Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 5

"Oh, I know all about it."

"Well, the girl of fifteen takes a fancy to a freshman. She flirts with him all through the four years of his under-graduate course. Then he departs, promising to come back, but never keeping his promise. Perhaps by this time she is really attached to him; and that, or habit, or her original taste for romance and strangers, gives her a cant for life; she never flirts with anything but a student afterwards; can't relish a man who hasn't a flavor of Greek and Latin. Generally she sticks to the senior cla.s.s. When she gets into the thirties she sometimes enters the theological seminary in search of prey. But she never likes anything which hasn't a student smack. It reminds one of the story that when a shark has once tasted human flesh he will not eat any other unless driven to it by hunger."

"What a brutal comparison!"

"One consequence of this fascination," continued Colburne, "is that New Boston is full of unmarried females. There is a story in college that a student threw a stone at a dog, and, missing him, hit seven old maids.

On the other hand there are some good results. These old girls are bookish and mature, and their conversation is improving to the under-graduates. They sacrifice themselves, as woman's wont is, for the good of others."

"If you ever come to New Orleans I will show you a fascinating lady of thirty. She is my aunt--or cousin--I hardly know which to call her--Mrs.

Larue. She has beautiful black hair and eyes. She is a true type of Louisiana."

"And you are not. What right had you to be a blonde?"

"Because I am my father's daughter. His eyes are blue. He came from the up-country of South Carolina. There are plenty of blondes there."

This conversation, the reader perceives, is not monumentally grand or important. Next in flatness to the ordinary talk of two lovers comes, I think, the ordinary talk of two young persons of the opposite s.e.xes. In the first place they are young, and therefore have few great ideas to interchange and but limited ranges of experience to compare; in the second place they are hampered and embarra.s.sed by the mute but potent consciousness of s.e.x and the alarming possibility of marriage. I am inclined to give much credit to the saying that only married people and vicious people are agreeably fluent in an a.s.sembly of both s.e.xes. When therefore I report the conversation of these two uncorrupted young persons as being of a moderately dull quality, I flatter myself that I am publis.h.i.+ng the very truth of nature. But it follows that we had best finish with this pic-nic as soon as possible. We will suppose the chickens and sandwiches eaten, the champagne drunk, the segars smoked, the party gathered into the omnibusses and rockaways, and the vehicle in which we are chiefly interested at the door of the New Boston House. As the Lieutenant-Colonel enters with Miss Ravenel a waiter hands him a telegraphic message.

"Excuse me," he says, and reads as they ascend the stairs together. On the parlor floor he halts and takes her hand with an air of more seriousness than he has yet exhibited.

"Miss Ravenel, I must bid you good-bye. I am so sorry! I leave for Was.h.i.+ngton immediately. My application for extension of leave has been refused. I do sincerely hope that I shall meet you again."

"Good bye," she simply said, not unaware that her hand had been pressed, and for that reason unable or unwilling to add more.

He left her there, hurried to his room, packed his valise, and was off in twenty minutes; for when it was necessary to move quick he could put on a rate of speed not easily equalled.

Miss Ravenel walked to her father's room in deep meditation. Without stating the fact in words she felt that the presence of this mature, masculine, worldly gentleman of the army was agreeable to her, and that his farewell had been an unpleasant surprise. If he was inebriate, dissipated, dangerous, it must be remembered that she did not know it.

In simply smelling of wine and segars he had an odor of Louisiana, to which she had been accustomed from childhood even in the grave society of her father's choice, and which was naturally grateful to the homesick sensibilities of the exiled girl.

For the last hour or two Doctor Ravenel had paced his room in no little excitement. He was a notably industrious man, and had devoted the day to writing an article on the mineralogy of Arkansas; but even this labor, the utterance of a life-long scientific enthusiasm, could not divert him from what I may call maternal anxieties. Why did I let her go on that silly expedition? he repeated to himself. It is the last time; absolutely the last.

At this moment she entered the room and kissed him with more than ordinary effusion. She meant to forestall his expected reproof for her unexpectedly long absence; moreover she felt a very little lonely and in need of unusual affection in consequence of that farewell.

"My dear! how late you are!" said the unappeased Doctor. "How could you stay out so? How could you do it? The idea of staying out till dusk; I am astonished. Really, girls have no prudence. They are no more fit to take care of themselves amid the dangers and stupidities of society than so many goslings among the wheels and hoofs of a crowded street."

