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31. CHAPTER XIV.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION.
Transformed again in lace and lilac from a fairy prince to a fairy
princess, Muriel joined her friends in the library. Music and blithe talk
filled up the hours till tea-time, and after tea they prepared to go to
the Convention. Mrs. Eastman had declined accompanying them,
and they set out together through the moonlit dusk, Harrington
escorting Emily, and Wentworth Muriel.
“Why, how cold it has grown!” exclaimed Emily, surprised at the
strange chillness of the air, as she and Harrington walked up the
shadowy street.
“Yes, indeed,” replied Harrington, “and the wind has changed to
the north, I verily believe. After this warm, delicious day, too! But no
New Englander has a right to be surprised at the freaks of the
climate.”
Engaged in conversation, they did not notice, as Wentworth and
Muriel behind them did, when they were passing under the walled
plateau, on which loomed in the dim moonlight the domed bulk of
the State House, two young men who went by considerably
intoxicated. The young men were Horatio and Thomas Atkins, who
had been drinking juleps in honor of Southern institutions with Mr.
Lafitte at the Tremont House, whither they had escorted him after
dinner. Thomas had taken so many juleps that his hat was acock, his
whiskerage fiercer than ever, and his gait a swaggering stagger,
while Horatio was in that state of solemn and stubborn tipsiness in
which a man is upon his honor to walk straight. Muriel sighed as she
passed them, and all the way across the broad Common, its trees
and sward dimly lighted by the moon, and chill in the fresher breath
of the keen breeze, while she conversed with Wentworth, her
32. thoughts rested with vague uneasiness on her uncle and his
graceless sons. It was altogether the most unpleasant topic that
ever entered her mind, and it was especially so on account of her
mother. Mrs. Eastman felt her brother’s general course, particularly
his political course, to be a family disgrace. All the old New England
traditions, laws, and habitudes had been at least passively for liberty
up to the insane year of 1850; and to have her kinsman one of the
new brawlers for slavery and kidnapping was a sore reflection for the
gentle lady. She had never recovered from the wound he had given
her spirit, by enrolling himself as one of the Fifteen Hundred
Scoundrels. And on this point, at least, Muriel felt as strongly as she
did, particularly since the report had arrived that Sims had been
scourged to death at Savannah.
The noise of life thickened around the party as they passed down
Winter street into Washington street, the main avenue of Boston.
The street was processional, grotesque, and gay under the moon.
Vehicles of all sorts dashed and rattled over the pavement, and
passengers were bustling and swarming along the irregular vista of
lighted shop windows, under the dark, motley buildings covered with
their multitude of golden-lettered signs.
Passing up the crowded thoroughfare, they arrived presently at
the Melodeon, where the Anti-Slavery Convention was holding its
evening session. It was a hall rented most frequently for concerts
and exhibitions of one sort or another, but memorable in history as
the church of Theodore Parker. There, on every Sabbath, he shook
the hearts of thousands with the sacred and heroic eloquence of
those sermons which have passed to shine in pulpit literature with
the strong splendors of Taylor and Latimer, and a nobleness and
courage all their own.
The hall was full as the party entered, and some one was speaking
from the platform. They paused, looking over the dense concourse
for seats, and seeing none, were about to try their chance in the
gallery above, when a party of five left theirs in the centre of the
hall, and going down the aisle at once, they took the vacant places.
33. Harrington had passed in first, and leaning over to Muriel, said in a
whisper:
“Did you see your uncle as we came in?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Who was that with him, that looked at you so
strangely?”
Harrington turned his head and gazed up to the back of the hall,
where Mr. Atkins was sitting, scornfully listening to the speaker. By
his side he saw a dark, handsome face, with a moustache, and the
face was intently watching him. With a vague thrill he turned again
to Muriel.
“I don’t know him,” he whispered.
“It is strange,” she whispered in reply. “I saw by Mr. Atkins’s
manner that he was telling that person who we were, and I know by
the slight start the stranger gave, and the look he cast at you, that
my uncle had mentioned your name, and that the stranger had
some interest in you.”
Nothing more was said, but Harrington felt disturbed even to
apprehension, though he could not have told why. In a minute or
two, looking around again, he saw the stranger still watching him,
and saw his eye wander away with a sinister smile. Turning his face
resolutely to the platform, Harrington, with another mysterious
tremor, tried to recollect if he had ever seen that face before, and
unable to recall it, he dismissed it from his thoughts with a strong
effort of will, and set himself to listen to the speaker.
Just then, the speaker ended, and sat down, amidst a rushing
rustle of the audience, and some slight applause. There was a
minute’s intermission, during which Harrington’s eye swept over the
multitude, seated in rows around him, and filling the gallery, which
extended in a horse-shoe curve around the walls of the oblong hall.
