"Tom, you needn't get me the horses. I don't want to go," she said.

"Why not, Miss Eva?"

"These things sink into my heart, Tom," said Eva,--"they sink into myheart," she repeated, earnestly. "I don't want to go;" and she turnedfrom Tom, and went into the house.

A few days after, another woman came, in old Prue's place, to bring therusks; Miss Ophelia was in the kitchen.

"Lor!" said Dinah, "what's got Prue?"

"Prue isn't coming any more," said the woman, mysteriously.

"Why not?" said Dinah, "she an't dead, is she?"

"We doesn't exactly know. She's down cellar," said the woman, glancingat Miss Ophelia.

After Miss Ophelia had taken the rusks, Dinah followed the woman to thedoor.

"What _has_ got Prue, any how?" she said.

The woman seemed desirous, yet reluctant, to speak, and answered, inlow, mysterious tone.

"Well, you mustn't tell nobody, Prue, she got drunk agin,--and theyhad her down cellar,--and thar they left her all day,--and I hearn 'emsaying that the _flies had got to her_,--and _she's dead_!"

Dinah held up her hands, and, turning, saw close by her side thespirit-like form of Evangeline, her large, mystic eyes dilated withhorror, and every drop of blood driven from her lips and cheeks.

"Lor bless us! Miss Eva's gwine to faint away! What go us all, to lether har such talk? Her pa'll be rail mad."

"I shan't faint, Dinah," said the child, firmly; "and why shouldn't Ihear it? It an't so much for me to hear it, as for poor Prue to sufferit."

"_Lor sakes_! it isn't for sweet, delicate young ladies, likeyou,--these yer stories isn't; it's enough to kill 'em!"

Eva sighed again, and walked up stairs with a slow and melancholy step.

Miss Ophelia anxiously inquired the woman's story. Dinah gave a verygarrulous version of it, to which Tom added the particulars which he haddrawn from her that morning.

"An abominable business,--perfectly horrible!" she exclaimed, as sheentered the room where St. Clare lay reading his paper.

"Pray, what iniquity has turned up now?" said he.

"What now? why, those folks have whipped Prue to death!" said MissOphelia, going on, with great strength of detail, into the story, andenlarging on its most shocking particulars.

"I thought it would come to that, some time," said St. Clare, going onwith his paper.

"Thought so!--an't you going to _do_ anything about it?" said MissOphelia. "Haven't you got any _selectmen_, or anybody, to interfere andlook after such matters?"

"It's commonly supposed that the _property_ interest is a sufficientguard in these cases. If people choose to ruin their own possessions, Idon't know what's to be done. It seems the poor creature was a thief anda drunkard; and so there won't be much hope to get up sympathy for her."

"It is perfectly outrageous,--it is horrid, Augustine! It will certainlybring down vengeance upon you."

"My dear cousin, I didn't do it, and I can't help it; I would, if Icould. If low-minded, brutal people will act like themselves, what am Ito do? they have absolute control; they are irresponsible despots. Therewould be no use in interfering; there is no law that amounts to anythingpractically, for such a case. The best we can do is to shut our eyes andears, and let it alone. It's the only resource left us."

"How can you shut your eyes and ears? How can you let such thingsalone?"

"My dear child, what do you expect? Here is a whole class,--debased,uneducated, indolent, provoking,--put, without any sort of terms orconditions, entirely into the hands of such people as the majority inour world are; people who have neither consideration nor self-control,who haven't even an enlightened regard to their own interest,--forthat's the case with the largest half of mankind. Of course, in acommunity so organized, what can a man of honorable and humane feelingsdo, but shut his eyes all he can, and harden his heart? I can't buyevery poor wretch I see. I can't turn knight-errant, and undertake toredress every individual case of wrong in such a city as this. The mostI can do is to try and keep out of the way of it."

St. Clare's fine countenance was for a moment overcast; he said,

"Come, cousin, don't stand there looking like one of the Fates; you'veonly seen a peep through the curtain,--a specimen of what is goingon, the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be pryingand spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart toanything. 'T is like looking too close into the details of Dinah'skitchen;" and St. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied himself withhis paper.

Miss Ophelia sat down, and pulled out her knitting-work, and sat theregrim with indignation. She knit and knit, but while she mused the fireburned; at last she broke out--"I tell you, Augustine, I can't get overthings so, if you can. It's a perfect abomination for you to defend sucha system,--that's _my_ mind!"

"What now?" said St. Clare, looking up. "At it again, hey?"

"I say it's perfectly abominable for you to defend such a system!" saidMiss Ophelia, with increasing warmth.

"_I_ defend it, my dear lady? Who ever said I did defend it?" said St.Clare.

