshu white fokeses. When dare aint no grass in de crap und de smoke house am full o' meat, hits brudder dis und sister dat; but bimeby, when de ole isshu draps inter de trap sot by de scalyhorgs, Jeemes' ribber! 'ligion hez dun und tuck er backsot. Don't yu see? Yu mout sot down whey dat ole man is wid yo teef clinched same ez er hasp in de lock, und he mout be gwine on wid his stractified nonsense, und ef yu didn't spishun nuffin, de fust fing you node hit mout be ole marser dis und ole marser dat, und bimeby yu'd clean clare furgit yosef, dat yu wud, und be totin de grubbin ho und er swettin ober de wire grass fur de secesh. Don't yu see? Me und yu's jes bleeged ter walk perpendikler ur we's gwine ter be kotched agen lak minks."

"Dat's de troof, hit sho is," interrupted Clarissa with emphasis.

"Und den," Ned continued, "me und yu mout be wusser niggers dan in slabery time."

"Pend upon it dat po ole white man has dun und gon plum strakted. I nebber seed sich shines as he is a cuttin up, by his lone lorn sef, in all my born days, nur yu nudder. Dar he now trapesing furwards and baccards wid boff hans ahin his back und histin up his cote skeerts, und a callin, Ned, Ned! jes lac slabery times. Ef de good Lord puts off his wisitation much furder, und don't take him outen his misry, hes gwine to sassinate hissef fore de time kums. 'Ned, Ned; I ses Ned Ned,'" grunted the old freedman mockingly. "Jes as well be callin wun of Joshaway's catfishes outen de crick, ebery bit an grane. Clarsy, don't it mak you sorter solumkolly to see how idjeotick ole mister Semo is a gittin, sens de culled fokes is franksized?"

"It sho do," replied Clarissa with some force of expression.

"Pend erpon it woman, ef we culled genmen don't take holt of dis here plantashun, und de house, und de craps, us is all agwine to suck sorrer, shows you born."

"Dats de Lords truff" exclaimed Clarissa.

"Mr. Semo, he don't look arter nuffin, dat he don't," Ned continued, as he laid his musket on the ground to rub his back against the jamb of the chimney, "De hoppergrasses is avourin de craps, und de cotton is in de gras up to de tip ends, und de dratted, flop-yeared dorgs is jamby et up all de sheepses, und dere is dem hosses in de stable, a whinkering und a whinkering fur a moufful ob fodder, un de cattle beastes is er strayin erway inter de mash, und cum rane er shine, dare is ole Mars Jon asottin dare lak er ole settin turkey hen er callin Ned, Ned; lak dare want no freedum in de lan. Twant fur Miss Alice dat ole man und all tother fokeses on dis here plantashun wud be lak a passel ob gizzard shads, plum run down to nuffin."

"Now yu is a woicin it Ned," again exclaimed Clarissa, as she stitched the last feather in Ned's military cap.

"Dare aint but one way fur dat ole man to eber sucker hissef outen his misery und be spectable," said Ned.

"Und hows he agwine tu du dat Ned?" interrupted Clarissa.

"Don't hit stan ter reson dat ef ole Marse Jon wud jine de publikins und go erbout de kentry baccards and furrards a speechifyin fur de franksized woters, dat he wud git a offis? I don't blame ole marser fur fitin arter Mars Harry got kilt. I'd fout tu, fur my onliest boy, but whar Mars Jon dun rong wus kase he didn't stop Mars Harry fore he rid off to Manassy. Kase Mars Harry he didn't no no better und ole marster did, don't you see de pint, Clarsy?"

"I sho duz," again exclaimed Clarissa.

"Dere is de shuriff, he fit in de war, jess lak Mars Jon dun, and whars dat man now? de high shuriff! Kase he seed what wus agwine tu kum when de bellum fell, und he flopped ober to de publikins, und de fust fing yu noes, dat man is ergwine tu be de pressiden ob de Newnited States."

"Haint yu seed fo now" continued Ned argumentatively, "wun of dem dare lorgerhed turkles drap back into de mud, ergwine furder und furder und er setlin down und downer twell he kivers hisself all epseps his two rad eyes, und bimeby heer cums erlong ole Joshaway er probing wid de gig, und bimeby he gits his konfedence, und den he flings him on de back und tells him rite saft lak, 'please stay dar twell he cums back ergin;' well den de skalyhorgs day dun und got deyselves skotched in de offusses jes lak dat ar turkle, und de fust fing yu nose ef ole Mars Jon haint ergwine to flop ur nuffin heer cums erlong ole Jeff Davis, de secesh man, und ole Mars Jon er probin wid dare ole debbil fork, und bimeby day flings dem publekins on de back und tells dem to stay rite dar twell day cums back. Don't yu see; und den de fat is dun und flung in de fire und de bellyun is dun un riz ergin."

"Ole Mars Jon ain't agwine to flop no whers, dat he aint," ejaculated Clarissa.

"Den he aint agwine tu git no offis nudder," rejoined Ned, quite seriously and relapsed into silence.

"Ned, whats yu agwine tu du wid yosef dis arternoon?" she asked.

"Me" asked Ned, "Ise agwine tu scotch mysef on dis here plank fur a nap, dats what."

"Whats yu gwine to do," he asked.

"Me," asked Clarissa, "I'm agwine tu slabe fur er nocount free nigger, lak yu, jess lak I has ben doin fur forty yers, dats what."

"No count free nigger hay! dats a sin to yu Clarsy, who keeps dat ar pot bilin?"

"Bilin" she asked, in disgust, "Sposin yu lift dat ar led often dat pot an see whats a bilin, taint nuffin yu fotched home, I tells yu dat."

Ned distrustfully advanced to the fire place and lifted the top from the pot and sank back with a groan, into an old bottomless chair.

"What do ail you, Ned?" asked Clarissa, laughingly.

"Lors a massy, I wudn't a had yu projjeck wid me dat ar fashun fur a hundred dollars. I wus skert tu ax yu what yu had in dare, und I kep a studdin and a studdin, und I kep tryin to smel sum yerbs or udder ur snuffin an er snuffin an er snuffin, und I kep listenin fur yu to say 'Ned, lift dat bilin pot offen de farr wid dem yurbs und horg meat; hit ar sho dun by dis time', und Bress de Lord, it haint nuffin ceptin er ole kalliker skeert; dat dar mistake is wurf a hundred dollars. Jess as well flung a hundred dollars outen my pocket into de fire, as to gib me dat ar set back."

"A hundred dollars," mockingly repeated Clarissa, "How much money has yu had sence de belyun dun fell?"

"Me?" asked Ned.

"Yes, you, dats who, how many cents yu had most fo yer sence freedum cum in de lan, und yu is as ragged as a settin pefowell."

"Nebber mind," said Ned, "I'm ergwine to git forty akers ob dis here plantashun, und maby de grate house flung in, und I'm gwine to git de peertest mule on de hill, und when I flings de whoop und pulls de ribbuns, yu is ergwine to see a yerthshake."

"Ugh, Ugh!" ejaculated Clarissa, "I mout, und den agen I moutent. I sees yu a flinging de whoop now, but taint ober nary wun ob ole Mars Jon's mules, dat it taint. I seed a passel ob niggers tother day, jess lak yu, a flingin de whup und a pullin de ribbuns, but twas in de conwic camp jess whar yus agwine to be fo de hoppergrasses wours ole Mar's Jon's crap. Dars yer a stretcht out on dat plank in de brilin sun, lak wun ob dem streked lizzards on de wurm ob de fense, wid nary a moufful ob wittles in de house, high nur lo. Cum here an see who dat is agwine long yander ercross de medder in de hot brilin sun, wid her bonnit skeerts lak de wings ob a white hearon, a floppin backards an furards, haint dat Miss Alice?"

Ned raised his hand to shield his eyes from the hot glaring sun as he observed, "Tain't nobody else. Ef dat ar white gal don't hab de tarryfyin feber ur de brownskeeters, den I haint no doctor."

"I wunder whar dat ar gal is ergwine to here at twel erclock in de day, und de July flies er farely deefnin de fokeses wid der racket?" asked Clarissa.

"Lordy! Lordy! Clarsy," exclaimed Ned, "ef we uns only hed sum ob dem gud wittles Miss Alice got in dat basket, I wudn't be in narry grane ob a hurry fur dem forty akers ob lan und de mule nudder, wud yu?"

"Mout hab had gud wittles all dis time ef yu hadn't ben sich er flambergastered fule. Yu und Joshaway er tarnally spasheating erbout hopperrattucks und pianny fortys und de freedmun's bero und de conwenshun und de miluntary, und bress de Lord nary wun ob yu's seed a hunk o' meat ur a dust o' flour sense freedum cum in de lan, und boff ob yu luks dis werry minit lak perishin conwicks, ur de sutler's mules turned out to grass. Neber herd dat yungun open her mouf agin enybody in my life, white er black. Ef yu axes her fer enyfing, she is er smolin de butifulist smile all de bressed time, und ef de cullud fokeses' chillun is er hongry she feeds dem wid lasses and homny und gud truck twell dey is fitten ter pop open; und when dey is sick, she is jes lak er hark angel, und bress Gord, dat ar gal is ergwine tu hab er golen krown, und er harp too, und gole slippers, when her hed is lade low; und ef she goes fust I'm ergwine ter keep her grabe kivered wid de butifulist flowers in ole missus' flower garden." And Clarissa, overburdened with the tumult of her tender soul, began to sob and cry.

"Hit nachully tares my ole hart strings outen my body to sen her dat wurd; kase yu nose, Ned, dat Miss Alice's hans is tu swete und tender tu cut de wud fur de kitchen und lif dem hebby pots in dis yer bilin sun. Ef I had my chusin I wudn't gib wun stran ob her golen hare fur all de freedum in de lan, und ole Lincum frowed in, dat I wudn't."

Clarissa could maintain her equilibrium whenever Ned expatiated upon matters, persons and events unconnected with her young mistress, but every chord of feeling in her black bosom was instantly vibrant with emotion if anything in disparagement of her was spoken.

Dear, dear child! She was now oblivious to all that was passing in the little cabin.

There she goes, singing a sweet lullaby, on her mission of love, moving along in the sunshine that encircles her as with a magic zone of glory.

The little daisies lift up their heads to laugh as they whisper to each other, "There she goes, our little sweetheart!" And an old woman essaying to free herself from the fetters of the tyrant Death at the other end of the line is whispering, "Here she comes, my darling!" Her great, sympathetic nature, whose capacity was enlarged to embrace all the poor, white and black, made the black cruel heart of Aleck, even, unwittingly to relent after he had torn her fair face with the thorn bush in the meadow.

When the paralytic, Alexander MacLaren, died twelve months ago, he bequeathed a redundance of squalor and misery to his widow, and now death in slouching strides was coming toward her little hut beyond the meadow; coming as if unwilling to take away the old friend of sweet Alice; coming, not like the swift cruel messenger, but languidly, even dubiously; halting to ask if his commission would permit him to spare her yet a little while for Alice's sake. There was a footfall upon the door block; there was the low voice from within, "Come in, dearie," and Alice and a flood of sunshine entered together.

"My sweet bairn," the old lady exclaimed, in the language of the highlands, "how you do gladden my auld een! Let me kiss you, my lassie, ond touch your bonnie hair with my auld stiffened fingers. I want to feel your presence ivery minute."

Alice bowed lovingly at the bedside of the poor widow and kissed the pallid cheek, and looking into the faded eyes asked, with heartfelt sympathy, if she knew who had kissed her?

"Ah, vera well lassie," she answered smilingly. "I ken nae ane in this puir auld world but you; And why should I dearie? Do you think I shall ever cease to love you, Allie, you are sae bright and trustful; your gentle spirit is like the little star that shines just yonner when the twilight deepens into the night, its light ond joy ond comfort are for some ither fauk, for some ither fauk," she repeated with earnestness.

"Oh, I do thank you, Mrs. MacLaren, for such kind, yet undeserved expressions, they are sweet dewdrops that are always leaking from a heart, kind and true," said Alice, as she brought from her little basket such delicacies as she thought would tempt the sick lady.

"Now that you love me so dearly," continued Alice, "will you not take a little nourishment, for my sake?"

"For your sake, dearie," interrogated the old lady, "thot I will, and thank you with an auld ruck of a heart thot has but ane love—all for you, chiel, all for you. If I live it will be to bless you, ond if I dee I will whisper to the angels to love my sweet chiel as I have loved you, Allie."

The old head was very tired and the eyes that now mirrored another light than that which came through the natural senses were closing as Alice sang so tenderly, so softly her favorite hymn; and it appeared to come fragrant, laden with the aroma of the heather, with the memories of the gude auld days from the glades and trossachs.

"It's here we hae oor trials, ond it is here that He prepares
A' his chosen for the raiment, which the ransomed sinner wears
Ond it is here that he would hear us, mid oor tribulations sing
We'll trust oor God who reigneth in the Palace of the King.

"Though his palace is up yonner, He has kingdoms here below;
Ond we are his ambassadors, wherever we may go;
We've a message to deliver, ond we've lost anes hame to bring
To be leal and loyal hearted, in the Palace of the King.

"Its ivory halls are bonnie, upon which the rainbows shine,
Ond its Eden bowers are trellised with a never fading vine;
Ond the pearly gates of Heaven do a glorious radiance fling,
On the starry floor that shimmers in the Palace of the King.