Both sexes were about equally represented in the concourse, which
was dotted here and there with the dark faces of negroes. The
platform was occupied by a number of the anti-slavery leaders, men
and women. The chairman, who was leaning from his seat in hasty
34. conference with two or three persons, was the gallant Francis
Jackson, a wealthy citizen, who, when the “gentlemen” of Boston
had broken up an anti-slavery meeting of women, fifteen years
before, opened his house to the outcasts, at the imminent peril of
having it razed by the mob. But he was resolved to defend free
speech, and in this cause, said he, “let my walls fall if they must:
they will appear of little value after their owner shall have been
whipped into silence.” Such was the Roman deed, the Roman word,
of Francis Jackson. Near him sat Garrison. The light of the chandelier
shone full on the bald head and high-featured, dauntless face of the
grand Puritan—a face in which blended the austere gentleness of
Brewster with the stern integrity and solemn enthusiasm of Vane.
Not far distant was the antique and noble countenance of Burleigh,
with its long beard and lengths of ringlets giving it the character of
some of the heads mediæval painters have imagined for Jesus. An
orator he, whose massive and definite logic ran burning with
Miltonian sweep, and could burst, when he so chose, in an iron hail
of Miltonian invective. By his side, Harrington saw the domed brow
and Socratic features of the mighty Theodore, with the lips curling in
some rich stroke of whispered wit, which brought a momentary
smile to the face of Burleigh. Behind them was the rugged and
salient visage of Parker Pillsbury, a man whose speech rode like the
Pounder of Bivar, and smote with a flail. Before Harrington’s eye had
wandered from him, the chairman rose, announcing a name which
was lost in the sudden pour of applause that swept up from the
front, and spread from rank to rank with loud cheers, and then at
once the whole concourse burst into a surging and tossing uproar of
acclamation, as a beautiful patrician figure, dressed in black, came
forward on the lighted platform.
It was Wendell Phillips—the flower of the anti-slavery chivalry.
Memory recalls the words in which Robertus Monachus describes the
leader of the twelfth century Crusaders, Godfrey of Bouillon: “He
was beautiful in countenance,” says the chronicler, “tall in stature,
agreeable in his discourse, admirable in his morals, and at the same
time so gentle, that he seemed better fitted for the monk than the
35. knight; but when his enemies appeared before him, and the combat
approached, his soul became filled with mighty daring; like a lion, he
feared not for his person—and what shield, what buckler, could resist
the fall of his sword?” So might one describe the great Abolitionist.
But a poetic heart would take from that rich old world Past a more
lustrous figure than even Godfrey to stand as his representative. In
England they call Lord Derby the Rupert of debate; and far more
aptly might Wendell Phillips be termed the Tancred of liberty. In his
personal appearance, as in the attitude of his life, the nature of his
thought, and the style of his rhetoric, there was that which recalled
the image of the loveliest of the antique chevaliers. As he stood on
that brilliant platform, while the enthusiastic applause swelled and
tossed in a tempest of sound and stir—one foot advanced, his hands
lightly clasped behind him, his head curved a little to one side, the
light bringing out in definite relief a face and form in strange
contrast with every other around him, and whose statuesque repose
seemed heightened by the tumultuous commotion of the audience—
he impressed the eye like a piece of exquisite sculpture when seen
among the alien shapes of men. A tall-browed, oval head of severe
and singular grace; long, clear-cut, Roman features; a keen and
penetrant eye; around the firm mouth a glimmer of feminine
sweetness; the face harmonized with an expression of golden
urbanity; and in the whole aspect the polished ease of the
gentleman blended with the lofty bearing of the Paladin. And a
Paladin he was—a star of oratoric tournament, proved so by many a
hard-fought argument in the chivalrous fields of liberty, where his
eloquence, that fiery sword wrought of Justice and Beauty, as his
friend Parker has called it, flashed and rang on the armor of the vile,
and brought new courage to the war. None listened to the bright and
terrible music of his speech unmoved; no bitterest conservative
could hear it without owning its magic. Robbed of his just due of
fame by the unpopularity of the cause he championed, even his foes
could whisper that he was the greatest orator in America—even the
scholars of the Boston “Courier”, the representative pro-slavery
organ in that latitude, and the deadly enemy of the Abolitionists,
could call him, with strange warmth, the Cicero of anti-slavery.
36. The applause sunk down, and an expectant, breathless hush
succeeded. Slowly his lips curved apart, and the clear, persuasive
silver of his voice flowed into words. It was a simple and ordinary
sentence, and yet what a fascination it had! It was not a sentence—
it was something bright that flew into the souls of his audience; and
as it flew, the magnetic glance of his eye seemed to follow it, and
every one was captive. His address was at once exposition and
criticism. The condition of the nation, the aggressions of the slave
oligarchy, the recent plunder of Mexico for the extension of slavery,
the servility of the pulpit, the pro-slavery scheming of Northern
merchants and manufacturers—these were his themes, and how he
treated them! He was not in his loftiest lyric mood that night, and
his speech only rose now and then from its tone of exquisite
impressive colloquy into the long, imperial sweep of the oration; but
still, as Thomas Davis said of Curran, his words went forth in robes
of light with swords. Shapes of severest crystal grace that moved to
Dorian music, an armed battalia, a bright procession, the splendid
phrases trooped, with strength to strike and skill to guard for liberty
and justice. What language—so finely chosen, so apt, terse, limpid,
electrical! What logic—proof-mail of gold and steel around his
thought, or a smiting weapon of celestial temper! Now came some
metaphor so analogically related to the theme that it flashed on the
mind like a subtle argument. And now a sentence shining upon the
imagination with the beauty of an antique frieze. Here was an
expression that memory would wear like a gem-cameo forever. And
here some jewel of classic story re-cut more purely, or some historic
picture that glowed sharp, definite, in lines and hues of life, upon
the eye of the mind. Now it was the scimitar-glance of wit shearing
the floating film of some intangible popular delusion, or lie. Now
some homely illustration borrowed from the street, the shop, the
farm, yet suddenly interpenetrated with as strange a poetic grace as
though it had dropped from the lips of Tully two thousand years ago.