"Of course, you defend it,--you all do,--all you Southerners. What doyou have slaves for, if you don't?"

"Are you such a sweet innocent as to suppose nobody in this world everdoes what they don't think is right? Don't you, or didn't you ever, doanything that you did not think quite right?"

"If I do, I repent of it, I hope," said Miss Ophelia, rattling herneedles with energy.

"So do I," said St. Clare, peeling his orange; "I'm repenting of it allthe time."

"What do you keep on doing it for?"

"Didn't you ever keep on doing wrong, after you'd repented, my goodcousin?"

"Well, only when I've been very much tempted," said Miss Ophelia.

"Well, I'm very much tempted," said St. Clare; "that's just mydifficulty."

"But I always resolve I won't and I try to break off."

"Well, I have been resolving I won't, off and on, these ten years," saidSt. Clare; "but I haven't, some how, got clear. Have you got clear ofall your sins, cousin?"

"Cousin Augustine," said Miss Ophelia, seriously, and laying downher knitting-work, "I suppose I deserve that you should reprove myshort-comings. I know all you say is true enough; nobody else feelsthem more than I do; but it does seem to me, after all, there is somedifference between me and you. It seems to me I would cut off my righthand sooner than keep on, from day to day, doing what I thought waswrong. But, then, my conduct is so inconsistent with my profession, Idon't wonder you reprove me."

"O, now, cousin," said Augustine, sitting down on the floor, and layinghis head back in her lap, "don't take on so awfully serious! You knowwhat a good-for-nothing, saucy boy I always was. I love to poke youup,--that's all,--just to see you get earnest. I do think you aredesperately, distressingly good; it tires me to death to think of it."

"But this is a serious subject, my boy, Auguste," said Miss Ophelia,laying her hand on his forehead.

"Dismally so," said he; "and I--well, I never want to talk seriously inhot weather. What with mosquitos and all, a fellow can't get himselfup to any very sublime moral flights; and I believe," said St. Clare,suddenly rousing himself up, "there's a theory, now! I understand nowwhy northern nations are always more virtuous than southern ones,--I seeinto that whole subject."

"O, Augustine, you are a sad rattle-brain!"

"Am I? Well, so I am, I suppose; but for once I will be serious, now;but you must hand me that basket of oranges;--you see, you'll have to'stay me with flagons and comfort me with apples,' if I'm going to makethis effort. Now," said Augustine, drawing the basket up, "I'll begin:When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a fellowto hold two or three dozen of his fellow-worms in captivity, a decentregard to the opinions of society requires--"

"I don't see that you are growing more serious," said Miss Ophelia.

"Wait,--I'm coming on,--you'll hear. The short of the matter is,cousin," said he, his handsome face suddenly settling into an earnestand serious expression, "on this abstract question of slavery therecan, as I think, be but one opinion. Planters, who have money to make byit,--clergymen, who have planters to please,--politicians, who wantto rule by it,--may warp and bend language and ethics to a degree thatshall astonish the world at their ingenuity; they can press nature andthe Bible, and nobody knows what else, into the service; but, after all,neither they nor the world believe in it one particle the more. It comesfrom the devil, that's the short of it;--and, to my mind, it's a prettyrespectable specimen of what he can do in his own line."

Miss Ophelia stopped her knitting, and looked surprised, and St. Clare,apparently enjoying her astonishment, went on.

"You seem to wonder; but if you will get me fairly at it, I'll make aclean breast of it. This cursed business, accursed of God and man, whatis it? Strip it of all its ornament, run it down to the root and nucleusof the whole, and what is it? Why, because my brother Quashy is ignorantand weak, and I am intelligent and strong,--because I know how, and_can_ do it,--therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and givehim only such and so much as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, toodirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because Idon't like work, Quashy shall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashyshall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend it.Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over dry-shod.Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the days of his mortallife, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last, as I findconvenient. This I take to be about what slavery _is_. I defy anybodyon earth to read our slave-code, as it stands in our law-books, and makeanything else of it. Talk of the _abuses_ of slavery! Humbug! The _thingitself_ is the essence of all abuse! And the only reason why the landdon't sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is because it is _used_ ina way infinitely better than it is. For pity's sake, for shame's sake,because we are men born of women, and not savage beasts, many of us donot, and dare not,--we would _scorn_ to use the full power which oursavage laws put into our hands. And he who goes the furthest, and doesthe worst, only uses within limits the power that the law gives him."

St. Clare had started up, and, as his manner was when excited, waswalking, with hurried steps, up and down the floor. His fine face,classic as that of a Greek statue, seemed actually to burn with thefervor of his feelings. His large blue eyes flashed, and he gesturedwith an unconscious eagerness. Miss Ophelia had never seen him in thismood before, and she sat perfectly silent.