"Noo nicht shall be in Heaven ond nae desolating sea,
Ond nae tyrant's hoof shall trample in the City of the free;
There is everlasting daylight ond a never-fading Spring,
Where the Lamb is all the glory in the Palace of the King."

The widow lay as though she were dead, so tranquil was the slumber that had kissed down her heavy eyelids, and her crossed hands were laid upon the light coverlid that rested upon her bosom.

"Oh," thought Alice as she looked upon the scarcely animated human body, "if it were not a sin, and if you were not so wearied, how I would envy you, Mrs. MacLaren; you are soon to be so happy. Your tired feet will soon press the 'Starry floor that shimmers in the palace of the King' ond your tired een will soon 'behold the King in his beauty,' ond your tired heart will throb with a divine feeling when He bids you welcome in the 'palace of the King; ond he will gae you the title to your mansion with a smile, ond you ken fine it is your ain hoose, ond after sich sae travail you have coom hame to abide for aye.'"

After a while the old lady awoke to find Alice kneeling at her head, to wipe the damp from her brow with her handkerchief.

Alice was the first to speak and she said quite endearingly "How are you now, my dear Mrs. MacLaren? I hope you feel ever so much better."

The old lady with some effort raised her eyes and responded feebly, "Better chiel. Ah my dearie," she said almost hopefully, "may be I'll nae go to my ain hame the day. Just then I was so weary and I had almost forgotten that you were still with me. Ond were you nae singing a wee bit ago dearie? or was I dreaming ond heard the Angels singing, 'We'll trust our God who reigneth in the palace of the King?' It might have been the voice of my auld mither, I dinna ken, I dinna ken," she repeated emotionally.

"If you are not tired, Allie, will you not read a passage from the blessed book, just to make me think of the auld, auld story."

Alice took the Bible from the little deal table and upon opening its pages a five dollar treasury note of the Confederate government, of the issue of eighteen hundred and sixty two, fell upon the floor. It appeared to Alice as a pictorial representation of war, its havoc, its chariot wheels, with great cruel tires and knives, and its heaps of slain. She turned it over and saw this writing, in a neat feminine hand on the back, "It was not for the like of this that my lad was slain at Gettysburg, it was for honor. With the tidings of his death came this note from his hands. 'The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.'"

Alice placed the note back in the Bible with the thought almost expressed by her tongue, "The liveliest emblems of Heaven are His saints, who in the deep sense of anguish can uplift their hearts to Him in simple child-like faith."

The old lady again expressed herself as feeling so much better. Poor woman, perhaps it was but a momentary reinforcement of the vital energy, that was preparing her for the last interview with death, when he should come again with shroud and coffin. "And the Spirit and the bride say come," the sweet girl began to read, "and let him that heareth say come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely."

"The water of life freely, and let him that is athirst say come," echoed the old lady feelingly. "Ond all, all, dearie, we shall hae in ower aboondance in the palace of the King, bye and bye. Ond wud you mind putting up a wee bit prayer for sich an auld rack of a body?"

Alice got down upon her knees and clasping the hands of the sick lady in her own she prayed fervently that the Father of all mercies would watch over her charge who had been faithful through her life; deal lovingly with her, for she is thy child; be with her now and always to comfort her and give her that peace which the world cannot give or take away.

Alice rose from her supplications to kiss the old lady once more before taking her departure, when the invalid, pointing to a little box in beautiful Mosaic upon the mantel, said to her, "You will find there a little siller that I have put by for my beerial chiel, for the gown ond the coffin ond the grave."

As Alice entered the old mansion at Ingleside with her mind tranquilized by the experience through which she had just passed, she heard her father in quite a loud voice, call one of his old servants, "Ned, Ned, where is that black rascal Ephraim?"

"Don't know, mars Jon, came back the answer, Specks he is dun gone to de baptising in de crick sar."

"Where is my saddle mare?"

"Don't know dat sar, nudder, specks she's dun gone wid Ephraim tu sar."

"Where is my new hat and umbrella?"

"Don't know mars Jon, specks dey is dun took demselves off en wid Ephraim tu sar."

"Who is that banging on Miss Alice's piano?"

"Dey is dem culled ladies sar, Miss Maria und Miss Susan, er playin high opperattucks sar. I seed dem er gwine in dere und spishoned dey wur gwine rong, und I axed dem to play de high opperattucks some wheys else, kase dis grate house was too dimmycratuck fur dem, but dey lowed dat dere daddy had worked fur hit und dey wus hissen und den I didn't say no mo, kase I wus afeared. Pend erpun hit, mars Jon, de bottom rail has dun got on top now sho nuff."

Reconstruction had come with its mildew. Black cavernous mouths were lapping up the virus and spitting it out everywhere. Retribution in history had come too with the evolution of the negro.

The old master like a besieged baron of mediaeval civilization, was still looking out upon his broad domains and his cattle upon a hundred hills, but there was rust upon the plow shares, tares in the wheat, cockles in the rye, and the high noon bell in its tower hung lifeless and tongueless. No summons thence to the tired hands and feet and backs upon the old plantation. Labor was disorganized—discipline a dead precedent—the negroes, like the swallows and ravens in the old rookery, homeward and townward as they list, were pluming their flight.

The many-gabled mansion lay fast asleep in the Sabbath nooning. A bee-martin, as it leaped to wing from the neglected meadow, piped a shrill note or two and scurried away after the thieving crow; and the interlacing oaks and elms of a century's growth coquetted with the whispering winds.

Alice felt that she had sustained a mortal shock when she heard the sound of her mother's piano, every chord thrilling with strange dissonance; boisterous, vulgar singing and the shuffling of feet upon the richly carpeted floor.

She started to enter the room when a rude black hand was placed with violence upon her arm, and she was thrust back into the hall, with the remark, "jess git outen here forthwid. Us ladies is musin our selfs er makin dis ole fing farly howl. Daddy ses how dat ef we cullud ladies notices white trash lak yu is eny mo he's ergwine ter whup us an' whup us good," and with this they courtesied toward each other and retired as if they had been princesses of some black realm.

Alice wept out her indignation in her mother's room. Poor Alice! Sowing the wind! By and by what shall the harvest be?

"Ned," called Colonel Seymour, "tell Aleck to come to me." Ned came back in a few minutes concealing a grin with his open hand to his mouth. "Boss," he said, "I seed Ellick, und he tole me how dat I mout tell yu pintedly dat ef yu wants ter see him wusser dan he do yu, yu mout cum ter him er let hit erlone udder. Dem wus his berry wurds." The old man turned away with the wish in his heart that the black vat of reconstruction might be heaped up to the brim with the freedmen who had turned their backs upon their only friends.

As the evening sun was drawing a watery cloud before its face to shut out, if possible, the degradation of the white people of the South, Ephraim rode up at break-neck speed upon the exhausted mare and as he alighted upon the foot-block he threw the bridle towards his old master with the insulting demand, "unsaddle dat beastis Semo, widout yu wants her tu tote de saddle all her life."

"You insolent scoundrel!" exclaimed the old man in white heat, "has it come to this?"

"Looker heer, po white man, dus yu no who's yu er sassin? Ise er spectable cullud gemman, sar, er franksized woter, sar, und what's yu sar? Po down white trash. Take yer ole mar und yer ole umbrill, und yer ole hat, und go ter de debbil." Thus was slipping away the eventide of the day that God, in his infinite condescension aeons ago, had hallowed and blessed.

In the excitement of these almost tragical events Alice had quite forgotten the sick woman across the meadow, and she was hurrying there as fast as she could, when she was intercepted in her journey by Aleck, who commanded,

"Hole up dar, white 'oman! Whar is yer agwine wid dat baskit und dem wittles?"

The girl was greatly alarmed at the presence of the brutish negro in this solitary place and she spoke as complacently as possible and told him that she was carrying some food to poor Mrs. MacLaren. "Will you not let me go on?" she said; "the poor woman is very ill, and I am sure that I am doing no one any harm."

"Yes yu is fer a fac, the negro replied with anger, pears lak yu an yer yo ole daddy is terminated tu gin de culled genmen all de tribulashun yu kin und we haint ergwine tu stan hit no longer. Boff ob yu is jist got tu git outen de grate house und stop toting wittles tu de po white trash. When we takes holt ob dis plantashun dey haint ergwine ter be nary horg, nur chickin, nur pefowell on de lan und de culled genmen und ladies will be bleeged to look at tother wuns and suck dey fingers in misery."

As the negro turned away from the affrighted girl he purposely threw against her fair face, with a deft hand a thorn switch, that tore the flesh and caused the cheek to bleed and then laughed with the gratification of an arch-fiend.

She went on her way in silence but her outraged spirit could hardly contain itself, and this she said to herself with burning anger is reconstruction! A civilization that with whipcords and chains has suspended law and love and benevolence.

When Alice reached the little home of the widow she knew that the death angel had entered before her and was putting his icy finger upon the eye and the heart, and with an almost inaudible exclamation of "poor Allie" she passed away.

With tenderness and love Alice arranged the coverlid over the body and locked the door and went in search of help to prepare the old woman for burial. She saw aunt Charlotte gathering sticks for fuel for the pot that was boiling in her yard, for it was wash day, and told her that poor old Mrs. MacLaren was dead. "Will you not go with me and give such assistance as you can?" "Dat I wont," sharply replied the old negress "Ise dun und got way by any sich drudgery as dat now a days. When wun ob our siety ceases we has grate blowin' ob horns und muskits shooting at de grabe und ebery body is as hapy as er rane frog in de willer tree. Yu sees dem dere bilin cloes in de pot don't yu, and yu sees dat ar sun ergwine down as peert as er race hoss, well den Ise got my orders from Joe und I don't ame tu git a beatin when he cums home ef I kin hep it."

Alice went on and there were fantastic shadows here and there in the primitive landscaping of nature and timid rays of the setting sun were stealing softly through thorn and bush and bough. She found Mary Perkins and her younger sister Gussie at home and she knew that poverty had not destroyed their kindly natures. She told them with sadness her mission and when the little assemblage gathered reverently in the little glebe the next day and the man of God uncovered his white locks and looked upon the forbidding pall and grave, there was a broken column of white flowers resting over the dead heart of poor Mrs. MacLaren. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes," is the universal requiem of nature—the proclamation an offended God uttered when he placed sentinel Cherubim with flaming swords in Paradise to guard its portals. It was the voice of the aged ambassador of Christ this day, when there was no responsive sound to come forth from the dark chamber hidden under the clods of the valley.

Alice returned from the burial in a spirit of resignation, clad in a coat of mail figuratively speaking, strong and riveted in every joint. "What sore need for the upbuilding of character in this degenerate age; when evil is personified; when courage is so sadly needed," said the girl, "I will try ever so hard to be pure in heart."

She joined her father in the verandah for a few moments, and she saw at a glance that the old man was battling with conflicting emotions.

He said at last very disconsolately, as he stroked her golden tresses. "I had hoped my darling child to go to my grave in a green old age, but if it please God to take me and my child I should not murmur. God knows I am drinking the lees from a cup full of bitterness. The reconstructionists say that they are making treason odious and are scouring the land for distinguished examples."

"Let us not despair, dear father" said Alice as she threw her arms around the old man's neck. "You still own dear old Ingleside. Let us sell what we have and flee ere the whirlwind shall overwhelm us with evil, I will work for you father and we may be happy again some day, somewhere. The good Lord will stay the hands of our oppressors but let us not wait for that, let us go hence as quickly as we can."

"You almost unnerve me my dear child with your eloquence and tears, but that will not do. I—I can clean the rust from my old sword and I am sure it will cut as red a swath now as it did in '63. Our Scotch-Irish blood is thicker than water. Never shall it be said by the craven hearted enemy that John Seymour has ever defiled the proud lineage of his people. Let us dismiss these unhappy thoughts and pray at least for our disenthralment."

Monday came and the shadows began to deepen. The patriarchal oaks and elms were still bowing gracefully each to its vis a vis. There was no cook in the old mansion, no stable boy to feed the horses, and old Jupiter like the old sexton among the graves was groping hither and thither abstractedly, perhaps in quest of memories.

Clarissa the old standby had rebelled, rebelled against the sovereignty that had been too indulgent and too patriarchal perhaps; rebelled against a mistress and a master who condoned every failing of her nature; rebelled against a destiny made up of the comforts of life, without its sacrifices.

You will come back home some fair day Clarissa and there will be tears in your eyes, there will be sorrow in your old black heart, and penitence syllabled upon your tongue. You will come back to tell your dear young mistress something of the delusions that made you swerve from interest and duty and you will see the light of forgiveness in the pretty blue eyes of Alice.

The message came as it were wrapped up in cactus leaves. "Tell Miss Alice dat she needn't speck culled ladies is ergwine to mommick up dey sevs no mo, cooking wittles fur de white trash. Ned is ergwine tu git er organ und hosses und kerridge und she wus ergwine tu split de rode rate wide open er cummin und ergwine. He's dun und jined de milintery company und sakes er live dat genmen does hab de butifullist feathers and buttons und muskit tu be sho!" Poor Alice in her heart "felt like one who treads alone, some banquet hall deserted; whose lights had fled, whose garlands dead and all but her departed."