Or here again invective, rising above some gloomy wrong, and
smiting bright, like the diamond sword of Dante’s black-stoled angel.
Rhetoric, yet not the artificial, decorative rhetoric of the schools, but
an organic growth of the man. Art, but art that seemed like nature,
37. for it was the art that nature makes. One felt, and truly felt, in
listening to the orator, that this was his natural normal speech. It
was beautiful, it was ornate, it was artistic, but it was of the heart, it
was of the life; and everywhere it was the stern, the solemn voice of
conscience, of honor, of virtue—everywhere it was terrible and
sacred with radiant pity for the poor and weak, flaming scorn for the
traitor and the oppressor, burning love for liberty and justice. But
who is he that shall so much as hint description of the classic grace,
the delicate fiery power of the speeches of Wendell Phillips to the
men of Boston? The golden bees that clustered at the lips of baby
Plato, must swarm again from old Hymettus to the cradle of the child
unborn who shall essay to tell the magic of that eloquence. Say that
in an age and land of muck-rakes it was the speech of a gentleman
—say that in its tones were heard the ancestral voices from the
blocks and battle-fields of liberty—say that it touched with heavenly
ardor and lifted to nobler life all uncorrupted hearts, and was light to
the blind, and conscience to the base, and to the caitiff whatever he
could know of shame; so leave it to worthier and more abundant
praise, and to the future.
The applause which had burst forth again and again during the
speech, now swelled into a tempest of acclamation as the orator
withdrew. Muriel still kept her lit face fixed on the platform, and
Emily, kindled into ardent color, leaned back with a sigh. Wentworth,
meanwhile, flushed with delight, was splitting his gloves to ribbons
with vehement applause, when looking around, his eye fell upon
Harrington, and stopping in the midst of his furore, he stared at him,
amazed. Harrington’s strong face was white, his brow knitted, and
his nostrils tensely drawn.
“What’s the matter, John?” cried Wentworth, alarmed, and raising
his voice to be heard amidst the cheering.
Muriel and Emily both looked at him suddenly, and the young man
recovering, smiled like one sick at heart, and rose. They thought him
ill, and unheeding the announcement of the next speaker, they left
their seats and went from the hall, Muriel and Harrington noticing,
38. as they passed up the aisle, that the seats occupied by Mr. Atkins
and the stranger were vacant.
In the vestibule, Harrington paused with Emily on his arm.
“Muriel,” he said, “I want to speak with you a moment.”
She left Wentworth instantly, and came to him, with a face of
inquiry.
“Muriel,” he said, in a low, clear voice, taking her hands in his, and
looking into her eyes, “I feel a dreadful foreboding. It struck upon
me just now who that man is we saw with your uncle.”
“Who is it?” she said, quickly.
“Lafitte! I know it is he. I feel it in my soul,” he replied.
For a moment she looked at him vacantly, with parted lips and
dilated eyes.
“Hurry,” she cried, breaking from him; “hurry home. Come,
Wentworth. Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, with a vanishing smile, as she
caught the astonished eyes of the young artist. “Ask me no
questions, Richard. You shall know hereafter.”
And putting her arm in his, they went off rapidly together, followed
by Harrington and Emily.
On the way, Harrington told Emily of his conjecture, and they
excitedly discussed the matter till they arrived with the other two at
the door of the house.
“Now, Emily and Richard,” said Muriel, “you go in. John and I are
going to walk further. And, Emily,” she whispered, “tell mother I shall
bring home five people to stop all night. Remember. Come, John;”
and taking his arm, they went up Temple street together.
“Well, by Jupiter!” exclaimed the mystified Wentworth, “this is
decidedly odd! What does it mean, Emily?”
“I cannot tell you,” replied Emily, coldly. “Will you please ring?”
39. Wentworth, bitterly recalled to her attitude toward him by this
frigid reticence, rang the bell, and the door opening presently, they
went in.
In the meantime, Muriel and Harrington went up the street
together, he vaguely thrilling with the electric energy of her manner.
She was silent for a few moments.
“John,” she said, suddenly, “I respect an intuition like this of yours,
and I think you are right. Roux is in danger. Now this man only
arrived to-day.”
“How do you know, Muriel,” he interrupted.
“Thus,” she replied. “On the way home from Mr. Parker’s, Emily
and I overtook little Julia Atkins, and she said that a gentleman from
New Orleans had come to town, to-day, and was to dine with them.
I did not ask her anything on the subject, for the conceit of the
child’s manner was not agreeable, and I changed the subject. But
that was the gentleman from New Orleans, I am confident. No
doubt, Uncle Lemuel and he thought it would be amusing to visit an
Anti-Slavery Convention.”