"I declare to you," said he, suddenly stopping before his cousin "(It'sno sort of use to talk or to feel on this subject), but I declare toyou, there have been times when I have thought, if the whole countrywould sink, and hide all this injustice and misery from the light, Iwould willingly sink with it. When I have been travelling up and downon our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that everybrutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by ourlaws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, ashe could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,--when I have seensuch men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls andwomen,--I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race!"

"Augustine! Augustine!" said Miss Ophelia, "I'm sure you've said enough.I never, in my life, heard anything like this, even at the North."

"At the North!" said St. Clare, with a sudden change of expression, andresuming something of his habitual careless tone. "Pooh! your northernfolks are cold-blooded; you are cool in everything! You can't begin tocurse up hill and down as we can, when we get fairly at it."

"Well, but the question is," said Miss Ophelia.

"O, yes, to be sure, the _question is_,--and a deuce of a question itis! How came _you_ in this state of sin and misery? Well, I shallanswer in the good old words you used to teach me, Sundays. I came so byordinary generation. My servants were my father's, and, what is more,my mother's; and now they are mine, they and their increase, which bidsfair to be a pretty considerable item. My father, you know, came firstfrom New England; and he was just such another man as your father,--aregular old Roman,--upright, energetic, noble-minded, with an iron will.Your father settled down in New England, to rule over rocks and stones,and to force an existence out of Nature; and mine settled in Louisiana,to rule over men and women, and force existence out of them. My mother,"said St. Clare, getting up and walking to a picture at the end of theroom, and gazing upward with a face fervent with veneration, "_she wasdivine!_ Don't look at me so!--you know what I mean! She probably was ofmortal birth; but, as far as ever I could observe, there was no traceof any human weakness or error about her; and everybody that lives toremember her, whether bond or free, servant, acquaintance, relation,all say the same. Why, cousin, that mother has been all that has stoodbetween me and utter unbelief for years. She was a direct embodiment andpersonification of the New Testament,--a living fact, to be accountedfor, and to be accounted for in no other way than by its truth. O,mother! mother!" said St. Clare, clasping his hands, in a sort oftransport; and then suddenly checking himself, he came back, and seatinghimself on an ottoman, he went on:

"My brother and I were twins; and they say, you know, that twins oughtto resemble each other; but we were in all points a contrast. He hadblack, fiery eyes, coal-black hair, a strong, fine Roman profile, anda rich brown complexion. I had blue eyes, golden hair, a Greek outline,and fair complexion. He was active and observing, I dreamy and inactive.He was generous to his friends and equals, but proud, dominant,overbearing, to inferiors, and utterly unmerciful to whatever set itselfup against him. Truthful we both were; he from pride and courage, I froma sort of abstract ideality. We loved each other about as boys generallydo,--off and on, and in general;--he was my father's pet, and I mymother's.

"There was a morbid sensitiveness and acuteness of feeling in me onall possible subjects, of which he and my father had no kind ofunderstanding, and with which they could have no possible sympathy. Butmother did; and so, when I had quarreled with Alfred, and father lookedsternly on me, I used to go off to mother's room, and sit by her. Iremember just how she used to look, with her pale cheeks, her deep,soft, serious eyes, her white dress,--she always wore white; and I usedto think of her whenever I read in Revelations about the saints thatwere arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. She had a great deal ofgenius of one sort and another, particularly in music; and she usedto sit at her organ, playing fine old majestic music of the Catholicchurch, and singing with a voice more like an angel than a mortalwoman; and I would lay my head down on her lap, and cry, and dream, andfeel,--oh, immeasurably!--things that I had no language to say!

"In those days, this matter of slavery had never been canvassed as ithas now; nobody dreamed of any harm in it.

"My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some preexistent state, hemust have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his oldcourt pride along with him; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, thoughhe was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family. My brotherwas begotten in his image.

"Now, an aristocrat, you know, the world over, has no human sympathies,beyond a certain line in society. In England the line is in one place,in Burmah in another, and in America in another; but the aristocratof all these countries never goes over it. What would be hardship anddistress and injustice in his own class, is a cool matter of course inanother one. My father's dividing line was that of color. _Among hisequals_, never was a man more just and generous; but he considered thenegro, through all possible gradations of color, as an intermediatelink between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice orgenerosity on this hypothesis. I suppose, to be sure, if anybody hadasked him, plump and fair, whether they had human immortal souls, hemight have hemmed and hawed, and said yes. But my father was not a manmuch troubled with spiritualism; religious sentiment he had none, beyonda veneration for God, as decidedly the head of the upper classes.