[CHAPTER XI.]

THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW.

Another morning came and there was a cook perseveringly tasking herself with a round of slavish duties in the kitchen; but she did not come from Ned's cabin.

Old Jupiter, the pet hound, looked up into her fair face as if to say, "You will not forget me when breakfast is ready will you?" As quietly as possible she went about; there was no rattling of cups and plates, for the new cook said as she came softly out of her chamber "my dear father must not be disturbed this morning." She went resignedly to her toil. There was a blister or two upon her soft white hands, "but father will kiss the fire out of them when he comes to breakfast; and then we will give thanks to God for His bounty and in our home it may be that we shall be happy."

As her father entered the room, Alice ran to kiss him, observing that she would not ask for a compliment this morning, as it seemed that Clarissa had communicated her mad spirit to all the appurtenances of the kitchen; the fire would not burn and the kettle had gone off upon a rampage, perhaps as Clarissa's carriage would go when driven upon the corduroy roads of reconstruction; and then again she had prodded her hand unnecessarily with the sharp tines of a fork with which she was marking points in the biscuits.

Her father laughed at her little deficiencies as he relaxed his stern old face to kiss her and said to her approvingly "perhaps you will yet be a CHEF in this responsible department my daughter."

Together they sat down to their meal; together their hearts were uplifted unto Him who had made for them such ample provision.

"And now my daughter," said the colonel smilingly as he was leaving the room "what are your prognostications for to-day. Shall we have peace and rest, or surprises and?" he had not concluded the enquiry when a rude knocking came from the hall door. A frown instantly shadowed the veteran's face. The hour for inquisitorial visits or interruptions was unseasonable, "what could it mean?" he queried.

"Is yo name Semo?" asked a ruffianly negro in uniform, as the old soldier opened the door "It is," replied the colonel restraining his wrath.

"Yu is summuns to kote sar forthwid."

"Why such a requisition, will you please explain," demanded the colonel.

"Don't ax fool questions white man; cum rite erlong, dis heer rit bleeges me to tak yu ded er live."

The colonel went to the stable to saddle Nelly and she was gone, Sweetheart was also gone, and so were the other horses.

He came back with the information; the negro laughed savagely in his face, and told him "dat de milintery company was er drillin in de town und he seed his hosses ergwine to de drill-ground wid de sargent und de corprul und de flagman."

The colonel looked into the face of the negro as he asked despairingly: "How am I to obey the order? I have no way of getting to your court."

"You has got ter go ded er live, I'm er gwine to gib yu one hour to git ter kote und den I'm agwine ter fetch yu wid de possum common taters," and the negro gave his horse the whip and cantered away.

Sixty-five years had stiffened the joints of the old man; his muscles and sinews were relaxed and gouty, but the order must be obeyed; no temporizing with the policy of reconstruction, no annulling an order when issued from a court.

The old gentleman halting from sheer weakness ascended the rickety stairway of the court room and he saw the power of the law, its learning, its dignity prostituted to ignoble purposes.

He saw the power of reconstruction, its ignorance, its venality accentuated to a degree that provoked his abhorrence.

He saw as he entered the house the American flag drooping in graceful folds over the bench, and he felt that judicial authority was reinforced by the strength and dominion that overpowered the South.

A stupid negro as black as the hinges of midnight sat upon the judgment seat; sat there as a representative of the law that had for its substantial underpinning in all the bygone ages, honesty, capacity, promptitude, justice; sat there under a commission to checkmate evil.

There were but two white men in this revolting presence, beside the veteran, whose face was now marked by fatigue and despair, and who dropped exhausted upon a rude bench.

They were not there from choice but because the law of the bewildered land had brought them there.

Judge Blackstock's black face looked out of a canopy as of carded wool; beetling eyebrows of snowy whiteness would rise and fall automatically like the crest of a kingfisher; the contour of his face was made ridiculously picturesque by great brass rimmed spectacles that sat reposefully below the bridge of his nose.

A spring tide one day washed him out of a fisherman's hut into the office of a justice of the peace, where he was dipping out of his Dutch nets a larger fry.

The old negro was not vicious or malignant, only ignorant, fanatical and superstitious, with a religious vein that ran in eccentric curves and sharp lines through his stupid nature.

Laflin was his apotheosis, his providence, his inspiration. It was Laflin he believed who had placed in the mid-heavens the great luminary of freedom; who had written upon amaranthine leaves the proclamation of emancipation; and who had erected within his reach the huge commissariat dripping all the while with fatness.

It was to Laflin that he carried his docket every morning to be paragraphed by stars and asterisks against the names of particular offenders; and it was to Laflin that he read the judgments of the court whenever rebels were indicted.

If "Ilderim" the sheik could have seen the old negro with his mace of office presiding in his court he would have recognized his maternal uncle.

The black judge retained his office rather by sufferance than popularity. He was guided by convictions that were illogical and foolish; slavery he believed to have been the whipcords of an offended God with which he smote his chosen people the negroes hip and thigh. This man was one of the judges who was caricaturing reconstruction; inditing as it were a pictorial commentary of the law of crimes and misdemeanors in misfitting cartoons.

"Make de pocklermashun, officer" he said to the negro constable as he placed in his right cheek a huge quid of tobacco.

"Oh yes," shouted the constable "dis kote is open fur de suppreshun ob jestis; walk light."

The judge adjusting his spectacles with a judicial temper, read aloud a warrant. "De state agin Edward Sanders."

"Stand up dar prisner; is yu gilty ob dis high depredashun ob de law ur is yu not gilty?"

"Not guilty," replied Mr. Sanders.

"What maks yu say dat white man?" asked his honor.

"Because I am not in the habit of lying," replied the offended man. "Look a heer white man I aint agwine ter hab no bigity in dis kote," said the judge as he pointed his long bony finger with a savage frown at the prisoner, "yer 'nose dis heer kote is agwin ter mak itsef ojeous und a pine plank scandle und stinch to dem dat goes agin de law. Don't dis heer warrant sezs how dat yu dun und dun dis heer depredashun und now yu ups und sez how dat yu didn't. The jedge ob dis kote aint agwine agin his own affidavy und yu is foun gilty upon de hipsy dixsy ob dis heer warrant."

"But I beg that I may be allowed to introduce witnesses who would prove me innocent," exclaimed the prisoner.

"How in de name ob God is dey gwine to prube yu innercent when de warrant hab dun und foun yu gilty? tell me dat" asked the judge argumentively.

"Do you mean to convict a man in your court who has not been judicially tried," asked Mr. Sanders.

"Say dat ober agin" commanded the judge as he leaned forward using his open hand as a ear trumpet; "dis kote don't comprehen de fassinashun ob de question," and the prisoner repeated the question with emphasis.

"Eggzackly so," exclaimed the judge, "I sees de pint; you is perseeding to put dis kote in contempt wid your obstropuous language; dis kote is gwine to rite its judgment so de boss can read it widout his specks. Hit has heerd de state pro und con und hit has measured out its ekality in golden stillyurds, and upon de hole kase und de aggrawashuns dareof yu is foun one hundred dollars und recognized fur your good behavens fur a year und a day. Officer," he continued addressing the negro, "size up dat white man's pile und tak out er hundred dollars fur de fine fore yu turns him loose."

"Next case" he exclaimed, "dare is dat Betsy Collins agin; er witness fur de state agin Mr. Thomson" he continued deprecatingly, "allus a gittin up a great flustration agin de po house; a runnin to dis kote wid arrant lies lak hit was agwine ter trude itsef on brudder Thomson's feelins."

"What is you doin heer Betsy Collins wid your rad eye a bunged up lak yu had been a salting a yellow jackets nest? I'm agwine to pospond dis kase twell brudder Tompson arrivs in kote und terryegates de complaint."

"De next case am a forsible stenshion kase I'm gwine ter let it go by too."

"Grate King" he exclaimed with an unjudicial gravity, as he bent his spectacled face to peruse a name upon his docket, "dat ar name retches from de Rappydan to de Jeemes rubber; Willyum Abender Dolbery Bowzer Indian Ginrul Mackintosh. Haint dat name dun und fling yo back outen jint? I'm ergwine to split hit rite wide open, und den I'm gwine to wide hit up agin. Mouter node yu wur er wagrant ur a secesh nigger toting dat secesh name und all dem Federick gyarments lak yu wuz de rare eend ob de bellion."

"Whose horg's dat yu bin gitting yo rashuns offer?" the judge asked with a fearful grin, and the negro prisoner was for a moment confused, reassuring himself however he pleaded "not guilty" to the warrant and asked that his case might be continued until his old master could be subponed.

The judge looked toward the prisoner with a scowl as he observed, "What's dat white man's name?"

"Ole Marser's named arter me," the prisoner humbly replied.

"Ugh! Ugh!" said the judge "Dats a sarcumstance agin you. I'm ergwine to put yu whey dere haint ergwine to be no mo sturbance betwixt yu and de horgs. Dis heer jedgment is ergwine to run agin yu twell dat ar horg is fotched into de kote; und hit is ergwine to run in de name of de state."

"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed Joshua excitedly from among the bystanders, "dat dere jedgment ez same ez er surcle in de warter, hit haint got no eend, Grate King! dat secesh nigger hez dun und got hissef shot up forever und all dun and dun, by und twixt him und a piney woods rooter that is dun and woured up fo de bellion fell."

"Dis kote is gwine to rejourn till to morrow mornin. Make de pocklemashun, officer."

As the old negro judge by the aid of his staff was shuffling out of the court house the Colonel was prompted to ask him why he had been rudely taken from his home and brought as a prisoner before him. The old negro looked at the Colonel in a furtive way as he replied irritatingly. "De kote had to bate de trap wid one warmint ter catch anudder one." And thus the mountebanks and harlequins of these outrageous times were compounding dynamite in their laboratories that would ere long explode under their feet.

[CHAPTER XII.]

HOME AGAIN.

Alice felt that in the afflictive dispensations that were from day to day scourging the poor south, that in her own personal trials there was an inscrutable Providence enacting its ordinances, and by and by the "end would justify the means." Great and simple was the faith of this beautiful child of the sunny south, great and simple her faith in the unfailing source of truth, love, and Divine equity. Great was her faith in the possibilities and recuperative power of a country that had been scathed so remorselessly by the great storms of war. She had thrown around her life a great bulkhead of faith, and she could suffer almost uncomplainingly, for there was solace in tears and prayers when her spiritual discernment brought her face to face with Him who said, "I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee."

After the arrest of her father she retired to her chamber for a short communion with her Savior, to whom she had yielded without reserve a heart soon to be cast again into the heated furnace of affliction. She came out of her room to respond to a feeble knock at the back door, and she opened it to admit Clarissa. Alice saw instantly that something had gone wrong with the negro, for there were great tears standing in her liquid eyes and her speech was broken and emotional.

"Miss Alice," she exclaimed, amid her sobs with her black face buried in her apron, "Ole Clarisy is so sorry, deed she is dat she trod on your feelins, but Ned he suaded me clare outen my senses, deed he did Missis, und I declares fore my Maker in heaben, dat when dat fool nigger spaciated erbout dem hosses und kerriges, und horg und horminy pyannys he was agwine ter fetch home, und de silk umbrells und de whoop skeerts und sich lak, I jes drapped back into dat nigger busum und didn't see wun bressed fing but kerriges und hosses er cummin und ergwine; und bress yo sole, Miss Alice, all dat nite long Ned was gwine on bout dem hosses und piany fortes und now und den he wud drap orf to sleep, und den I heerd him hollow to Joshaway 'Git outen de way wid de rones, dese heer clay banks is ergwine to tak dis rode, Glang Shurmans! Glang Laflin!' und fo de Lord wun time dat stractified nigger pearched hissef pon de tip eend ob de bedsted und hilt on to de postes same ez a poll-parrot hollering 'wo! wo! wo!' und him plum fast asleep; und when de fust lite of day cum I heerd him er coaxin ole Saltpeter, dats our ole steer, wid a moufful of fodder, und den he hollered to me to fetch de blue chiss to put de munny in und me und him got into de steer kyart und dat ole Saltpeter jess turned hissef loose down dat rode same as mars Jon's bay filly; but I haint neber seed no munny yet, nor de claybanks nudder; und Ned he lowed how dat de bero man dun an sed dat de man dat was fetchin' de hosses to de souf, hed done und tucked de rong rode, und mout not git heer in time to pitch de crap, but dat he was gwine to cum sho, und I axed Ned ef he pinned his fafe to dat man und de hosses, und day er straying disserway und datterway twixt de norf and de souf und he lowed dat 'nobody cud hit de rite rode all de time kase de bellion hed dun und flung all de rodes outen jint.' Den I ups and sezs,'I nose wun rode dat haint flung outen jint und dis heer foot passenger is agwine to take hit rite back to de grate house;' und heer I is Miss Alice; und den I got er studdin erbout ole Marser und young Missis und it peared lak I was stobbing dem to de hart wid a pitchfork, und I sez to mysef sez I 'Clarisy is yu ergwine ter leave dem po critters in de grate house wid de cussed niggers er pirooting froo de land?' I dun cum back now Miss Alice to slave fur yu und ole Marser twell I die; twell de ark angel stretches out his whings and taks me ter rest in his busum. I know I was a stracted fool when I drapped the kitchen key under de do, but bress your hart Miss Alice dar is sich a flustrashun all ober de land, de niggers lak ragged ruffins ergwine to de town und cummin back agin, er gallipin hosses und er blowin great big horns pine blank lak dam yaller mornin glories, dat I is so pestered dat I don't know de fo eend ob de grate house frum de hind eend." "Is you been in de kitchen dis mornin Miss Alice?"