“Yes, and the next thing a warrant will be out for Roux, and we
shall have another fugitive slave-case in Boston,” said Harrington.
“But I shall stop that by taking Roux home to my house, and sitting
with him with loaded pistols till the hunt is abandoned.”
“Bravo, John,” cried Muriel. “But that will never do. Mr. Atkins told
that man your name, I know, and you are likely to have an early visit
from him. It will not do to have Roux at your house. Roux must be
hid where they will never think of searching for him.”
“True,” he replied. “But, by the way, Muriel, where are we going
now?”
“Have you just thought to ask?” she answered, gaily. “Oh, John!
But we are going to bring five people home to my house.”
“Muriel!” He started as he spoke. The tears sprung to his eyes, as
looking into her noble face, he met its proud and laughing gaze.
40. “We are going to Southac street, you know,” she said, “and we
shall bring home Roux and his wife, Charles, and the two children.
That’s five. The baby we don’t count,” she playfully added.
Harrington was speechless with emotion.
“In Temple street they will be safe for the present,” she continued.
“Then we can decide on the next step. I think Roux must remove to
Worcester, for whatever they may do in Boston, I believe they will
never take a fugitive from Worcester. There’s good blood yet in the
heart of the Commonwealth, the heart of which, moreover, is the
heart of Wentworth Higginson.”
Wentworth Higginson was, at that period, the gallant minister of
the Free Church at Worcester, a man with the Revolutionary soul of
fire, and the incarnate nucleus of that glorious public spirit which is
still prompt to defend a man against the kidnappers in the heart of
the old Commonwealth.
“Meanwhile,” pursued Muriel, “I’ll take care of poor Roux.”
“Oh, Muriel!” said Harrington, fervently, “there is no nobleness, no
tenderness, like yours.”
In the wan moonlight he saw her color under his impassioned
gaze. She did not reply for a moment, but turning her face away, she
laid her hand upon his arm, and its almost imperceptible tremor sent
a mystical, sweet agitation through his being.
“It is nothing but a duty,” she replied, presently, in a gentle voice.
“A clear and simple duty. Life opens plainlier to me every day, and I
see that I have wealth and strength and youth, that I may succor
and protect the poor!”
No more was said, but tranced in thoughts and feelings too sacred
and deep for words, they moved in silence through the dim and
solitary streets, vaguely lit by the wan lustre of the moon. There
were lights in the houses as they passed, for it was not yet ten
o’clock, but save a few boys, white and negro, fantastically playing in
41. some of the streets, and half-dispirited in their nocturnal games by
the strange bleakness of the air, they hardly met a person.
Lights glimmered dimly in the windows of Southac street, but
Roux’s windows were in darkness. Some negro boys, sitting on the
wooden steps of his abode, made way for them, and ascending they
entered the open outer door, and tapped at the panels of his room.
No answer. They tapped louder. No answer still. Harrington, oddly
remembering the strenuous snoring of Tugmutton on the nights in
March when Roux was sick, and he had watched with him, put his
ear to the door and listened for those tokens of the fat boy’s
slumbers. But no sound reached him.
“Pray Heaven nothing has happened,” said Muriel. “Let us try the
other door.”
Harrington turned to the opposite side of the passage, and
knocked loudly. There was an instant stir within, and presently the
door opened, and a strange little wizened colored man, not more
than four feet high, with a pair of tin-rimmed spectacles on his
shrunken nose, and a long coat reaching nearly to his heels,
appeared, with a copy of the “Commonwealth” newspaper in his left
hand, and in the other a tallow candle stuck in a bottle which he
held above his head. Harrington had seen him before, though he
had forgotten his name.
“Good evening, sir. Can you tell me where Mr. Roux is this
evening?” asked Harrington.
The little man stood still for a moment, gazing past them at
nothing, and looking like some fantastic little corpse, set bolt
upright.
“Good evening, Mr. Harrington. Good evening, Mrs. Harrington,”
he said, at length, in a voice like the squeak of a mouse. Then he
paused. Muriel smiled faintly at the oddity of being called Mrs.
Harrington, and though the wizened creature was not looking at her,
he seemed to see the smile, for he smiled also in a slow, fantastic,
frozen way.
42. “Willum Roux’s been took off,” he at length squeaked in a
deliberate tone.
Harrington and Muriel started violently, and holding each other,
looked at the speaker.
“Took off!” gasped Harrington. “What do you mean?”
The little man made another long pause, then squeaked like an
incantation, “Ophelee!”
A large fat mulatto woman with a red kerchief tied round her
head, came from within, rubbing her eyes. Ophelia had evidently
been asleep, but she nodded her head, bright and wide awake,
when she saw the visitors.
“What has become of Roux?” said Harrington, looking at her with
his pale, startled face.
“Oh, they’s all been took off to Cambridge,” she replied quickly,
towering in good-natured bulk above her elvish husband, who stood
like one magnetized. “Clarindy Roux’s married sister lives thar, Mr.
Har’nton, an’ her old man come in with his wagon and took’m all out
thar this afternoon. They’s to be fotched back to-morrow at dinner-
time, so Tug says.”
“Thank you,” said Harrington. “Good evening;” and “good
evening,” said Muriel; both too much agitated with the sudden relief
that swept over them, to say another word.