"Well, my father worked some five hundred negroes; he was an inflexible,driving, punctilious business man; everything was to move by system,--tobe sustained with unfailing accuracy and precision. Now, if you takeinto account that all this was to be worked out by a set of lazy,twaddling, shiftless laborers, who had grown up, all their lives, inthe absence of every possible motive to learn how to do anythingbut 'shirk,' as you Vermonters say, and you'll see that there mightnaturally be, on his plantation, a great many things that lookedhorrible and distressing to a sensitive child, like me.

"Besides all, he had an overseer,--great, tall, slab-sided, two-fistedrenegade son of Vermont--(begging your pardon),--who had gone through aregular apprenticeship in hardness and brutality and taken his degree tobe admitted to practice. My mother never could endure him, nor I; buthe obtained an entire ascendency over my father; and this man was theabsolute despot of the estate.

"I was a little fellow then, but I had the same love that I have now forall kinds of human things,--a kind of passion for the study of humanity,come in what shape it would. I was found in the cabins and among thefield-hands a great deal, and, of course, was a great favorite; and allsorts of complaints and grievances were breathed in my ear; and I toldthem to mother, and we, between us, formed a sort of committee fora redress of grievances. We hindered and repressed a great deal ofcruelty, and congratulated ourselves on doing a vast deal of good, till,as often happens, my zeal overacted. Stubbs complained to my father thathe couldn't manage the hands, and must resign his position. Father wasa fond, indulgent husband, but a man that never flinched from anythingthat he thought necessary; and so he put down his foot, like a rock,between us and the field-hands. He told my mother, in languageperfectly respectful and deferential, but quite explicit, that overthe house-servants she should be entire mistress, but that with thefield-hands he could allow no interference. He revered and respected herabove all living beings; but he would have said it all the same to thevirgin Mary herself, if she had come in the way of his system.

"I used sometimes to hear my mother reasoning cases withhim,--endeavoring to excite his sympathies. He would listen to the mostpathetic appeals with the most discouraging politeness and equanimity.'It all resolves itself into this,' he would say; 'must I part withStubbs, or keep him? Stubbs is the soul of punctuality, honesty, andefficiency,--a thorough business hand, and as humane as the generalrun. We can't have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain hisadministration as a _whole_, even if there are, now and then, thingsthat are exceptionable. All government includes some necessary hardness.General rules will bear hard on particular cases.' This last maxim myfather seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty.After he had said _that_, he commonly drew up his feet on the sofa, likea man that has disposed of a business, and betook himself to a nap, orthe newspaper, as the case might be.

"The fact is my father showed the exact sort of talent for a statesman.He could have divided Poland as easily as an orange, or trod on Irelandas quietly and systematically as any man living. At last my mother gaveup, in despair. It never will be known, till the last account, whatnoble and sensitive natures like hers have felt, cast, utterly helpless,into what seems to them an abyss of injustice and cruelty, and whichseems so to nobody about them. It has been an age of long sorrow of suchnatures, in such a hell-begotten sort of world as ours. What remainedfor her, but to train her children in her own views and sentiments?Well, after all you say about training, children will grow upsubstantially what they _are_ by nature, and only that. From the cradle,Alfred was an aristocrat; and as he grew up, instinctively, all hissympathies and all his reasonings were in that line, and all mother'sexhortations went to the winds. As to me, they sunk deep into me. Shenever contradicted, in form, anything my father said, or seemed directlyto differ from him; but she impressed, burnt into my very soul, with allthe force of her deep, earnest nature, an idea of the dignity and worthof the meanest human soul. I have looked in her face with solemn awe,when she would point up to the stars in the evening, and say to me, 'Seethere, Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our place will be living,when all these stars are gone forever,--will live as long as God lives!'

"She had some fine old paintings; one, in particular, of Jesus healinga blind man. They were very fine, and used to impress me strongly. 'Seethere, Auguste,' she would say; 'the blind man was a beggar, poor andloathsome; therefore, he would not heal him _afar off!_ He called him tohim, and put _his hands on him!_ Remember this, my boy.' If I had livedto grow up under her care, she might have stimulated me to I know notwhat of enthusiasm. I might have been a saint, reformer, martyr,--but,alas! alas! I went from her when I was only thirteen, and I never sawher again!"

St. Clare rested his head on his hands, and did not speak for someminutes. After a while, he looked up, and went on:

"What poor, mean trash this whole business of human virtue is! A merematter, for the most part, of latitude and longitude, and geographicalposition, acting with natural temperament. The greater part is nothingbut an accident! Your father, for example, settles in Vermont, in a townwhere all are, in fact, free and equal; becomes a regular church memberand deacon, and in due time joins an Abolition society, and thinksus all little better than heathens. Yet he is, for all the world, inconstitution and habit, a duplicate of my father. I can see it leakingout in fifty different ways,--just the same strong, overbearing,dominant spirit. You know very well how impossible it is to persuadesome of the folks in your village that Squire Sinclair does not feelabove them. The fact is, though he has fallen on democratic times, andembraced a democratic theory, he is to the heart an aristocrat, as muchas my father, who ruled over five or six hundred slaves."