"Oh yes," replied Alice, "and everything is tidy and clean."

"Is!" ejaculated Clarissa. "Well I'm ergwine in dar und cook ole marsa sum good wittles fur I knows he ergwine ter be most perished when he comes. Po ole marsa; it do pear lak he is suckin sorrow all de bressed time; to be sho dis wurrull is turned rong side outards; ef er ark angel was ter pearch upon de tip eend ef de chimney und see de ruinashun of dis po souf he wud'nt flop his whings but wun time fo he wud be clean outen site, dat he wud'n't."

The coming back of the truant servant was a bright page in the life history of Alice. She had been so sad, so lonely, so forsaken. She had looked into the arching sky and saw nothing there but frowning clouds; she had introspected her poor heart and there was nothing there but the pictures of the dead; she thought of her friends and saw only grinning phantoms. Still sowing the wind and sowing, sowing, came back the echo.

She went into the parlor and seating herself at the piano thrummed its neglected chords, and was ever music or song so enrapturing. Surely an invisible choir supplemented her sweet voice. She arose from the piano and knelt at the little altar to pray for her father, who was at that moment in the hands of these merciless people; who like Huns and Vandals were riding rough shod over the south arresting arbitrarily the aged men whose learning, experience and virtue had illustrated its civilization and given impulse and direction to its grandeur and glory. She was pleading with Him who had permitted his chosen people to be scourged by the lashes of the Egyptian task-masters; pleading not for her life but for another life, that like the wasted candle would flicker a little longer and go out. Alice then went to the kitchen and found Clarissa burnishing the tea service.

"Bress yor hart, young missis," Clarissa said "you allus cums lak a streak o' sunshine. Ef de clouds was a drapping rain all de time I cud see de bressed sun er shinin when yu'se erbout."

"I thank you Clarissa, but I don't deserve your compliments," Alice replied. "I don't feel as if I could cheer any one or make one human heart light or happy. What will they do with father Clarissa?" she continued.

"De good Lord in heaben only knows, missis. Pears lak dey ez wouring dat po man up wid leetle moufuls at de time, and he so innosen too."

"Poor father," she said to herself. "I have been made very strong by a refreshing influence. If you could only place your burdens upon me until I became wearied like yourself, I would be so happy."

At twilight the old man, foot sore and exhausted, tottered into the verandah very much in the spirit of Cataline "nursing wrath and breathing mischief." "How uniform in all ages," he vehemently exclaimed, "are the workings of tyranny; how plausible its pretexts; how detestable its purposes! I have thought of death and felt no fear when I invited him to come and to come quickly; but I beseech the great God now that he will spare me to behold my people rising in their majesty, with a constitutional exercise of their power, to expel these barbarians from the country; to preserve our laws, our peace, our humanity; and to sustain the liberties of the people against the imminent perils to which they stand exposed."

He knew that he was powerless against that oppression that lacked every resource of intellectual vigor; he knew that whatever indignities were offered to person or property were condoned or excused; he knew that the manhood of the South was suffering a social attaint.

He told his daughter as best he could his humiliating experiences with interjections and volleys of wrath; how that when he was confronted by a black savage in the court he was told with fiendish laughter that the officer "had fotched the rong man," "dat de state had no charge agin him, but it mout hab fore he lef de town." Scarcely had the clear sun begun to overlook the trees the next morning when the negro officer again presented himself at the door with a requisition for Mr. Seymour.

"Yu is ordered ter kote ergin," the negro demanded. "The jedge sed how dat he made er mistake yestiddy und sent de rong man ter jail."

"Let me see your warrant," Colonel Seymour sternly asked.

"If yu fetches a witnis I'll read de warrant," the ignorant brute replied.

Clarissa who was dusting the furniture in the hall, overhearing an animated conversation between her old master and the negro officer, peeped out of the door when the negro saw her and commanded her to come to him.

To go or to run, that was the question with Clarissa, but she made a virtue of necessity and timidly obeyed the order.

"Hold up your right hand, yu po nigger trash," the negro exclaimed.

"Oh Lordy, Mr. jedge, what has I dun und dun?" cried Clarissa; "Ergwine to de jail house fur nuffin in dis wurrul, me und ole marsa; und what is ergwine ter cum ob miss Alice?"

"Hole your old mouf, I haint ergwine ter hurt yu. Stand rite dar as de witnis und den you is deescharged," and with that he took from his pocket a dirty yellow paper and began to spell out its contents.

The officer patronizingly remarked to Colonel Seymour as he was seating himself in the buggy, "I can gib yu er ride to de kote ef yu will excep of my sability." The Colonel thanked him, for his gouty joints were rebelling. By a cruel inexorable law of gravitation the old man was sinking from the level of a man to the condition of a slave. Alighting at the court house he was mortified to see a white man and a negro handcuffed together walking in the court room, in the custody of another negro officer. As he walked toward the black judge, a score of brutish negroes cried out "Yander is dat ole secesh, he'e ergwine to git jestis now."

"Fetch Mr. Seymour fore me, sar," commanded the judge; "whar is squire Wiggins und his affidavy?"

"Mr. Seymour, yu is scused of interruptin de squire heer in de joyment ob his social pribileges, and dis kote has found yu gilty. Let dis prisner be found er hundred dollars und ef yu haint got dat much munny handy, de kote will change de jedgment und send yu ter jail."

The Colonel had no difficulty in finding a friend who advanced for him the amount of the fine and he sought the carpet bagger Laflin to ask his protection against future indignities. The name Laflin stank in the nostrils of an outraged people. This free rover of reconstruction was shameless and conscienceless; the marplot of every conservative sentiment conceived for the betterment of the people; a human ogre with but one eye that fixed its stare upon the dollar whether enveloped in a tattered rag or a silken purse. The Colonel saw this man as he was coming out of a low groggery arm in arm with negroes. "Can I speak to you sir?" he replied.

Laflin turned fiercely upon him with the interrogatory.

"Who are you sir, and what is your business?"

"I am Mr. Seymour, and my business is to ask your protection."

"Ah indeed, you are the rebel who has been giving our people so much trouble." the brute replied.

"I am sure you do not wish to annoy an old man who is trying to live peaceably at home."

"Yes. I do sir, and I will hear nothing more from an infamous villain like you."

"My people white and black have my authority to do as they will; to insult and assault rebels and to make reprisals whenever they think proper."

Thus day by day the uncrowned satraps were collecting material for the coming carnival of vice and crime.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

A KNIGHT OF THE WHITE CAMELIA.

At early dawn in the language of the excited servant, "Dere is sich a flustration agwine on outen old misses flower gyarden as I never seed in my born days."

With this exclamation her young mistress was aroused from her slumber by the old negro as she knocked violently at the door of her bed chamber in a state of great perturbation.

"Fur de land sake! Miss Alice if yu wants to see a sho nuff harricane run outen here as peart as yer ken. De stracted niggers big und leetle has finely tuck de plantashun. Oh my sole, de heabens and de yearth has cum togedder!"

Alice rushed to the window and was horrified at the sight before her. She heard a jargon of boisterous defiant noises graduated from inarticulate sounds to higher and varying keys with occasional snatches of a disgusting song in falsetto.

"We de bosses is er gwine to be,
Kase ole Lincum dun set us free,
In de year of Jubilo."

She saw to her disgust and mortification a score or two of negro children romping like cattle through her sainted mother's flower garden. They were plucking the dahlias and roses and other varieties of flowers with ruthless hands, and blowing their petals hither and thither with their vile breath into the air. Such desecration was never dreamed of by Alice and she spoke angrily to the disgusting little vagrants and attempted to drive them from the premises.

"Yer jes shet yer ole mouf, dats what, ole po white trash. Us yung uns haint eben er studdin you. Is us Maria?"

"Dat us aint," pertly responded Maria. "Yers ole po white trash, dats what my farder and my mudder ses you is, and us cullud ladies haint ergwine to mess wid you nary bit und grane. Us is agwine to pull all dese ole flowers und fling em on de groun, und us aint er skert of nary ole skeer-crow lak yer is nudder."

And with these sundry and divers exclamations, Maria and Susan joined hands and danced a break-down upon the flower beds, while the other negro children big and little clapped hands and sang in shrill piping notes another stanza of the song.

"De bellion it is dun und fell,
Und ole Marsa is gon to—well,
In de year of Jubilo."

Alice attempted again to drive them away with her father's cane, when they aligned themselves in positions of attack, and with brick-bats, fragments of slate and glass and other weapons of improvised battle challenged in angry volleys.

"We's jes dars yu to put yer ole foot outen dat do und we'll mash yer hed wid er brick," and with that one of the missiles went crashing through the imported plate glass of the front door, when the wicked vermin scampered away with the warning cry.

"Dey is er cummin, Dey is er cummin, looker dare, looker dare," and hid around chimney corners and among the brick underpinning.

Clarissa had viewed proceedings from the window of the kitchen with as much interest as though it were a battle of real blood and thunder, and running out of a door around a corner where she saw the kinky head of "Sofy Ann" peeping, she seized her by her hair and soused her over head and ears, in a hogshead filled with rain water that stood near the kitchen "Fo Gord!" she exclaimed, "I don't know whedder to drown yer outen out ur to baptize yer hed fomost. I'm gwine to wash offen yer sins ef I nebber duz no mo," and she kept ducking the little nigger until she was "moest drowned sho nuff." "Dar, now, I'm agwine to turn yer loose dis time, yer imp of Satun; jest let me ketch yer wun mo time in ole missis flower garden lak er hoss wid de blind staggers, und yer fokes will hab to sen fur de crowner. Take yersef clean clear outen my site, yer pizened varmint." The little negro, blubbering, spitting, coughing and bellowing, sneaked away toward the office looking back with savage glances, with eyes that stood out like a lobster's.

At this point of time the sound of wheels was heard down the roadway and going to the door Alice saw a lady of uncertain age with a very keen aspect, smartly dressed, alighting from a road cart. As she was approaching the door Alice at once recognized her as the lady who accompanied Mr. Jamieson, the Englishman, to the mansion only a short time before and whom that gentleman had addressed as his niece.

"Will you give me the key to the office, Miss?" she asked pertly addressing Alice.

"Now, dearies," she called to the negro children who had gathered suspiciously around her, "Just go to the schoolroom; I will be with you directly."

"Will you give me the key to the office Miss?" she asked this time with much emphasis.

"Indeed, I have no control over the office, it is my father's, madam, and he has his books and papers in it and doesn't wish them disturbed." "My father is not in the house just now. Perhaps you had better wait until he returns."

"Oh, indeed, miss, I carn't, I am a bit late just now, and I must be prompt, miss, or I shall lose my position. It doesn't matter about your father's books and papers, miss, that is a trifle; I guess I can find a place for the books and papers if you do not choose to remove them yourself. Get a move on you, Miss, if you please, as I remarked, I am a bit late this forenoon."

"I do not wish to give you the key, madam," again replied the girl, "What is your business upon my father's premises unbidden?"

"Ah, indeed, what impudence! Did I ever, I guess you will find out quickly, miss! Will you give me the key miss, or shall I drive home again and report you to Mr. Laflin?" The name Laflin was, figuratively speaking, the burglar's tool that unlocked every door in this populous county. With many wicked thoughts Alice delivered the key to the schoolmistress and with her arms around the necks of two negro girls she trooped off to the office; the door was opened and into the room the mistress and pupils entered.

"Oh, dear, dear, dear! exclaimed the school marm piteously. Whatever shall I do with all this rubbish? Come here, dear gyurls and boys, be a bit lively and remove these disgusting old things. Take them to the lady of the house; I guess she will know what to do with them. We carn't have thes trifles in the school room; no indeed we carn't" and pell-mell, helter skelter, topsy turvey, books, periodicals and papers were thrust out of doors into boxes, barrels, anything, anywhere as if they were so many burglars "taken in the act."

Poor Alice cried and sobbed; but a new regime was fast crowding out the memory of the olden days, it was the welding of an intermediate link between the waning and the waxing—the disappearing and the appearing civilizations.

"Now, dear gyurls and boys," said the mistress. "Take your seats. I guess we will begin. Charlie, come here, dear. You are a sweet little boy and I guess your mamma thinks so, too. How old are you, dear?"

"Seben, agwine in leben," answered the little black urchin quickly.

"Who made you, Charlie?"

"Who made me?" repeated the little negro saucily.

"Yes, who made you?"

"Oh I dunno, dat dere boy dere sez ole satan made me und him too."

"Oh, the precious little heathen," exclaimed the school marm, discouragingly, "Did you ever hear of God?" she asked again.

"Yes mum, I dun und seed him wun time, when me und Jake wus a rabbit huntin."

"Oh dear, dear, dear! Where did you see God? And what was he like?" she asked.

"Seed him down de crick," answered the negro smartly.

"What was he like?"

"What wus he lak?" echoed Charlie, digging into his pockets with both hands and standing upon one barefoot. "Lak a jacker lantern cum outen de groun."