“Laws bless you; good evening,” said Ophelia; and “good evening,
Mr. Harrington—good evening, Mrs. Harrington,” squeaked the
strange little creature, still standing in the same attitude, as Muriel
and Harrington departed.
“Well,” said Muriel, with a deep-drawn breath, and then a laugh,
as they gained the street; “that was as good a fright as I ever got in
my life.”
“A fright, indeed,” he returned. “I felt as if I should swoon!”
They walked on in silence for a few moments.
43. “What a singular little kobold that is,” she said, as they went into
the street.
“Very,” replied Harrington. “He’s a tailor, and a great Free-Soiler, as
you may imagine by the newspaper he had. Now, Muriel, it seems
the Rouxs are fortunately away for the night. So they’re safe for the
present.”
“Yes,” she returned, gaily; “and my word is forfeit, for where are
my five captives! N’importe. I’ll have them to-morrow.”
“To-morrow, at noon, we’ll come here together,” said Harrington.
“Agreed,” she replied. “Punctually, at one o’clock, we’ll be here;
and, like two fairy princes, carry off the Ogre’s victim.”
They fell from this into a strain of talk, half-gay, half-serious; and,
satisfied that affairs were in a good state at present, returned rapidly
to the house.
44. CHAPTER XV.
WAR AND PEACE.
After the incidents of the evening, it was not a little discomposing
to behold, as they did, upon entering the parlor, Mrs. Atkins, Miss
Atkins and Julia, together with Fernando Witherlee. The Atkins family
had been there for a couple of hours, making a family call. Muriel
was a favorite with them, as with everybody, and they saluted her
affectionately; she responding with her usual affability. Harrington,
too, was politely favored; though Mrs. Atkins (who had been a poor
country girl once) and her daughters, also, had their misgivings as to
his being of sufficient respectability to deserve the civilities due only
to Good Society. But, despite this consideration, no woman could
resist the sweet manhood of young Harrington; and so he received
from these ladies as much politeness as though he moved, with
mutton-chop whiskers and modish clothes, in fashionable circles—
which was unfair.
While Muriel was privately explaining matters to her mother,
Harrington joined in the conversation, in which all participated, save
Wentworth, who was unusually quiet, and sat a little apart, with a
cold and reserved air, the result of his feelings for Emily. The
conversation, which had been on topics more or less commonplace,
and had hovered frequently about, and several times fairly settled
on, the charms and graces of Mr. Lafitte, dipped again to that
enrapturing theme, by the will of Mrs. Atkins. Miss Atkins, by the
way, though still a devotee of the chivalrous son of the sunny South,
had suffered some slight abatement of her rapture; having learned,
by chance, that Mr. Lafitte was already married.
“Oh, Mr. Harrington,” continued Mrs. Atkins, after much eulogium
of the Southern gentleman who had done us the honor of dining
45. with us to-day, “if you could only meet Mr. Lafitte, you would have
such different ideas of the Southern gentlemen.”
“Indeed, madam,” replied Harrington, courteously, “I should be
sorry to have my ideas of Southern gentlemen changed, for I credit
them with many fine and high qualities. Don’t think that I imagine
Northerners and Southerners in the absolute colors of good and evil
—black and white; all the white on our side, and all the black on
theirs.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” responded Mrs. Atkins in her fal-lal
manner; “but I thought you were so anti-slavery, Mr. Harrington.”
“I certainly am anti-slavery, madam,” good-naturedly said
Harrington, “and if I were living in Hancock’s time, I should be on
the same principles anti-George the Third. But I hope I should not
any the less pay due regard to the Tory gentlemen of that era. As far
as their Toryism went, I should of course be their foe, and in like
manner I am hostile to the gentlemen of this day who are tyrants.”
“But, Mr. Harrington,” said Julia, pertly, “you don’t like Mr. Webster,
and I know you don’t, do you? Now do tell me, Mr. Harrington, why
you don’t like Mr. Webster.”
Witherlee smiled furtively at Miss Julia’s immature gabble, and
lifted his eyebrows in a faint sneer.
“Because, Miss Julia,” replied Harrington simply, with a gentle
impressiveness of voice and manner which brought a new sensation
to the poor child’s mind, and made her color, “because Mr. Webster
helped to pass a law which has made a great many poor people very
unhappy. You yourself wouldn’t like a man who made innocent
people suffer, would you?”
“Oh, no, of course not,” stammered Julia, while Witherlee smiled
maliciously, enjoying her confusion.
“Dear me! but they’re only negroes, Mr. Harrington,” feebly
remarked Mrs. Atkins, in a deprecating tone.
“But, Mrs. Atkins, negroes have feelings,” said Emily.
46. “Oh, well, dear,” responded Mrs. Atkins, “but their feelings are not
the same as ours, you know. That is, they haven’t fine feelings.”
“You remember the case that was lately reported in the
newspapers, Mrs. Atkins,” said Harrington. “The rumor came that the
kidnappers were in town with a warrant for a colored man, and his
wife fell down dead with alarm when she heard it. I think you must
allow that poor woman had feelings, and it is hard to deny that Mr.
Webster was responsible for her murder. I saw those poor colored
people in Southac street to-day, in wild distress and alarm at the
report that a slave-hunter was in town, and no one who sees such
things, and realizes them, can like Mr. Webster.”