Miss Ophelia felt rather disposed to cavil at this picture, and waslaying down her knitting to begin, but St. Clare stopped her.

"Now, I know every word you are going to say. I do not say they _were_alike, in fact. One fell into a condition where everything acted againstthe natural tendency, and the other where everything acted for it; andso one turned out a pretty wilful, stout, overbearing old democrat, andthe other a wilful, stout old despot. If both had owned plantations inLouisiana, they would have been as like as two old bullets cast in thesame mould."

"What an undutiful boy you are!" said Miss Ophelia.

"I don't mean them any disrespect," said St. Clare. "You know reverenceis not my forte. But, to go back to my history:

"When father died, he left the whole property to us twin boys, to bedivided as we should agree. There does not breathe on God's earth anobler-souled, more generous fellow, than Alfred, in all that concernshis equals; and we got on admirably with this property question,without a single unbrotherly word or feeling. We undertook to work theplantation together; and Alfred, whose outward life and capabilitieshad double the strength of mine, became an enthusiastic planter, and awonderfully successful one.

"But two years' trial satisfied me that I could not be a partner in thatmatter. To have a great gang of seven hundred, whom I could not knowpersonally, or feel any individual interest in, bought and driven,housed, fed, worked like so many horned cattle, strained up to militaryprecision,--the question of how little of life's commonest enjoymentswould keep them in working order being a constantly recurringproblem,--the necessity of drivers and overseers,--the ever-necessarywhip, first, last, and only argument,--the whole thing was insufferablydisgusting and loathsome to me; and when I thought of my mother'sestimate of one poor human soul, it became even frightful!

"It's all nonsense to talk to me about slaves _enjoying_ all this! Tothis day, I have no patience with the unutterable trash that some ofyour patronizing Northerners have made up, as in their zeal to apologizefor our sins. We all know better. Tell me that any man living wants towork all his days, from day-dawn till dark, under the constant eye of amaster, without the power of putting forth one irresponsible volition,on the same dreary, monotonous, unchanging toil, and all for two pairsof pantaloons and a pair of shoes a year, with enough food and shelterto keep him in working order! Any man who thinks that human beings can,as a general thing, be made about as comfortable that way as any other,I wish he might try it. I'd buy the dog, and work him, with a clearconscience!"

"I always have supposed," said Miss Ophelia, "that you, all of you,approved of these things, and thought them _right_--according toScripture."

"Humbug! We are not quite reduced to that yet. Alfred who is asdetermined a despot as ever walked, does not pretend to this kind ofdefence;--no, he stands, high and haughty, on that good old respectableground, _the right of the strongest_; and he says, and I think quitesensibly, that the American planter is 'only doing, in another form,what the English aristocracy and capitalists are doing by the lowerclasses;' that is, I take it, _appropriating_ them, body and bone, souland spirit, to their use and convenience. He defends both,--and I think,at least, _consistently_. He says that there can be no high civilizationwithout enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real. There must,he says, be a lower class, given up to physical toil and confined to ananimal nature; and a higher one thereby acquires leisure and wealth fora more expanded intelligence and improvement, and becomes the directingsoul of the lower. So he reasons, because, as I said, he is born anaristocrat;--so I don't believe, because I was born a democrat."

"How in the world can the two things be compared?" said Miss Ophelia."The English laborer is not sold, traded, parted from his family,whipped."

"He is as much at the will of his employer as if he were sold to him.The slave-owner can whip his refractory slave to death,--the capitalistcan starve him to death. As to family security, it is hard to say whichis the worst,--to have one's children sold, or see them starve to deathat home."

"But it's no kind of apology for slavery, to prove that it isn't worsethan some other bad thing."

"I didn't give it for one,--nay, I'll say, besides, that ours is themore bold and palpable infringement of human rights; actually buying aman up, like a horse,--looking at his teeth, cracking his joints, andtrying his paces and then paying down for him,--having speculators,breeders, traders, and brokers in human bodies and souls,--sets thething before the eyes of the civilized world in a more tangible form,though the thing done be, after all, in its nature, the same; that is,appropriating one set of human beings to the use and improvement ofanother without any regard to their own."

"I never thought of the matter in this light," said Miss Ophelia.

"Well, I've travelled in England some, and I've looked over a good manydocuments as to the state of their lower classes; and I really thinkthere is no denying Alfred, when he says that his slaves are better offthan a large class of the population of England. You see, you must notinfer, from what I have told you, that Alfred is what is called a hardmaster; for he isn't. He is despotic, and unmerciful to insubordination;he would shoot a fellow down with as little remorse as he would shoota buck, if he opposed him. But, in general, he takes a sort of pride inhaving his slaves comfortably fed and accommodated.