"What became of him?" asked the lady.

"What cum of him?" asked Charlie "He flewed clean erway," answered Charlie as smartly as before.

"Oh my dear, dear, child, what is to become of you!" she exclaimed disparagingly. "Susan, come here, my pretty gyurl," called the lady. "Oh! how pretty are your sparkling jetty eyes," she exclaimed as she turned up the little negro's face to kiss her. "Now dear, how old are you?"

"Me!" asked the girl, "I's furteen gwine in foteen."

"And now tell me who made you?"

"Who made me!" echoed the child. "Oh, I fort yu axed dat ar boy who made him," she answered with a broad smile.

"So I did; now I wish to know who made you?"

"I aint no kin to dat ar boy, kase his daddy aint got but wun eye und my daddy has got too eyes."

"Who made you, child?"

"Ho, I furgot," replied Susan "Gord made me."

"That is correct," answered the teacher, "Now what did God make you out of?"

"Outen?" again replied Susan, "Oh, outen lasses candy. My mudder says kase I's so sweet."

"Dear, dear, dear, shall I give entirely up?" exclaimed the discomfited lady. "Shall I try again? yes, perhaps I shall find a little leaven directly." "Come here Willie; I can see from your bright face that you are a smart little boy. Now tell me did you ever hear of the rebellion?"

"Belliun?" echoed Willie as he thrust his fingers into his mouth and out again with a pop that made the children titter. "Neber heerd ob nuffin else epseps de belliun."

"What is a traitor, dear boy?"

"Tater?" "What sort er tater, sweet tator ur Orish tater?" enquired Willie.

"Perhaps I may teach the little heathen to understand," said the school marm, suggestively. "Willie," she asked "What do you call that gentleman who lives in that fine house over the way?"

"Calls him!" again repeated Willie, "I calls him po white trash; what dos yer call him?"

"Oh dear, dear, dear," screamed the teacher utterly bewildered. One more time she exclaimed "James, come here," and another little negro as black as tar with one eye closed by a great knot upon it came forward. "What is the matter, James, with your face?"

"Umph!" grunted James, "Specks if yer seed whar I been you'd know 'dout axin. Dat ar boy has been scrougin me lak I wus a trabball."

"James, if you are a bad boy do you know where you will go when you die?" asked the lady.

"Umph," exclaimed James, "I haint eben a studdin erbout which erway I'm a gwine arter I die. I'm studdin which erway I'm ergwine arter I git outen dat ar do. See dat ar boy a shaking he hed?" "He sez how dat ef I cum by his mudders house agwine to my mudders house he's agwine to scrouge me sum mo, und I'm skeert to go tuther way."

"One other question" (half aside), "James, if you live to be a man what are you going to do for a living?"

"Gwine to do?" said James, "I'm agwine to be a lyer, so I kin set in de kote house und sass de jedge." And thus the farce went on day after day under the shadow of Ingleside.

Clarissa caught a depredating urchin trying to stand upon his head in a half-filled barrel of crushed sugar in the pantry and said to herself "You stays dar twell I get me er plank," and creeping like a cat back again, and taking a fresh purchase on the board, she came down upon "de middle ships of dat dar ar yungun lak er buzzum of struction; pend upon it, Miss Alice, dat ar niggar is er flying twill yit wid sweetnin nuff to last twell de July flies cum agin."

"This nest of dirt-daubers," as Colonel Seymour fitly described the school, became a nuisance that must be abated by hook or crook. The law was nothing more than a great stalking shadow. "If I could only secure the services of Jake Flowers the regulator, thought the old man, "he and I shall be a law unto ourselves."

This was the man whom Colonel Seymour desired as his file leader upon the drill ground when the stalking shadow of the law failed to keep time to the music, a law unto himself, whose forum should be "thar or tharabouts" on the Ingleside plantation.

Jake Flowers the regulator had violated a law of the Sabbath by working out some devilish invention, which, he observed with satisfaction, to his wife, would keep the coroner sitting upon corpses until "the craps were smartly out of the grass." The regulator stood in the open door, looking out upon the great sheets of water that were falling from the clouds. As he stood in his muddy boots, with both hands deep down into his pockets, his carrotty hair in great shocks standing out of a crownless hat as if an electric current had just passed through it, he was picturesque in the extreme.

"Sally Ann!" he exclaimed "I am thinking."

"Well, think agen," Sally Ann answered tartly, "That mout fetch back old Nance and the biddies." Sally Ann had been pouting ever since Jake went to jail for the loss of her setting hen and the chicks.

"You haint got no call to go back on me, on the occasion of the old hen and the nigger," said Jake seriously. "Hit wus providence or hit wus the guvement, and twixt the two they has got a mighty prejudy agen a poor man; when hit comes ter shullikin and pilferen they is hard to hender. Weuns haint no more than dandy-lions in the path of the harrycane; leastwise weuns kaint hit back.

"Nor hit haint providence; nor hit haint the guvement, nor hit haint prejudy," Sally Ann replied angrily "Hit are pine blank cussedness. Some folks is onnery Jake, and it is like the swamp-ager, hit is powerful raging when the crap is knee-deep in the grass. I shouldn't wonder nary bit and grain if Andy's crap aint in the yallers same as ourn." This was said very provokingly, and Jake felt the sting of the reproof.

"Jeminy-cracky!" he exclaimed in a passion, "Harkee Sally, hit is tit fur tat; be ye a pinin fur another fellow?"

"Why I guess maybe—I reckon—I mout assist yu'uns, leastwise I haint a going to stand in yu'unsway." The regulator looked down as by accident into the cradle: there was the sleeping babe, the pledge of a love that had been hedged in all these days by privations, and his heart went out toward his wife with the old time affection.

"Naw Sally Ann" he exclaimed with a husky voice, "Weuns kaint part when there is no one to come betwixt us; weuns kaint say good-bye twell yuuns is on yon side of the river."

The roses had faded out of the cheek of his wife, but there was the old-fashioned sparkle in her eye; there was the old time love in her heart, crossed sometimes by the perverse nature of her lord and master.

"Haint you made your will Jake?" asked Sally-Ann half seriously.

"Naw is you skeert honey?"

"Andy has done and made hissen and fetched it over here to read last Sunday when you wus gone to the mash and hit read like scriptur."

Jake had been envious of Andy Vose for some time. When the need of the country for men good and true had been most urgent, Vose had deserted to the ranks of the enemy, and now he counted his flocks and herds by the score. Jake was also jealous of the attentions the scalawag was from time to time showing his young wife; these visits occurred most frequently in the absence of the regulator, and these intrusions as he felt they were, gave him alarm. After reflection, Jake concealing his suspicions remarked with apparent unconcern, "Read like scriptur, I'll be dorg gone!" "I haint got no call to make a will like Andy, honey. De nigger officer levelled on old Nance and the biddies, and the live stock has run plum out epsepting the babe and it is yourn any way honey."

This man was a terror to the freedmen. They had a tradition among themselves that the very last seen of the regulator until after the war was over was his ascension in a cloud of fire and smoke into "de elements" holding fast to a dead negro. Jake said that this was "pintedly" true, but that he came down again as his captain was going up who told him when he had fairly lit to "charge bagonets." In the language of the plains this Jake Flowers was an "eye opener." His personal attractions he said had been spoilt by the blamed war. I am not sure that the name of Jake Flowers appears upon the bloody roster of battles lost and won; but for his doings at the Crater fight, so Jake has observed, historians would have reversed the incidents of that bloody day.

He claimed always to be the "Survival of the Fittest" and with the blind faith of the Moslem he believed that there was a "Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may."

His favorite posture whenever animated was as follows; he would sit with his right leg crossed over his left, gently swaying his foot, with his bearded chin resting reposefully in the palm of his hand, with the fore and middle finger forming the letter V and pressed to his lips; through which he would now and then expectorate; the man was also spavined in the right knee joint that caused him to walk like a sailor on his "sea legs." Like other men he had his delusions and whether good or evil, they were the rule of action of his life. Jake was the reinforcement vehemently demanded in this conjuncture. "With the regulator armed and equipped, the enemy will flee without taking order as to its line of march," thought the old man.

"I am utterly bewildered; can you help me Mr. Flowers to drive these vermin from my home?" he asked the regulator.

"Wall, now," drawled the regulator, "I reckon I mout ef I am not pestered ur nuthing; which eend do yer expect me to take holt of?"

Jake gave an extra motion to his spavined leg and looked up quizzically into the rigid face of the old man.

"Clean them out sir, root and branch, if you will, sir!" exclaimed the Colonel.

"Prezactly so," ejaculated the regulator, "Prezactly so," he reiterated. "Does yer mean it pine blank, mister?" he again asked.

"Yes, yes, emphatically I do," responded Colonel Seymour.

"Drat my buttons if the thing haint done and did!" the regulator answered with emphasis and taking his leave observed, "I'll see you later, mister."

"If I kin regulate this kentry as it had orter to be did, there wont be a biggerty nigger twixt here and Filadelfy," and he passed into a little copse of woods that skirted his own humble domain.

The autumn days had come—Nature was preparing a more elaborate toilet in her great boudoir—replenishing her exhausted stock of aromatics to besprinkle the fields and forests, the glades and the hills; painting the leaves with irridescent tints and even the sky with a mellow, refreshing beauty; and in this excess of toil. Alice saw the handiwork of Him who holds in the palm of His hand this great sphere.

She looked upward to the twinkling stars and it seemed to her as if God had relumed the heavens with a brightly diffused glow of love. God the Creator and man the creature—the Sovereign and the rebel, brought into apposition with each other through the supernal harmonies of His universal realm.

But the child was sad this beautiful October night. The birds were nodding quietly in the old rookery; there was no music in the air, for the winds under a coverlid of emerald and amber and carmine had gone fast to sleep in the trees, and the tintinnabulation of the little bells in the meadows had ceased altogether.

"If I could whisper to the stars what I would like to have them know of my unhappy life they would sympathize and perhaps they would whisper back.

"Poor forlorn child! How we pity you!"

"Tomorrow," she said reflectively, "I shall be twenty-four years of age, and oh, how all encompassing has been the evil. Every picture that glides athwart my heart is broken: every idol that I have fondly loved is nothing more than an effigy. Delusions follow delusions; what is life but a burden? If we look forward there are demons: if we look backward there are coffins."

The poor wearied girl, sad and without hope, fell asleep in her mother's chair as softly as if the angels were rocking the dear old chair and singing the old nursery lullabies; they must have kissed her heavy eyelids down; so profound, so tranquil was her slumber.

When she awoke the little birds were singing as cheerily all around her in the magnolias and oaks as if their little tongues were touched with the spirit of her happy dreams.

The cloud that overcast her face was gone and she went into the kitchen where Clarissa was absorbed in her duties.

Clarissa exclaimed as she entered the kitchen, "Miss Alice, whar in de name ob commun sense has yer been all dis time? Here I's been a cummun and ergwine, a ransackin dis house high and low fur yer. Didn't yer heer me callin yer, missis? I spishuned yar wus in ole marser's room fast asleep."

Alice was obliged to confess, a little shamefacedly, that she had fallen asleep in the little alcove in the verandah and had slept so soundly that she heard no noises until awakened by the twittering of the birds in the over-arching bower.

"Sakes alive, missis," exclaimed Clarissa "sum ob dese nites a grate big snake is ergwine to drap rate down into yer lap und sting yer moest to def. How dos yer feel missis arter dis toxication?" the negress asked solicitously.

"Quite well, I thank you, Clarissa, my sleep was ever so refreshing," replied Alice smilingly.

"What does yer fink dem pizened yung warmints dud and dun yestiddy? Yu knowed ole Bob Sal, dat ar ole fafeful mousin cat of ourn? Whar yer fink I foun dat po ole cat, missis?"

"I am sure I do not know, Clarissa, I hope the negroes have not hurt him," answered Alice.

"Deed they has too! Drowned to def in de hogshead, wid a brick tied erround him. Dey is de outdaciousest yunguns I ebber seed in my born days. Dere haint no telling what dey has dun und gon und dun to dis heer plantashun, dat dey aint!"

"I am sorry," exclaimed Alice, "Is the cat quite dead, Clarissa?" she asked.

"Ded!" exclaimed Clarissa, "Sakes alive, ef yer wus to see him yer wud fink dat he had been ded all his life, dat yer wud. Has yer seen ole Jube?" Clarissa continued.

"Yes, he is in the verandah," Alice replied.

"Ugh, Ugh! Glad ob dat. Fust fing Jube knows he'll be hobblin er round on two legs ef he aint kilt rite ded. De outdacious niggers! I wushes dey wus run outen de lan."

Clarissa heard ole Jube bark, and looking out of the kitchen window she saw the regulator shuffling along in his slip-shod way with an old haversack slung over his shoulder coming toward the front verandah and observed with some perturbation.

"Miss Alice, dos yer know de truf. I'm pintedly skeered ob dat speckled face white man. He luks pine blank lak de kommisary ob de debbill hissef. He aint arter no good on dis heer plantashun. De fust fing enybody knows dere is ergwine to be de biggest flustrashun on dis lan yer ever heerd in yer born days und nobody is agwine to know de heds nur tails ov it. Look at dat ar wun eye of his'n farely blazin lak a log-heep in de new ground in de nite time," and Clarissa shuddered as if the clutch of the "kommisary" was already upon her.