“O Mr. Harrington, indeed I can’t agree with you,” returned Mrs.
Atkins with feeble excitement. “These things are unpleasant, I admit,
but Mr. Webster is a great statesman, you know—oh, there never
was such a statesman as Mr. Webster! He’s perfectly splendid, and
I’m sure if he was to have all the negroes in the country killed—the
horrid creatures!—I’m sure I would like him just as much as ever.
Indeed I would, and so would Mr. Atkins. O if you’d only heard Mr.
Webster at Faneuil Hall last Saturday, I know you’d have been
converted. He didn’t say a word about politics, and he was so
majestic, and so venerable and so—so pleasant—oh, it was
beautiful!”
And Mrs. Atkins fanned herself in a feeble fluster of admiration for
Mr. Webster, whose speech, by the way, had been very decrepit,
rambling, and dull, with only a touch here and there of the true
Websterian massive power and energy.
“Well, Mrs. Atkins,” said Witherlee in his cool, polite, provoking
way, “for my part, I don’t understand how you can admire Mr.
Webster’s private life, I’m sure.”
This change in the venue, as the lawyers say, and this impudent
assumption that Mrs. Atkins had been admiring Mr. Webster’s private
life, were both highly characteristic of the good Fernando. His
remark was not prompted by even the pale esthetic anti-slavery,
47. which he sometimes indulged in, but by the simple desire to say
something which he knew would aggravate the lady. And Mrs. Atkins
was aggravated, for she colored and fanned herself nervously.
“I don’t know what you refer to, Mr. Witherlee,” she remarked,
pettishly.
“Why, you know what Mr. Webster’s habits are, Mrs. Atkins,” said
Fernando, lifting his eyebrows with an air of painful regret, in which
there was also a bilious sneer. “You are aware of his excessive
fondness for old Otard. And then his relations to women”—
“I don’t care,” interrupted Mrs. Atkins, bridling with faint
excitement. “I don’t care at all, and I think that God gave Mr.
Webster some faults to remind us that he is mortal.”
This was smart for Mrs. Atkins, and Witherlee, somewhat
nonplused, turned pale with spite, and lifted his eyebrows, and
shrugged his shoulders with a manner that was equivalent to saying
—Oh, if you talk in that way, Mrs. Atkins, there’s no use in wasting
words upon you. His manner would have been ineffably maddening
to most men, but women are less easily transported beyond control,
and Mrs. Atkins, conscious that she had the advantage of Mr.
Witherlee in her reply, fanned herself equably and took no notice of
his insulting gesture.
“For my part,” said Harrington, gravely offended by Witherlee’s
remarks, “I deprecate any reflections upon Mr. Webster’s private life.
It seems to me that our concern is with his public acts, and not with
his personal habits.”
“Oh, you’re a gentleman, Mr. Harrington,” said Mrs. Atkins, in a
tone that implied that Mr. Witherlee was not.
Witherlee looked at Mrs. Atkins with parted lips, and still, opaque
eyes, white with spleen, but perfectly cool.
“Now, fellow-citizens, what’s the row?” blithely said Muriel,
approaching the circle with her mother.
48. “Oh, cousin Muriel!” exclaimed Julia, “how can you talk in that
way. It’s so low!”
“So it is, dear,” archly replied Muriel, “shockingly low, and you
must be warned by my example.”
Julia looked a little foolish, and smiled.
“We were discussing, Mr. Webster,” said Fernando, tranquilly.
“Oh, Mr. Webster,” said Muriel; “I used to admire him very much
when I was a girl.”
“It’s a pity you don’t now, Muriel,” said Mrs. Atkins, “for he
deserves to be admired, I’m sure.”
“Yes, aunt, but I never recovered from a shock he gave me in my
‘sallet days, when I was green in judgment,’” replied Muriel.
“A shock? Dear me! I can’t imagine Mr. Webster shocking
anybody,” drawled Caroline, with weak surprise.
“Nevertheless,” said Muriel, “Mr. Webster shocked me, like a
torpedo fish, and I’ll tell you how. There was a grand party, at which
he was present. Mother and I were there, and I, who was a girl of
fourteen, had no eyes for anybody but Mr. Webster. My great desire
was to hear him say something, for I thought anything he said
would be remarkable, and worth putting in an album, so I followed
him whenever he went through the crowded drawing-rooms, with
my ears wide open, eagerly listening for the golden sentence. But
Mr. Webster was in a very silent humor, and wandered about without
speaking to anybody. By and by he went up-stairs to the supper
room, and I followed him, in reverent admiration and expectancy. He
approached the supper-table, bowed solemnly to some ladies near
by, took a fork, and began to eat from a dish of pickled oysters.
After he had eaten three or four, he paused, with an oyster on his
fork, turned his great head slowly and majestically to the ladies, and
opened his lips. The golden sentence was coming, and I listened
breathlessly. Now what do you think he said?”
“Well, what?” inquired Harrington, after a hushed pause.
49. “Said he, in his deep, grum, orotund, bass voice, like the low
rolling of distant summer thunder, ‘What nice little oysters these
are!’”