"When I was with him, I insisted that he should do something for theirinstruction; and, to please me, he did get a chaplain, and used to havethem catechized Sunday, though, I believe, in his heart, that he thoughtit would do about as much good to set a chaplain over his dogs andhorses. And the fact is, that a mind stupefied and animalized by everybad influence from the hour of birth, spending the whole of everyweek-day in unreflecting toil, cannot be done much with by a few hourson Sunday. The teachers of Sunday-schools among the manufacturingpopulation of England, and among plantation-hands in our country, couldperhaps testify to the same result, _there and here_. Yet some strikingexceptions there are among us, from the fact that the negro is naturallymore impressible to religious sentiment than the white."

"Well," said Miss Ophelia, "how came you to give up your plantationlife?"

"Well, we jogged on together some time, till Alfred saw plainly thatI was no planter. He thought it absurd, after he had reformed, andaltered, and improved everywhere, to suit my notions, that I stillremained unsatisfied. The fact was, it was, after all, the THING thatI hated--the using these men and women, the perpetuation of all thisignorance, brutality and vice,--just to make money for me!

"Besides, I was always interfering in the details. Being myself one ofthe laziest of mortals, I had altogether too much fellow-feeling for thelazy; and when poor, shiftless dogs put stones at the bottom of theircotton-baskets to make them weigh heavier, or filled their sacks withdirt, with cotton at the top, it seemed so exactly like what I should doif I were they, I couldn't and wouldn't have them flogged for it. Well,of course, there was an end of plantation discipline; and Alf and Icame to about the same point that I and my respected father did, yearsbefore. So he told me that I was a womanish sentimentalist, and wouldnever do for business life; and advised me to take the bank-stock andthe New Orleans family mansion, and go to writing poetry, and let himmanage the plantation. So we parted, and I came here."

"But why didn't you free your slaves?"

"Well, I wasn't up to that. To hold them as tools for money-making, Icould not;--have them to help spend money, you know, didn't look quiteso ugly to me. Some of them were old house-servants, to whom I was muchattached; and the younger ones were children to the old. All were wellsatisfied to be as they were." He paused, and walked reflectively up anddown the room.

"There was," said St. Clare, "a time in my life when I had plans andhopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift. Ihad vague, indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator,--to freemy native land from this spot and stain. All young men have had suchfever-fits, I suppose, some time,--but then--"

"Why didn't you?" said Miss Ophelia;--"you ought not to put your hand tothe plough, and look back."

"O, well, things didn't go with me as I expected, and I got the despairof living that Solomon did. I suppose it was a necessary incident towisdom in us both; but, some how or other, instead of being actor andregenerator in society, I became a piece of driftwood, and have beenfloating and eddying about, ever since. Alfred scolds me, every timewe meet; and he has the better of me, I grant,--for he really doessomething; his life is a logical result of his opinions and mine is acontemptible _non sequitur_."

"My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending yourprobation?"

"Satisfied! Was I not just telling you I despised it? But, then, to comeback to this point,--we were on this liberation business. I don't thinkmy feelings about slavery are peculiar. I find many men who, in theirhearts, think of it just as I do. The land groans under it; and, bad asit is for the slave, it is worse, if anything, for the master. Ittakes no spectacles to see that a great class of vicious, improvident,degraded people, among us, are an evil to us, as well as to themselves.The capitalist and aristocrat of England cannot feel that as we do,because they do not mingle with the class they degrade as we do. Theyare in our homes; they are the associates of our children, and they formtheir minds faster than we can; for they are a race that children alwayswill cling to and assimilate with. If Eva, now, was not more angel thanordinary, she would be ruined. We might as well allow the small-pox torun among them, and think our children would not take it, as to let thembe uninstructed and vicious, and think our children will not be affectedby that. Yet our laws positively and utterly forbid any efficientgeneral educational system, and they do it wisely, too; for, just beginand thoroughly educate one generation, and the whole thing would beblown sky high. If we did not give them liberty, they would take it."

"And what do you think will be the end of this?" said Miss Ophelia.

"I don't know. One thing is certain,--that there is a mustering amongthe masses, the world over; and there is a _dies iræ_ coming on, sooneror later. The same thing is working in Europe, in England, and in thiscountry. My mother used to tell me of a millennium that was coming,when Christ should reign, and all men should be free and happy. And shetaught me, when I was a boy, to pray, 'thy kingdom come.' Sometimes Ithink all this sighing, and groaning, and stirring among the dry bonesforetells what she used to tell me was coming. But who may abide the dayof His appearing?"