"I have heard very strange stories about the man" said Alice very solemnly, as if humoring the ignorant old woman's apprehensions.

"Deed I has too," she replied, "Und if dey is kerrect dat ar creetur haint no human no how," and Clarissa shuddered again even more violently; "Hit natally makes my flesh creep lak santipedes," she exclaimed with fear. "Haint yu dun und heerd how dat Koo-kluck mommucked up brudder Joshaway, Miss Alice?" asked Clarissa. "'Grate King!' How in de name of de hebbens dat ole nigger ever retched dry lan eny mo wid all dat skeer 'pon him, I haint never skivered. He lowed how dat hit wur provedense, but den twixt me and yu Miss Alice und not to go no fudder, Joshaway is allus ergwine wun way und provedense de tuther. Yander he cums now lak wun of dem ole cranksided rare hosses, und I'm ergwine to fetch him sum wittles rite fo yo eyes und den yu mout ax him fur yosesef."

Joshua came up quite feebly, swathing his black face with his red handkerchief and bowed humbly to his former mistress.

"Now yu mout ax him, Miss Alice, arter he wours up dat last moufful, and I lay hit will fetch de creeps ober yu same as de mash ager."

The old negro seemed very grateful for the appetizing food and in a heartfelt way thanked Alice over and over again.

"Mout I sing er Mishinary hime, yung missis?" he asked deferentially after he had eaten the last morsel.

"Yes, indeed," replied Alice "I will be delighted to hear you." And he sang very plaintively:

"Oh Kanyun, sweet Kanyun when shall I see,
When shall I git dere?"

After he had concluded the song the young lady asked sympathetically,

"I am told that you had quite an unhappy experience at the creek a few nights ago Uncle Joshua? Can you tell me about it?" Joshua groaned and then answered with a display of feeling.

"Twas wusser dan er sperience, yung missis," as he wiped the perspiration from his face, "twas een wusser dan er yuthshake. Grate Jarryko! 'twas een mo wusser dan de war."

"Ugh! Ugh! I tole yu so!" ejaculated Clarissa.

"But den," continued the old negro "Hit mouter been een wusser ef provedense hadn't pinted dese heer foots to de hilands."

"Grate King!" again exclaimed Clarissa; "How cum yu flounderin erbout in dat dere cole warter dat time of nite, brudder Joshaway?"

"How come I dare?" he replied. "Haint yu heerd ob dem evul sperrets in de Scriptur dat de sliding elder calls de leepers? Well den, dat's how cum I dare. How cum de koo kluck dare? How cum de drownded nigger dare? Yu sees, missis, dis heer bellyun haint made mishunarys und possells outen evybody. Dare's de Mefferdises und de harryticks und de Hardsides, und when dey's all flung togedder in a loblolly, wid dare grace und dare fafe und dare speriences, dat's de werry bestest time dese leepers has fur dare Crismus, er probin disserway und datterway, kase dem dare leepers dey spishuns dat whay dare is sich a mixtry ob de lams ob de flock dare's bleeged ter be now und den er harrytick; dey sees sum ob de lams er runnin wid grace und tuther wuns er graplin onter provedense, und den ergin tuther wuns er seein wishuns in de day time, und dem leepers mout ez soon git tangled up wid er Mishunary ez er harrytick er Hardside; und dat's how I cum ter git kotched. Don't you see missis?"

"Were you thrown into the water by some evil-designing person, Uncle Joshua?" asked Alice with a natural inquisitiveness.

Joshua groaned again; "Ugh-h-h-h!" he shuddered.

"Haint yu ergwine ter tell her de fust und last ob it' Joshaway?" asked Clarissa, impatiently.

"Ef I hed one leetle moufful o' backer hit mout tak de ambishun outen de tale, und den I mout tell hit mo strater. Haint yu got narry crumb missis, dat I mout fling ergin dis ole akefied snag? Dare now; dis backer is sho good! Now den, Sis Clarsy, ef yu ceeses yo mirashuns I'm ergwine ter tell young missis how it all cum erbout frum de werry fust mencement ter de latter eend."

"Grate Jarryko! hit puts dese here fousan-leg santypedes er rastlin under my westcote when I draps back to dat ar casuality. Ugh-h-h-h!" he shuddered again. "Now den, de tale goes disserway: Dare cum erlong by my house in de shank of de nite dis yer furriger. I calls him a furriger, but I spishuns his rite name is Koo-kluck (I'm monstrous skeert o' dat white man ennyhow)—"

"Ugh-h-h-h!" shuddered Clarissa.

"Und he ups und sez, sez he, 'Joshaway, a woice is ergwine ter cum arter erwhile to yo house, und don't yu go ergin it, und den I'd no whey de munny is.' Dem wuz de werry wurds he spoke, missis, bress yo life. Und den I ups und sez, sez I, How's I ergwine ter tell dat woice frum de tuther wuns? Kase dare is de hoppergrasses und de cattle beastes er woicin simultaneous all de time eroun my house; und den he sez, sez he, 'Hits er cummin frum de hellyments.' Jes so. Well den, sho nuff de woice did cum dat werry nite, pine plank jess lak he sed fur de wurrel, und hit wur er mity solumkolly woice, same ez de whinkering ob Mars Jon's wun-eyed mule down in de mash in de snow wen de fodder is all gin out. Hit called 'Joshaway! Joshaway!' jess lak dat, und Hanner she heerd it, (peers lak she's allus studdin erbout dem rone hosses und de munny, when her mind ain't er runnin on de sliden elder und de love feast down at Filadelfy meetin house), und she ups und sez, sez she, 'Joshaway, is yu gwine? Yu mout git de munny und den ergin yu moutn't.' But I seed dat her mouts wuz mo stronger dan her moutn'ts, und I drug de ole happysack outen de bofat, und den I sez, sez I, yes, I'm ergwine. Und bimeby I gits ter de crick. Well, de moon hit wur rite over yander under de seben storrs und peered lake hit wur er larfin und er larfin ter itsef wid er mouf dat retched frum yur to yur und wun eye shot rite tite.

"Dare wuz de line tide ter de willer tree sho nuff, jess lak hit sed, und hit peered lak hit were er tusselin wid a mity ambishun wid de drownded happysack, er shassain disserway und den ergin datterway, lak yu seed wun o' dese cow-eetch wines fo now er raslin in a mill race; und I sez to mysef, sez I, Joshaway, yu's got a sho nuff bite dis time, und hit haint er catfish nudder, nur hit aint er allynipper."

"Oh, my hebbens!" again vociferated Clarissa.

"Und den I drug und drug und drug, und bimeby I seed dat fish's two eyes. Ugh-h-h-h! Und den I drapped back into de crick drownded to def. Ugh-h-h-h!"

"Grate King," shouted Clarissa. "Wuz yu sho nuff drounded to def, brudder Joshaway?"

"Und den when I seed dat niggers too eyes of hissen und—ugh-h-h-h!"

"Hung to de hook!" shrieked Clarissa interrogatively.

"To be sho, to be sho," replied Joshua with irritation; "Duz yu spishun hit wur hung to de gallus? Und ez I drapped missis, ez I drapped," he continued, "I flung out dese too hands jess so missis, und kotched holt of er nudder nigger drounded to def by er sarcumstance dat haint neber been skivvered."

"Und den yer cum too ergin?" queried Clarissa shaking with excitement.

"Naw chile," Joshua answered with gravity, "I haint neber cum too no mo, dat I haint."

Jake had another delusion—that to do your work without makin mistakes "yer must obsarve the consequences."

The old Colonel after he had finished his toilet walked out into the verandah where he observed Jake ambling toward the house and singing in a monotone an old army doggerel of questionable merit,

"He who fights and runs away,
Will live to fight another day,
But he who is in battle slain:
Will never live to fight again."

The regulator walked up the stone steps into the verandah with a leer in his countenance, satan-like in its expression.

Old Jube slunk away with a sidelong glance at the regulator as if he quite agreed with Clarissa that "He wus not a humans, nohow," and coiled himself up for the nap that had been needlessly interrupted at the other end of the verandah.

"Now then sir, how do you propose to proceed in this business?"

"I aint er going to proceed, the percession cums at the latter eend. Now yer just hold yer breath, mister, twill I fix my curlecules, and then you can crack your whip and the percession will start to the cemetery with music by the band."

The regulator filled a doubled barrel army canteen full of gunpowder, and attached to it a fuse that would burn half an hour before exploding. After doing this he said to the Colonel,

"When yer sees the Yankee school-marm er coming just call off the cussed niggers, twill I can plant hit."

Colonel Seymour drew from his pocket a dozen or more pennies as he caught sight of the school marm riding down the road in her dogcart.

"Here, ye varmints!" he cried, and he threw one piece of money at the time in the grass and the negroes scrambled for it like a flock of geese over scattered grains of corn.

Simultaneously with the stroke of the old-fashioned clock, came an explosion that recalled the Crater with all its horrors to the regulator.

Clarissa ran out of the kitchen screaming, "Murder! Fire! the Yankees is er comin. Great king, mars Jon, de ruf and de chimney on de offis is dun blowed clean erway. In de name of Gord, what wus dat, ole marsa? Grate Jerusalam! which er way did dat harrykin cum from? De road is fairly er workin wid yung niggers widdout arms or legs ergwine er bellering every which erway. Fo Gord, de last time I seed dat er Yankee wumun she wus er flying fru de medder lak er white herrun!"

After the smoke of battle had cleared the regulator sneaked up to the Colonel with a broad grin upon his face with the enquiry, "Did I do that er job kerrect, mister?"

I'm ergwine back lak dat prodigle man dat et up dem corn cobs way out yander to de tuther eend o' de yearth.

[CHAPTER XIV.]

THE OATH OF FEALTY.

Since the death of Mrs. Seymour the negroes had been busily plying their offensive vocation filling to the very brim the vat of vicious fermentation. The air at night was laden with ribaldry and the sounds of guns. The old master's labors were greatly multiplied too, since the negroes were all the while in some exasperating way or other celebrating the "Emancipation Proclamation," the dawn of freedom. Their presence had become a serious menace, an ever recurring cause of alarm. His resources, too, were almost gone—the cattle had been slaughtered in the range, the horses appropriated and returned when convenient, and he dared not ask why this spoliation of his property.

Ned would occasionally announce his arrival upon the plantation by furious blasts from a great cracked horn. He would be dressed from head to foot in a blue uniform with bright brass buttons and yellow cords upon the revers and sleeves of his jacket, and a coarse slouched hat with crossed swords in front, a huge yellow cord with tassels around the crown, and it surmounted by a peacock's feather. The old master saw with disgust the foolish negro from the verandah, marching up and down the carriage way with his bright musket, going through the manual of arms, "Sport Harms! Horder arms! Charge bagonets!" Aleck and Ephraim and Henry were dressed in the same fashion and going through the same evolutions on another part of the plantation. Now and then a discharge from the guns accompanied by demoniacal yells would frighten poor Alice almost to death. In the dead hours of night these brutal negroes to terrify her and her father would drill in the front yard of Ingleside with vulgar and boisterous commands, and before breaking ranks they would discharge their muskets with horrifying screams—"Jess immitatin de brav sojer boys at Fort Piller," they said. Ingleside was virtually a camp of military instruction!

"Clarissa," Alice exclaimed, "we must go away from here. We will be murdered if we do not get away from these horrid negroes, I shall die with fright if I remain here any longer. They can come at any hour of the day or night and kill us. Father is old and feeble and cannot protect me, and you know, Clarissa, I cannot protect him. Please go to him and tell him we must get away this very day."

"Bress yo deer life, Miss Alice, ef yu seed how dis po ole heart was a flip flappin, fust peert und den slow, lak a yaller hammer beatin ergen er dedded gum, fust on wun side und den on de tuther, yu'd say ter yosef, 'po Clarsy!' Fo de Lawd, I'm skeert mo wusser dan yu is, und ef dis heer flustrashun is ergwine on much fudder de Lawd is gwine ter rane down fire und brimstone on dese niggers lak he dun on dem Mallyskites, und I specks er grate big hunk is ergwine to hit Ned und Joshaway too, rite slam twixt de eyeballs. Dem dare niggers, jamby granddaddies of Methuserlum, lookin lak hants in all dem fethers and brass buttons, er heppin all ober de taters und de korn und de cotton, und bress de Lawd, ef I must tell de truf, dey is as perished up ez a mash hen er settin on turkle eggs. Yu needn't larf lak dat, Miss Alice; de Lawd is gwine ter show dese niggers whos er totin de biggest strane, und when he sez de wurd, dey's ergwine ter be dedder dan last yur's gode wines, und—"

"Perhaps, Clarissa," interrupted Alice, "these troublous times are but mercies in disguise?"

"Oh, my King!" ejaculated Clarissa in alarm, "Murder's gwine ter rise, yu sez? Oh, my hebbens! Is yu aiming fur dem kallamities tu cum immegiate, missis?"

Alice laughed away the old negress' fears and replied in explanation:

"I said they were mercies—mercies in disguise."