Every one burst into hearty laughter, as Muriel mimicked the tones
of the Websterian ejaculation.
“That was my reward for so long waiting,” she continued, when
the laughter had subsided. “That was my golden sentence, which, of
course, never went from the tablets of memory to the album. It was
an immense shock to know that great statesmen said such things as
common people say.”
“And you heard nothing else?” said Wentworth, vastly amused at
the anecdote.
“Not another word. He devoured the oyster, and wandered down-
stairs again, leaving with me the ponderous sprat which the flavor of
the mollusc had conjured from the ocean depths of his mighty
mind.”
They began to laugh again, when a ring at the door-bell was
heard.
“That’s papa!” cried Julia.
Papa it was—come for his family. He came in presently, robust and
decisive, purseproud, as usual, and smiling, made his salutations
with a certain rude courtesy, and took a chair.
“Well, young ladies,” he burst out presently, “so you went to hear
Phillips harangue this evening.”
“Yes, uncle,” returned Muriel, sportively, “we had you to keep us in
countenance you know.”
“Indeed! Well, I’m sorry if my example incited you. Lafitte, our
Southern visitor, thought it would be amusing to hear some of the
fanatical blather, and so I took him along, and, just by chance, he
got a dose of Phillips.”
50. “I hope the dose did him good, Lemuel, and you also,” said Mrs.
Eastman, with some spirit.
“Oh, I don’t deny Phillips’s power, Serena,” replied the merchant,
carelessly. “It’s all very fine, and if he were in the Whig party, he’d
be a man of mark. It’s a pity, as I always say, to see such wonderful
ability wasted.”
“How did Mr. Lafitte enjoy it, sir?” asked Emily, blandly.
“Oh, he—well, I was rather amused at the way he took it,”
responded Mr. Atkins, laughing. “It quite upset him, and in his hot,
Southern way, he said Phillips ought to be shot. In fact, I thought
Lafitte was rather thin-skinned about it, though, to be sure, Phillips’s
words are enough to try a saint. Anyhow, Lafitte felt ’em rankle.”
“He must certainly, to have had so murderous a spirit aroused in
him,” remarked Mrs. Eastman.
“Murderous? Upon my word, Serena,” replied the merchant,
bluffly, “I think his spirit was not unworthy of a man of high tone,
and I shouldn’t blame him at all if he had pistolled your orator on
the spot.”
“Like the assassin who bludgeoned Otis in Revolutionary times,”
remarked Witherlee, blandly aggravating.
“Oh, you young men are all tainted with fanaticism,” returned Mr.
Atkins, reddening. “When you’re older you’ll know better. I’m always
sorry to see young men of talent, like Mr. Harrington here, misled by
Phillips’s eloquent abstractions. But live and learn, live and learn.”
“I hope, Mr. Atkins, I shall not live to learn distrust in the
statesmanship that reprobates slavery,” said Harrington, urbanely.
“Statesmanship!” contemptuously exclaimed the merchant. “Do
you call such incendiary measures as Phillips and Parker advise,
statesmanship? Sedition and treason! I declare, Mr. Harrington—and
I say this coolly, in sober earnest—that if any one were to shoot
down Phillips and Parker in the street, and I were summoned as a
Grand Juror to pass upon the act, I would refuse to indict him on the
51. ground that it was justifiable homicide. Yes, sir, justifiable homicide.
I have said it a hundred times, and I now say it again. What do you
think of that, Mr. Harrington?”
Harrington met the insulting exultation of the merchant’s gaze,
with a look quiet and firm.
“Since you ask me what I think of it, Mr. Atkins,” he replied,
tranquilly, “you must permit me to say that I think it atrocious.”
“And so do I,” said Mrs. Eastman, crimson with indignation. “And
you ought to blush, Lemuel, to say that you would give legality to a
ferocious murder.”
“Ought I?” replied the merchant, coolly. “Well, I don’t, Serena. In
such a case, killing’s no murder. Murder, indeed! Ha! men like those
to dare to wage war on the institutions of their country!”
“What institutions do they wage war upon, Mr. Atkins?” asked
Wentworth, civilly.
“Well, sir, slavery for one,” excitedly returned the merchant. “An
institution expressly sanctioned by the Constitution, and on the
protection of which the safety of this Union depends, Mr. Wentworth.
An institution, sir, which no statesman would think of assailing for a
moment. Where can you point to one statesman, worthy of the
name, from Webster back to Burke, or as far back as you like to go,
that has ever assailed a great politico-economical institution like
slavery? You’re a scholar, I’m told, Mr. Harrington; now just answer
me that question.”
“Mr. Atkins, I am surprised beyond measure that you should ask
me such a question,” calmly replied Harrington. “The real difficulty
would be to name any statesman of the first eminence that has ever
defended slavery. You mention Burke and Webster. Why, sir, the
whole record of Mr. Webster’s life up to 1850, is against slavery. It is
only eight years ago since he stood up in Faneuil Hall, and said—I
quote his very words, for I have been lately reading them—‘What,’
said he, ‘when all the civilized world is opposed to slavery; when
morality denounces it; when Christianity denounces it; when
52. everything respected, everything good, bears one united witness
against it, is it for America—America, the land of Washington, the
model republic of the world—is it for America to come to its
assistance, and to insist that the maintenance of slavery is necessary
to the support of her institutions!’ Those are Daniel Webster’s very
words, sir, and yet you ask when he ever assailed slavery!”