"Augustine, sometimes I think you are not far from the kingdom," saidMiss Ophelia, laying down her knitting, and looking anxiously at hercousin.

"Thank you for your good opinion, but it's up and down with me,--up toheaven's gate in theory, down in earth's dust in practice. But there'sthe teabell,--do let's go,--and don't say, now, I haven't had onedownright serious talk, for once in my life."

At table, Marie alluded to the incident of Prue. "I suppose you'llthink, cousin," she said, "that we are all barbarians."

"I think that's a barbarous thing," said Miss Ophelia, "but I don'tthink you are all barbarians."

"Well, now," said Marie, "I know it's impossible to get along with someof these creatures. They are so bad they ought not to live. I don't feela particle of sympathy for such cases. If they'd only behave themselves,it would not happen."

"But, mamma," said Eva, "the poor creature was unhappy; that's what madeher drink."

"O, fiddlestick! as if that were any excuse! I'm unhappy, very often. Ipresume," she said, pensively, "that I've had greater trials than evershe had. It's just because they are so bad. There's some of them thatyou cannot break in by any kind of severity. I remember father had aman that was so lazy he would run away just to get rid of work, and lieround in the swamps, stealing and doing all sorts of horrid things. Thatman was caught and whipped, time and again, and it never did him anygood; and the last time he crawled off, though he couldn't but just go,and died in the swamp. There was no sort of reason for it, for father'shands were always treated kindly."

"I broke a fellow in, once," said St. Clare, "that all the overseers andmasters had tried their hands on in vain."

"You!" said Marie; "well, I'd be glad to know when _you_ ever didanything of the sort."

"Well, he was a powerful, gigantic fellow,--a native-born African; andhe appeared to have the rude instinct of freedom in him to an uncommondegree. He was a regular African lion. They called him Scipio. Nobodycould do anything with him; and he was sold round from overseer tooverseer, till at last Alfred bought him, because he thought he couldmanage him. Well, one day he knocked down the overseer, and was fairlyoff into the swamps. I was on a visit to Alf's plantation, for it wasafter we had dissolved partnership. Alfred was greatly exasperated;but I told him that it was his own fault, and laid him any wager that Icould break the man; and finally it was agreed that, if I caught him, Ishould have him to experiment on. So they mustered out a party of somesix or seven, with guns and dogs, for the hunt. People, you know, canget up as much enthusiasm in hunting a man as a deer, if it is onlycustomary; in fact, I got a little excited myself, though I had only putin as a sort of mediator, in case he was caught.

"Well, the dogs bayed and howled, and we rode and scampered, and finallywe started him. He ran and bounded like a buck, and kept us well in therear for some time; but at last he got caught in an impenetrable thicketof cane; then he turned to bay, and I tell you he fought the dogs rightgallantly. He dashed them to right and left, and actually killed threeof them with only his naked fists, when a shot from a gun brought himdown, and he fell, wounded and bleeding, almost at my feet. The poorfellow looked up at me with manhood and despair both in his eye. I keptback the dogs and the party, as they came pressing up, and claimed himas my prisoner. It was all I could do to keep them from shooting him, inthe flush of success; but I persisted in my bargain, and Alfred sold himto me. Well, I took him in hand, and in one fortnight I had him tameddown as submissive and tractable as heart could desire."

"What in the world did you do to him?" said Marie.

"Well, it was quite a simple process. I took him to my own room, had agood bed made for him, dressed his wounds, and tended him myself, untilhe got fairly on his feet again. And, in process of time, I had freepapers made out for him, and told him he might go where he liked."

"And did he go?" said Miss Ophelia.

"No. The foolish fellow tore the paper in two, and absolutely refusedto leave me. I never had a braver, better fellow,--trusty and true assteel. He embraced Christianity afterwards, and became as gentle as achild. He used to oversee my place on the lake, and did it capitally,too. I lost him the first cholera season. In fact, he laid down his lifefor me. For I was sick, almost to death; and when, through the panic,everybody else fled, Scipio worked for me like a giant, and actuallybrought me back into life again. But, poor fellow! he was taken, rightafter, and there was no saving him. I never felt anybody's loss more."

Eva had come gradually nearer and nearer to her father, as he told thestory,--her small lips apart, her eyes wide and earnest with absorbinginterest.

As he finished, she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, burst intotears, and sobbed convulsively.

"Eva, dear child! what is the matter?" said St. Clare, as the child'ssmall frame trembled and shook with the violence of her feelings. "Thischild," he added, "ought not to hear any of this kind of thing,--she'snervous."

"No, papa, I'm not nervous," said Eva, controlling herself, suddenly,with a strength of resolution singular in such a child. "I'm notnervous, but these things _sink into my heart_."