"Dat is mo better, Miss Alice," observed Clarissa, slightly mollified. "Kase I knoed ef dat tuther fing wuz ergwine ter hap'n, me und yu und ole marser mout git kilt fo enybody but de niggers spishuned er resurreckshun. Ole Clarsy's skin is powerful black missis, und dis kinky hed is pided lak dat ole wether's in de medder, but I'm ergwine ter stan by yu und ole marser twell de eend, und when Ole Marser up yander sez de word, I'm ergwine ter ax yu ter berry Clarsy at ole missis' feet; und den ef she heers de trumpet fust she'll call Clarsy, und ef I heers it fust I'm ergwine ter call her, und den me und her will jine hans und fly erway ter glory."

The pathos of this affectionate speech brought tears to the eyes of her young mistress, and the thought came out of her great sympathetic nature:

"Reconstruction so far has been a great smelting furnace—it has separated the pure from the impure, and with its refining heat has grappled with hooks of steel the hearts of mistress and servant. Would that I could dictate a fitting eulogium for the faithful negroes; for those who are groping still amid the shadows of an epoch that seems obedient to no law but of caprice and change."

If I get to Heaven, Clarissa will be at the portal with some such expression upon her tongue as this: "Bress yer hart, missis, I've been waitin right here fur yer ever since I heard yer wus er cummin. Come wid me, young missis, und let me show yer dis beautifullest city in de hole wurrel."

"Sixty days within which to prove your loyalty!" "Sixty days" were coming upon tireless pinions. Are the mills of the gods still grinding? Is there yet water in the flume to run the heavy wheel? Is there still grist to feed the stones?

"To prove your loyalty" ran the judgment. What badinage to toss into the face of a man who had braved death upon a hundred battle-fields and all for "loyalty!" He had proved it by great scarifications that would have appalled every carpet-bagger in the South. Loyalty is the counterpart of honor—the collaborator with duty, and the old soldier for sixty five years had maintained and performed his part in his particular sphere of life; yea out of the crucible of hell he had rescued his loyalty—his character as pure as the untrodden snow.

Another sunrise shoots its gleams into the cribbed heart of Old Ingleside, and Clarissa has not returned to prepare breakfast; what can be the matter? "Perhaps she is unwell. I am sure she cannot be faithless," argued Alice with herself. "I will go and see." As she entered the door of the cabin she saw Ned rolling and tossing upon the bed in wild delirium and she asked Clarissa what was the matter with her husband.

"Don't know, Miss Alice," replied Clarissa, "epseps he is tuck wurser wid wun ob dem bad spells agin; dey is cummin und agwine ebery now and den, und he gits rite foolish und komikell."

Alice drew her chair closely to the bedside and felt of the old negro's head and it was very hot; she felt his pulse and it was beating like a triphammer. He was groaning, too, as if in great pain, crying out in delirium occasionally "Charge bagonet! Sport harms! hep! hep! hep!" as if drilling and going through the manual of the soldier. Alice saw that something must be done and very quickly, and she said to Clarissa.

"I will run for the doctor."

"Lor, missis, yer a gwine a trapesing away over yander fur de doctur by your lone lorn sef? I specks hits er mile ur too ef its ary step."

Within an hour the physician was at the bedside of the sick negro, diagnosing the case and prescribing medicine.

"He is not in immediate danger," observed the physician to Alice, "But he must be watched."

"I want to put him under your care and whatever your charge may be I will pay it."

"Thank you, miss," replied the physician with a smile. "I will see that he does not suffer for the want of medical treatment. By the way, how is your father's health now, Miss Alice?" he asked.

"I think I can see that he is failing, sir," the girl replied sadly.

"I presume he, like every body else, is greatly annoyed by the freedmen."

"Yes, a few of them have given us trouble," she replied.

"Perhaps I shall see you again to-morrow. You will find that the negro will rest very well after his fever abates a little," and the doctor, shaking Alice's hand cordially, bade her good morning.

"Now Clarissa," Alice said after the doctor had gone, "You run over home and prepare breakfast for father, and I will watch by Uncle Ned until you get back.

"Miss Alice," exclaimed Clarissa "sposin dat kommykle nigger gits outen bed what is yer agwine to do den?"

The old negro's expression was so ludicrous that Alice was obliged to laugh as she observed, "I will take care of him; never mind. If he gets out of the bed I will get him back again."

"Und him a plum stracted idjeot?" ejaculated Clarissa as she passed out of the door.

Alice pursuing the directions of the physician, brought from the spring near by a bucket of very cold water and sat down again at the bedside and very gently, soothingly, bathed the old negro's face and brow. The fever was abating, still the deft fingers dripping with the water pressed the fevered face. Once Ned partially aroused exclaimed deliriously,

"I'se a woting ebery time fur de boss, who's yer a woting fur, Joshaway?"

After quite awhile Ned awoke, at first a little abstracted and asked.

"Is dat yer, Clarsy, wid dem dar shiny eyes?" and again dropped into a restful slumber.

This time there were no exacerbations, no delirium, but he slept as tranquilly as a little child. The fever had passed away. He awoke and saw the dear child whom he had so brutally wronged sitting like a guardian angel by the bed; her white hands cool and refreshing still pressing his forehead, and the old negro covered his wrinkled face with his skinny hands and wept. Wept from a sense of shame, remorse. He remembered that when her need was sorest he had acted the brute—turned his back upon this poor child who with a full knowledge of his manifold acts of cruelty and injustice was nursing him back to life.

"Is dat yer, Miss Alice?" he asked through his blinding tears. "Gord bress yer dear sweet life, young misses, I fort yer wus ur angel. I didn't fink dat my young misses dat I left ober yander in de grate house by her lone sef, to fend fur hersef und de ole marsa, wud do dis urren ob mussy fur a po' outcast nigger lak ole Ned." And the old negro began to cry afresh.

"Don't cry, Uncle Ned, the good Lord commands us to visit the sick and I am trying to do my duty toward Him and toward you. You are so much better now; don't worry and cry over me. The Lord is chastening us, but it is all for His glory, Uncle Ned."

"When I woke fust time, missis, I didn't know whar I wus," he continued, wiping his eyes, "und den I drapped back to sleep agin und it peared lak de butifullest sperits huvered all erround de bed, and wun ob dem mo butifuller dan tother wuns crep rite easy lak und put her hand on my forhed und I heerd tother wuns call her 'Alice,' und I spishuned it mouter been yer, I knowed it wus yer. Does yer know why dis ole nigger cried jess now, missis?" "Taint my fault dat I turned agin yer und ole marsa—de Lord in Hebben knows it aint. Ef I had minded Clarsy, yer und ole marsa wudn't faulted me no how. I wudn't hurt a har on yer hed for a wurrell ful of freedum—dat I wudn't. De dratted niggers tole me how dat I mout be biggety und play boss-lak, und den I wud git to be leftenant und den I mout be cappen ob de miluntary cump'ny, und wear grate big gold upperlips lak de boss, und ef I wus agwine to die dis minit I clares on my solemnkolly ofe dat dem dare biggity white fokses in de town is de meanest passel ob humans in de yurth. Dey is worsern jack-lanterns 'ticin' de culled fokses furder und furder into misery. Missis, ef yer und ole marser will oberlook dese here transgrashuns I'll nebber, nebber gin yer no mo sorrer, dat I won't."

"Uncle Ned," replied Alice with her beautiful eyes radiant through tears, "from the bottom of my heart I forgive you if you have ever given offense to my father or to me. I think I can see that great good is to come out of it all. Don't you know how the children of Israel suffered in Egypt, and in their journeyings through the desert land, when the dry parched lands yielded no corn and the Lord fed his people and led them safely into Canaan?"

"Yes, marm, dat I duz, und He is ergwine ter leed us outen dese lowgrounds, too, missis, und ef He doan do dat I knows whut He is ergwine ter do—He is ergwine ter dribe dese Filistin men outen dis kentry wid a storm ob yaller jackets lak He drib Farro outen de lan ob de Mallyskites."

Clarissa having performed her work in the great house came into the cabin at this moment and was greatly surprised to find Ned in an animated conversation with her mistress: Ned observing as her footfall arrested his attention:

"Dar now, Clarsy, yer is dun und gone und fotched us down agin."

"Fotched yer whar, Ned," exclaimed Clarissa in wonderment.

"Frum de perly gates, dat's whar," replied Ned. "Me und Miss Alice has jes bin ergwine erbout all ober de New Jerusalum, und yu fotched us rite back to de yurth agen—dat's er sin ter yer, Clarsy."

"Fo de Lawd, is yer er plum stracted idjet? What is yer er doin in de New Jerusulum? Is yer dun und washed erway yer sins? I don't see no whings in dis heer house—how did yer git up dar Ned."

Alice laughed immoderately, and even Ned obliged himself to confess "dat he was in de sperret in de New Jerusulum."

"Miss Alice," asked Ned quite earnestly, "has yer got de good book wid yer?"

"Yes, Ned, I have my mother's bible with me; wherever I go it is my companion always. Shall I read a passage to you?" answered Alice.

"Ef yer plese, mum. I aims ter cut ernudder notch in my ole walkin stick, und when I looks at dat I'm ergwine ter drap rite down und pray."

Alice opened the little thumb-worn book at the second chapter of John and began to read:

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the Righteous."

"Don't you see, Uncle Ned," Alice said as she looked up into the old negro's black face, "how good the Lord is to us? He puts it into the mouth of His apostle to call us little children, and he tells us that the Saviour is pleading for us poor sinners. 'Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him.' When we are in distress or trouble," continued Alice, "we must turn away from the beggarly elements of the world and cast our cares upon Him, for He careth for us."

"Whot sort er elements did yer say, missis?" asked Ned attentively.

"Beggarly elements," replied Alice. "There is nothing that satisfieth in this life, uncle Ned; and all the world can give us in comforts and riches are as husks—we must look to Jesus and to Him only for consolation—for salvation."

"Dat is de Gospel truf," exclaimed Clarissa, with emotion.

"Miss Alice, will yer fault me fur axin yer wun mo questun? Is dere eny defference in hebben twixt er cullud pussun und a white pussun?"

"No indeed," replied Alice; "we are His children if we are faithful—the work of His hands."

"Dat questiun, missis, has oversized me all dese days, und I was afeered dat we was de gotes dat de Lawd drib ober on tother side, erway frum de lams, kase, missis, when I gits dar I wants ter live rite close ter ole marser's und young missis' 'great house,' whar I kin see yer und tend yer boff."

"You will not need to do us that service, Uncle Ned. You will have a mansion of your own; there will be no great houses there. The good Lord will know no difference between you and me, only as you or I shall excel here in doing His holy will. Don't you want to serve Him, old negro, so you shall have a crown of rejoicing by and by?"

"Dat I does, young missis. My ole bones is mity shackly, und it aint ergwine ter be long afore I goes outen dis cabin fer de las time; und ef its His will ter call me fust, I'm agwine ter pick out de butifulest great house in de city, und stay rite dere lak er watch-dorg twell yer und ole marser cums und taks perseshun. When I gits outen dis bed, missis, I'm gwine back home—gwine back to ole Mars Jon, lak dat prodigle man dat woured up dem korn cobs way out yander."

Alice, the true hearted Christian, could not withhold her tears as the old negro so eloquently, yet so ignorantly, revealed his love and loyalty. She arose from her chair to bid him good bye:

"One word mo, missis, und den I'm dun. I wants jes one little drap o' prayer, pleas'm."

Alice knelt reverently at the bed and tenderly prayed that the old negro might be accepted as a child of the King—a royal son of a Royal Father, whose kingdom was above all thrones and principalities, and from everlasting to everlasting.

"Und now, Clarsy," said old Ned, "yer stan rite dere, und Miss Alice yer stan whar yer is, und hear me swar dis ofe: 'I, Ned Semo, does swar und kiss dis little bible ob ole missusses' who's dun und gon to hebben, dat nebber mo' will I lif my mouf nur my han nur my hart in mischuf agen ole marser und young Miss Alice, so help me Gawd!"

Let us believe that the recording angel in the heavenly court has engrossed this oath in a never-fading holograph in his journal, and that whenever the sacred tome is read as witnessing the good there is in the creature, the word "approve" shall appear upon the margin.

[CHAPTER XV.]

THE BLACK DIPLOMAT.

Alice was persevering in those little attentions to the sick negro that were operating in a salutary way upon his heart. What power, however rebellious or unfriendly, could withstand the charm of that fragrant life?—a life so redundant in acts of charity and benevolence, that carried its dispensations into the cabins of the poor freedmen to whom the authorities under reconstruction made so many promises—promises to the ear to be broken to the hope.

The old negro's sympathies now and then for his master and young mistress would die down into ashes, and then again, when he looked toward Ingleside and thought of its defenceless inmates, his feelings would be grateful and kind.

In all the years that were gone, his old master and mistress had been so kind to him, in sickness and health; they had clothed and fed him; without their assistance he would have been so helpless. Indeed, Ned had never felt the rigors or oppression of slavery in this household or upon this plantation. Old master's government was patriarchal, and emancipation had come so inopportunely; somehow it never appealed to the affections, or the love of the old negroes, but it came upon them as other great crises have come—with arguments and reinforcements that shattered every principle of manhood and bestialized their natures. It came with proclamations against the universally denounced crime of slavery, and with an energetically centralized power; and the old negroes, unable to reason intelligently from premises so false and enticing, forgot their loyalty to their friends and looked to the carpet-bagger for a new revelation.