“Good! good!” cried Mrs. Eastman, amidst a general murmur of
satisfaction from all but the Atkinses. Mr. Atkins sat dumb, wincing
under the crushing blow of the quotation. Their new-born zeal for
slavery and kidnapping gave the Boston merchants of that period
terribly short memories.
“Faneuil Hall, crowded with Whig merchants, answered those
words with six-and-twenty cheers. Have you forgotten them, Mr.
Atkins?” said Harrington. “Now the cheers are all for slavery. Now, in
defiance of your own statesman’s declaration, you assert slavery to
be necessary to the maintenance of your Union. And now, because
Phillips and Parker wage war upon slavery, as Webster did then, you
would justify their murder.”
Still dumb, with his strong lip nervously twitching, the merchant
sat, whelmed in utter confusion.
“You mentioned Burke, Mr. Atkins,” continued Harrington, “and
since you have mentioned him, let me ask if you have forgotten his
speech to the electors of Bristol? Listen to the words of the greatest
statesman since Bacon—for they, too, are fresh in my memory. ‘I
have no idea,’ said Edmund Burke—‘I have no idea of a liberty
unconnected with honesty and justice. Nor do I believe that any
good constitutions of government or of freedom can find it
necessary for their security to doom any part of the people to a
permanent slavery. Such a constitution of freedom, if such can be, is
in effect no more than another name for the tyranny of the strongest
faction.’ Those are the words of Burke, sir. If you doubt, Mrs.
Eastman will get the volume from the library, and you shall read
them for yourself.”
53. “No consequence, Mr. Harrington, no consequence,” returned the
merchant, abruptly rising. “We will not discuss the matter further, sir.
Come, Mrs. Atkins, it is time for us to go home.”
“O dear me,” drawled Mrs. Atkins, leaving her seat, “you
gentlemen are so fond of these horrid politics. Come, children,
come.”
They all rose, with a flutter and rustle of movement. Presently,
while the Atkins ladies, cloaked and bonneted, were moving toward
the door, Harrington approached Mr. Atkins, who had gone into the
entry for his hat and returned, and now stood, cold, harsh and
moody, apart from the rest of the company.
“I trust, Mr. Atkins,” said the young man, with grave courtesy,
“that you are not offended by my plain speaking on these matters,
or at least that you will not understand me to intend any disrespect
to you personally.”
The merchant glared at him with a sullen and insolent smile.
“Mr. Harrington,” he hissed hoarsely, bending his face close to the
young man’s, “such sentiments as yours find favor with my sister
and niece. It is politic in you to adopt them, and so curry favor with
the one that you may mend your poverty by a rich marriage with the
other.”
And with these brutal words, the merchant threw back his head,
glaring at the young man with open mouth, and a frightful smile on
his blanched visage, which was at that moment the visage of a
demon. Harrington met that glare with a look of such majestic
severity, such a stern glory of anger lighting his calm eyes and brow,
that the merchant’s face fell, and he slunk a pace away. The
company had left the parlor, and were talking in the hall, as Mr.
Atkins had made his reply, but Mrs. Eastman, who was standing
nearest the parlor door, had heard it all, and before Harrington could
make any rejoinder, if any he intended, she came quickly in, shutting
the door behind her, her silver tresses trembling and her beautiful
face flushed with haughty and indignant emotion.
54. “Permit me to tell you, Lemuel Atkins,” said she, confronting her
brother, and speaking in a proud and steady voice, “that the
sentiments which you have not the wit to controvert, nor the
manhood to entertain, were held by Mr. Harrington before we had
the honor of his friendship, and let me further say to you that while
the choice of my daughter’s heart, be he rich or poor, shall be my
choice also, I should esteem it the best hour of my life which gave
me assurance that she would wed a man worthier of her than any
man I know, and dear to me as my own son! Take that home with
you, sir, and do us the honor to believe that in this house we value
gentlemen for what they are, and not for what they own.”
He shrank from the serene and haughty magnetism of her
manner, and cowering under her rebuke, slunk away to the door
without a word, and went into the hall. Harrington stood like one
thunder-struck, the slow thrill her words gave him running through
his veins, while she swept across the room to close the door the
merchant had left ajar, and turning again, came quickly toward him,
her beautiful face pale and wet with calmly-flowing tears.
“Tell me, John,” she said, seizing his hands, and speaking in low,
rapid tones, tremulous with emotion—“this pitiful insult moved me to
anger, and in my anger I have spoken the true thought of my heart
—tell me that so dear a hope is not so vain. Oh, confide in me as in
your own mother, for no mother could love you more tenderly than I
do.”
In the spiritual passion of the moment, all cold prudence, all
reticence, melted, and fell away. He clasped her in his arms, and
with sweet and sorrowful emotion, kissed her fair brow and silver
hair.
“I love her, my mother,” he murmured, sadly smiling—“I love her,
but the love I once thought mine, is not for me.”
“You love her—you love Muriel, and she does not love you! I do
not believe it—I cannot. John, at my age women are not easily
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