"What do you mean, Eva?"

"I can't tell you, papa, I think a great many thoughts. Perhaps some dayI shall tell you."

"Well, think away, dear,--only don't cry and worry your papa," said St.Clare, "Look here,--see what a beautiful peach I have got for you."

Eva took it and smiled, though there was still a nervous twiching aboutthe corners of her mouth.

"Come, look at the gold-fish," said St. Clare, taking her hand andstepping on to the verandah. A few moments, and merry laughs were heardthrough the silken curtains, as Eva and St. Clare were pelting eachother with roses, and chasing each other among the alleys of the court.

There is danger that our humble friend Tom be neglected amid theadventures of the higher born; but, if our readers will accompany us upto a little loft over the stable, they may, perhaps, learn a littleof his affairs. It was a decent room, containing a bed, a chair, and asmall, rough stand, where lay Tom's Bible and hymn-book; and where hesits, at present, with his slate before him, intent on something thatseems to cost him a great deal of anxious thought.

The fact was, that Tom's home-yearnings had become so strong that he hadbegged a sheet of writing-paper of Eva, and, mustering up all his smallstock of literary attainment acquired by Mas'r George's instructions, heconceived the bold idea of writing a letter; and he was busy now, on hisslate, getting out his first draft. Tom was in a good deal of trouble,for the forms of some of the letters he had forgotten entirely; and ofwhat he did remember, he did not know exactly which to use. And while hewas working, and breathing very hard, in his earnestness, Eva alighted,like a bird, on the round of his chair behind him, and peeped over hisshoulder.

"O, Uncle Tom! what funny things you _are_ making, there!"

"I'm trying to write to my poor old woman, Miss Eva, and my littlechil'en," said Tom, drawing the back of his hand over his eyes; "but,some how, I'm feard I shan't make it out."

"I wish I could help you, Tom! I've learnt to write some. Last year Icould make all the letters, but I'm afraid I've forgotten."

So Eva put her golden head close to his, and the two commenced a graveand anxious discussion, each one equally earnest, and about equallyignorant; and, with a deal of consulting and advising over every word,the composition began, as they both felt very sanguine, to look quitelike writing.

"Yes, Uncle Tom, it really begins to look beautiful," said Eva, gazingdelightedly on it. "How pleased your wife'll be, and the poor littlechildren! O, it's a shame you ever had to go away from them! I mean toask papa to let you go back, some time."

"Missis said that she would send down money for me, as soon as theycould get it together," said Tom. "I'm 'spectin, she will. Young Mas'rGeorge, he said he'd come for me; and he gave me this yer dollar as asign;" and Tom drew from under his clothes the precious dollar.

"O, he'll certainly come, then!" said Eva. "I'm so glad!"

"And I wanted to send a letter, you know, to let 'em know whar I was,and tell poor Chloe that I was well off,--cause she felt so drefful,poor soul!"

"I say Tom!" said St. Clare's voice, coming in the door at this moment.

Tom and Eva both started.

"What's here?" said St. Clare, coming up and looking at the slate.

"O, it's Tom's letter. I'm helping him to write it," said Eva; "isn't itnice?"

"I wouldn't discourage either of you," said St. Clare, "but I ratherthink, Tom, you'd better get me to write your letter for you. I'll doit, when I come home from my ride."

"It's very important he should write," said Eva, "because his mistressis going to send down money to redeem him, you know, papa; he told methey told him so."

St. Clare thought, in his heart, that this was probably only oneof those things which good-natured owners say to their servants,to alleviate their horror of being sold, without any intention offulfilling the expectation thus excited. But he did not make any audiblecomment upon it,--only ordered Tom to get the horses out for a ride.

Tom's letter was written in due form for him that evening, and safelylodged in the post-office.

Miss Ophelia still persevered in her labors in the housekeeping line. Itwas universally agreed, among all the household, from Dinah down to theyoungest urchin, that Miss Ophelia was decidedly "curis,"--a term bywhich a southern servant implies that his or her betters don't exactlysuit them.

The higher circle in the family--to wit, Adolph, Jane and Rosa--agreedthat she was no lady; ladies never keep working about as she did,--thatshe had no _air_ at all; and they were surprised that she should be anyrelation of the St. Clares. Even Marie declared that it was absolutelyfatiguing to see Cousin Ophelia always so busy. And, in fact, MissOphelia's industry was so incessant as to lay some foundation for thecomplaint. She sewed and stitched away, from daylight till dark, withthe energy of one who is pressed on by some immediate urgency; and then,when the light faded, and the work was folded away, with one turn outcame the ever-ready knitting-work, and there she was again, going on asbriskly as ever. It really was a labor to see her.