The lovely girl was always happy when ministering to the sick, even in the huts of destitution and squalor. She was happy when she pressed Uncle Ned's wrinkled brow and felt that the consuming fever had been driven out of his system by medication and faithful nursing.

When her own heart was burdened by sorrow, she sang out of its fullness and pathos to the negro, and the tears glided out of his eyes and ran down into the deep-cut furrows of his black face.

The old negro discovered in the experience of the few eventful years that there was nothing hopeful or helpful in the pledges or proclamations of the reconstructionists. The very old negroes were not counted in the aggregation of their numerical power, or in the sum total of the freedmen. "Old Glory" never welcomed them with a dip of its proud crest as they passed in and out of the town in tatters and rags. It never bade them with its caress to pause within its grateful shadow in the dog days when they were over wearied with marching and counter-marching.

The great Commissariat persistently withheld its bounty when there was no election—no votes to be polled for Laflin and his pampered minions. These dilapidated creatures were post-prandial guests in the banqueting halls of the bosses; hounds rather to gnaw the bones that were flung as offal upon the refuse heaps. They were not the artisans who were toiling upon the superstructure of the new south; not wanted in cabals, intrigues, conventions; not the journeymen who where revamping the political edifice; not mechanics who were furbishing the weapons of plunder; not trained to the harness as beasts of burden in dragging the car of reconstruction with its whetted knives over the prostrated country. Hence it was that gaunt poverty with its steel tined fork was constantly prodding the old negroes who had turned their backs upon their masters and whose new masters were dull of hearing, hence it was that so many who had hungered for the flesh pots were going back to the leaks and garlic; hence it was that hunger had given such acuteness to old Ned's sense of smell, that Alice was greeted with an exclamation brimming over with gratitude.

"I'm so skeert, young missis, dat I haint ergwine to git outen dis house in a hole munt."

The exclamation provoked a smile from the sweet girl who came laden with good things for Ned and she replied apologetically,

"I am sorry, uncle Ned, that I couldn't know just what you wanted."

The sick negro shook his head, for his mouth was too full for verbal explanations, and then bowed his thanks, observing after a moment.

"Clarsy, when I heerd yung missis at de do I node it was Santy Clors, sho nuff."

"Bress you hart, missis, enny nigger dat wudn't fite twell def fur yu und ole marser had ort to be hung by de nek twell hes ded."

Ned would have extemporized upon the subject perhaps at greater length; but for the interruption of a dilapidated negro, dressed in a dingy threadbare blue uniform; whose white head was covered by a decayed beaver, from which a dirty red handkerchief hung over his left eye.

The new comer was Joshua; perhaps the first and most patriotic recruit in the army of the freedmen; among the first to cut asunder the ligature of slavery.

As the huge Commissariat advertised the fatness of reconstruction, so Joshua advertised the leanness thereof.

The black diplomat in a tentative way was preparing the colored people for an event of momentous consequence. His mission to Ned's cabin was for this purpose.

"Mornin to yu boff," came the crusty greeting.

"Is dat yu, brudder Joshaway?" Clarissa enquired.

"Yes, dis is me."

"Cum in, den," said Clarissa, and Joshua, reeling from old age tottered in and took a seat with a groan.

"Is dat you, Miss Alice?" he asked looking up and shading his eyes with a palsied hand and seeing the young lady in the cabin.

"Scuse me, marm, I haint seed yu afore."

"Good morning, Uncle Joshua, I am very glad to see you. You are a stranger to us and the old home. I should think you would come to see us now and then, to know how we are getting on. Have you entirely forgotten your old friends?"

The old negro dropped his head embarrassingly as he replied with hesitation. "Not eggzackly, mum, but fokeses has dun und got so kurous now a days dar haint no telling how menny scrapes yu is ergwine to git kotched in; I'm moest afeered to git outen Hanner's wision, deed I is, mum."

"You are not a soldier I hope, uncle Joshua? Do you belong to the army," asked Alice as she observed the blue uniform that he wore.

"No mum, not pintedly," the negro furtively answered. "Dat is I don't tote no muskeet—und I got my deesharge from de leftenant—und I haint got no offis in pertickler, but de cappen lowed dat he mout pint me corpurul of de gyard at de kumissurry ef I cud hole out."

"Ef I cud hole out" sneeringly repeated Clarissa. "Ugh! Nigh unto er hunded year ole er holin out; mouter say ef yu cud hole in; jess es ragged es er sedge hen."

Alice was very much amused at the coarse wit of Clarissa, but it was important that she should return home and perhaps, too, her presence might embarrass the interview between the freed slaves, and taking uncle Joshua's hand in her own she bade him good bye with the observation.

"Remember, old man, that father and I are still your friends; and when you are in trouble or distress come to us. May God bless you, uncle Joshua."

"Good by, missis!" exclaimed Joshua, as he wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve, "May de Lord do de same to yu missis."

After the young lady had retired, Joshua, with some trepidation, observed:

"Brudder Johnsing, Hanner sont me ober heer to ax yu und sister to de weddin Saddy nite und to tell sister Johnsing how she mout bake er cake wid ice on de tip eend of hit, ur she moutent ef she didn't want to."

"Who dat want er cake?" exclaimed Clarissa.

"Yu heerd whot I sed, didn't yu?" Joshua petulantly replied.

"Who dat ergwine to git married Joshua?" she asked.

"Efrum, dats who," replied Joshua.

"My King! dat biggerty nigger ergwine to git married sho nuff?"

"Deed he is, und he is ergwine to marry way up yander outen site too—ergwine to git er portly white gal wid de moest dimuns und watch chains und bunnets kivered wid hostrich fedders. When yu sees dat gal yu'll see er hole steer kaart full of dimuns er shinin ebery which er way; und yu has to keep yo eyes shot rite tite, don't yu ergwine to git struck plum bline, same as de possle Peter dun when dat white man was ergwine up to Jarriko; dat yu will! Is you und sister Jonsin ergwine to de weddin; und is yu ergwine to bake de cake? Tell me dat fust."

Clarissa deliberately raised herself out of the rickety chair in which she was sitting, with a grunt, and walked over to Joshua, and lifting the old beaver from his head, remarked in a provoking way:

"I spishuned dat de boss had dun und crapped yo years wid swaller forks."

"How much yu dun und got from ole Laffin fur bein his nigger; yu und Efrum; tell me dat?"

"Swaller forks!" indignantly replied Joshua. "Sich humans as yu is dun woured up de creeters dat toted de swaller-forks fo de belliun fell. Swaller-forks!" he again repeated in disgust; and turned in his seat to look savagely at Clarissa and held his peace.

"You need nt shine dem ole holler eyes at me, Joshaway; yuse ergwine erbout er hipperty hop from wun house to ernudder wid yo weddin inwites und I lay a fo pence yu haint got narry tater nur hocake nudder whar yu stays. I don't look fur nuffin else but er yurthshake to swaller up de pizened niggers big und little er keepin dis plantashun in er monstrus flustrashun ebery day und nite de Lord sends. Ergwine to marry er portly white gal! Great King! Und yu er noratin de news, lookin dis werry minit lak a po run down gizzard shad wid one foot in de grabe und tuther wun er slanting innards. Ergwine to de weddin! When yu sees er biggerty nigger er jinin hissef to er white gal in dis lan, yu ergwine to see seben moons in de hellyments at wun time."

"Yu and Efrum needn't spishun kase de Soufland is dun und konkered wun time und flung upon hits back dat yu pizened niggers is gwine to git de underholt de nex time, ef boff her hands is tied, Dares ole mars Jon's sord a lyin agen de bofat er natally cryin fur a moufful of yore black meat same as a strayed gander er squorkin for his shipmates, und it aims to cut hit off whay hit aint ergwine to heal togedder no mo! und ef yu don't walk mity perpundikkler, de werry fust time yu cums to yo membrunce, dat ole crows' nest on de tip eend of yo ole hed is ergwine to be layin in wun jam of de fence und yo old karkuss in er nudder. Ergwine to de weddin! Grate Jerusalem!"

Joshua for a moment was completely disarmed by the rapid volleys from Clarissa's battery, but he was not without resources, even in this terrific encounter. He fixed his savage glance upon the old negress, as he asked with due gravity.

"Is yu ergwine to fight for the secesh ef de war do take a fresh rise?"

"Yu heerd what I sed, Joshaway," replied Clarissa with a significant gesture. "Ef yu don't want Mars Jon's sord er gashing yu into leetle hunks of horg meat yu got to walk mity perpundikkler.

"Bress God!" exclaimed Joshua as he wiped his face with his dirty handkerchief, "How kin a humans walk perpundikkler wid free crooks in de back und de rumatiz in boff shanks?"

"Dat ole sord is ergwine to tak dem dere crooks outen yore back same as a toof doctor jerkin out dat ole snag of yourn," answered Clarissa.

"To be sho yu haint ergwine agin yo own kuller?" suggested Joshua.

"Is yu fur de Nuniun ur de Secesh, ef de belliun haint squelched ur nuffin?"

There was a directness about the question that momentarily unnerved Clarissa but she saw that she was tacitly reinforced by Ned and she replied with the same exhibition of temper.

"Me und Ned is boff ergwine to fight for ole marser, ef de war haint swaged und de time we gits froo wid yu, yu's ergwine to immytate dat ole gyarment, er layin dere in dat pail of poke juice."

"Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed Joshua with vehemence, "dat ar nigger dun und fotched on ernudder belliun widout ary shutin ion ur muskeet udder. Don't do hit, chile," he continued patronizingly, "kase ef yu uprares ernudder insurreckshun fo dis heer wun is dun und ceasded in dis heer po souf, de dekins in de church is ergwine to fling yer into outer darkness. Yu er sot back er Sundys in de jam of de mussy seat wid eyes shot tite lak de slidin elder, er singin 'Kanyun, sweet Kanyun,' und bress Gawd yu is batin de lams ob de flock wid leetle mouffuls o' hell farr."

"Ergwine tu de weddin! My Lord!" This was the derisive answer that Clarissa made to this fanfaronade of old Joshua.

Ned laid upon the bed laughing to himself with his eyes fixed upon the crude masonry of a dirt-dauber that was preparing to go into winter quarters just above his head.

"Is yu dun wid speechifyin, sister Johnsin?" asked uncle Joshua as he again wiped his moist face with his handkerchief. "Ef yu is, I has jes got wun reckymendashun fur sich ez yu. Pend upon it, sister, ef yu wus Hanner und Hanner wus yu, I wud play hail-kerlumby-happy-lan on yo ole bones wid er palin fo brekfus und arter supper too, all de time. Ole Satan hes dun und stobbed boff yo yeares wid pitch-forks, und de Lawd nose he is wusser dan de boss, und de pitch-forks is wusser dan de swaller-forks. Ef dat white gal wants to jine hersef to dat cullud gemman, who's ergwine to hender? Tell me dat? I haint ergwine to pester mysef wid no sich low down trash es yu is, und ef yu goes to de weddin dare haint ergwine to be no weddin gyarment fur yu, und when yu nocks at de do, brudder Effrum is ergwine to fling yu out into tarnel darkness whar de whang doodlum hoops und hollers fur hits onliest chile."

"My King," exclaimed Clarissa "whot is dat ole nigger er spashiatin erbout Ned?"

Ned could not restrain himself, but burst out into a great guffaw. Joshua angered above measure gathered himself together and walked out of the cabin with the observation:

"I wants to see wun mo whupping post in de lan fo I dies, und I wants hits uprared at dis do, und I wants to fling de whoop fur de high shuruff."

Upon the exit of Joshua Ned began seriously to think of the flagrant acts of injustice which had more or less warped his nature; and all in his heedless pursuit of freedom and sovereignty. He saw within his cabin a perpetual menace to the peace of old master and young mistress. Upon every visit that Alice made to his lowly home he saw that a grief too deep to be sounded, bayonetted afresh her poor heart. The armed soldier who slew her brother and sweetheart wore a blue jacket like the one that hung in the rack above his bed; how could he be true to his oath with these menaces flaunting in the face of his young mistress? So with a huge frown upon his face he said to his wife, "Clarsy, dem ole blu gyarments und dat ole muskett is jess whot plade de devul twixt me und ole marser. Mouter node dey wud set ole marser er fire; he er fitin dem yankys fur fo year in de war und got yung mars Harry kilt, to cum back home und see dese heer niggers er marchin baccards und furrards all ober de plantashun wid dem dar blu jackets jess lak de yankys wo in de war, und er beatin drums dat sounds to ole marsa same as er berryin. Yu jess take dem ole gyarments outen dis house und gib to Ellik, und tell him to gib em to de boss leftenent, und tell him dat corpul Jonsin has sined his persish in de milintery cumpny, und dat he aint ergwine to war no mo."

"Dats whot you orter dun und dun fo yu jined," answered Clarissa deprecatingly; "jess gon und fotched all dis trubble on de lan fur nuffin. Mouter node ole marser was ergwine to raise er harrykane when he seed de cussed niggers wid dere muskeets er marchin up und down de plantashun lak er passel of squorking gooses. I got wexed mysef und I haint fit in no war nudder. Dars dat po gal er cryin her eyeballs out, und her po lovyer er lying ober yander under de cold clods of Furginny. I don't specks nuffin else but dat ole Laflin ergwine to get all de niggers in de New United States massacreed. Needn't pin dere fafe to whippin de Souf ef she is flung upon her back.