Part 29 (2/2)
”Wait,” cried Stoneman, ”until I put a ballot in the hand of every negro and a bayonet at the breast of every white man from the James to the Rio Grande!”
”I'll tell you a little story,” said the doctor with a smile. ”I once had a half-grown eagle in a cage in my yard. The door was left open one day, and a meddlesome rooster hopped in to pick a fight. The eagle had been sick a week and seemed an easy mark. I watched. The rooster jumped and wheeled and spurred and picked pieces out of his topknot. The young eagle didn't know at first what he meant. He walked around dazed, with a hurt expression. When at last it dawned on him what the chicken was about, he simply reached out one claw, took the rooster by the neck, planted the other claw in his breast, and s.n.a.t.c.hed his head off.”
The old man snapped his ma.s.sive jaws together and grunted contemptuously.
Book III--The Reign of Terror
CHAPTER I
A FALLEN SLAVEHOLDER'S MANSION
Piedmont, South Carolina, which Elsie and Phil had selected for reasons best known to themselves as the place of retreat for their father, was a favourite summer resort of Charleston people before the war.
Ulster county, of which this village was the capital, bordered on the North Carolina line, lying alongside the ancient sh.o.r.e of York. It was settled by the Scotch folk who came from the North of Ireland in the great migrations which gave America three hundred thousand people of Covenanter martyr blood, the largest and most important addition to our population, larger in number than either the Puritans of New England or the so-called Cavaliers of Virginia and Eastern Carolina; and far more important than either, in the growth of American nationality.
To a man they had hated Great Britain. Not a Tory was found among them.
The cries of their martyred dead were still ringing in their souls when George III started on his career of oppression. The fiery words of Patrick Henry, their spokesman in the valley of Virginia, had swept the aristocracy of the Old Dominion into rebellion against the King and on into triumphant Democracy. They had made North Carolina the first home of freedom in the New World, issued the first Declaration of Independence in Mecklenburg, and lifted the first banner of rebellion against the tyranny of the Crown.
They grew to the soil wherever they stopped, always home lovers and home builders, loyal to their own people, instinctive clan leaders and clan followers. A st.u.r.dy, honest, covenant-keeping, G.o.d-fearing, fighting people, above all things they hated sham and pretence. They never boasted of their families, though some of them might have quartered the royal arms of Scotland on their s.h.i.+elds.
To these st.u.r.dy qualities had been added a strain of Huguenot tenderness and vivacity.
The culture of cotton as the sole industry had fixed African slavery as their economic system. With the heritage of the Old World had been blended forces inherent in the earth and air of the new Southland, something of the breath of its unbroken forests, the freedom of its untrod mountains, the temper of its sun, and the sweetness of its tropic perfumes.
When Mrs. Cameron received Elsie's letter, asking her to secure for them six good rooms at the ”Palmetto” hotel, she laughed. The big rambling hostelry had been burned by roving negroes, pigs were wallowing in the sulphur springs, and along its walks, where lovers of olden days had strolled, the cows were browsing on the shrubbery.
But she laughed for a more important reason. They had asked for a six-room cottage if accommodations could not be had in the hotel.
She could put them in the Lenoir place. The cotton crop from their farm had been stolen from the gin--the cotton tax of $200 could not be paid, and a mortgage was about to be foreclosed on both their farm and home. She had been brooding over their troubles in despair. The Stonemans' coming was a G.o.dsend.
Mrs. Cameron was helping them set the house in order to receive the new tenants.
”I declare,” said Mrs. Lenoir gratefully. ”It seems too good to be true.
Just as I was about to give up--the first time in my life--here came those rich Yankees and with enough rent to pay the interest on the mortgages and our board at the hotel. I'll teach Margaret to paint, and she can give Marion lessons on the piano. The darkest hour's just before day. And last week I cried when they told me I must lose the farm.”
”I was heartsick over it for you.”
”You know, the farm was my dowry with the dozen slaves Papa gave us on our wedding-day. The negroes did as they pleased, yet we managed to live and were very happy.”
Marion entered and placed a bouquet of roses on the table, touching them daintily until she stood each flower apart in careless splendour. Their perfume, the girl's wistful dreamy blue eyes and shy elusive beauty, all seemed a part of the warm sweet air of the June morning. Mrs. Lenoir watched her lovingly.
”Mamma, I'm going to put flowers in every room. I'm sure they haven't such lovely ones in Was.h.i.+ngton,” said Marion eagerly, as she skipped out.
The two women moved to the open window, through which came the drone of bees and the distant music of the river falls.
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