Do not suppose that Miss Ravenel bore these reproofs with the serene countenance of Fra Angelico's seraphs, softly beaming out of a halo of eternal love. She was very much mortified, very much hurt and even a little angry. A hard word from her father was an exceeding great trial to her. The tears came into her eyes and the color into her cheeks and neck, while all her slender form trembled, not visibly, but consciously, as if her veins were filled with quicksilver.

"Late! Why, no papa!" (Running to the window and pointing to the crimson west.) "Why, the sun is only just gone down. Look for yourself, papa."

"Well; _that_ is too late. If for nothing else, just think of the dew,--the chill. I am not pleased. I tell you, Lillie, I am not pleased."

"Now, papa, you are right hard. I do say you are right cruel. How could I help myself? I couldn't come home alone. I couldn't order the pic-nic to break up and come home when I pleased. How could I? Just think of it, papa."

The Doctor was walking up and down the room with his hands behind his back and his head bent forward. He had hardly looked at his daughter: he never looked at her when he scolded her. He gave her a side-glance now, and seeing her eyes full of tears, he was unable to answer her either good or evil. The earnestness of his affection for her made him very sensitive and sore and cowardly, in case of a misunderstanding. She was looking at him all the time that she talked, her face full of her troubled eagerness to exculpate herself; and now, though he said not a word, she knew him well enough to see that he had relented from his anger. Encouraged by this discovery she regained in a moment or two her self-possession. She guessed the real cause, or at least the strongest cause of his vexation, and proceeded to dissipate it.

"Papa, I think there must be something important going on in the army.

Lieutenant-Colonel Carter has received a telegraph, and is going on by the next train."

He halted in his walk and faced her with a childlike smile of pleasure.

"Has he, indeed!" he said as gaily as if he had heard of some piece of personal good fortune. Then, more gravely and with a censorious countenance, "Quite time he went, I should say. It doesn't look well for an officer to be enjoying himself here in Barataria when his men may be fighting in Virginia."

Miss Ravenel thought of suggesting that the Lieutenant-Colonel had been on sick leave, but concluded that it would not be well to attempt his defence at the present moment.

"Well Lillie," resumed the Doctor, after taking a couple of leisurely turns up and down the room, "I don't know but I have been unjust in blaming you for coming home so late. I must confess that I don't see how you could help it. The fault was not yours. It resulted from the very nature of all such expeditions. It is one of the inconveniences of pic-nics that common sense is never invited or never has time to go. I wonder that Mrs. Whitewood should permit such irrational procedures."

The Doctor was somewhat apt to exaggerate, whether in praise or blame, when he became interested in a subject.

"Well, well, I am chiefly in fault myself," he concluded. "It must be the last time. My dear, you had better take off your things and get ready for tea."

While Lillie was engaged on her toilette the Doctor cogitated, and came to the conclusion that he must say something against this Carter, but that he had better say it indirectly. So, as they sauntered down stairs to the tea-table he broke out upon the bibulous gentry of Louisiana.

"To-day's Herald will amuse you," he said. "It contains the proceedings of a meeting of the planters of St. Dominic Parish. They are opposed to freedom. They object to the nineteenth century. They mean to smash the United States of America. And for all this they pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. It surpa.s.ses all the jokes in Joe Miller. To think of those whiskey-soaked, negro-whipping, man-slaughtering ruffians, with a bottle of Louisiana rum in one hand and a cat-o'-nine-tails in the other, a revolver in one pocket and a bowie-knife in the other, drunken, swearing, gambling, depraved as Satan, with their black wives and mulatto children--to think of such ruffians prating about their sacred honor! Why, they absolutely don't understand the meaning of the words. They have heard of respectable communities possessing such a quality as honor, and they feel bound to talk as if they possessed it. The pirates of the Isle of Pines might as well pledge their honesty and humanity. Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor! Their lives are not worth the powder that will blow them out of existence. Their fortunes will be worth less in a couple of years. And as for their sacred honor, it is a pure figment of ignorant imaginations made delirious by bad whiskey. That drinking is a ruinous vice. When I see a man soaking himself with sherry at a friend's table, after having previously soaked with whiskey in some groggery, I think I see the devil behind his chair putting the infernal mark on the back of his coat. And it is such a common vice in Louisiana. There is hardly a young man free from it. In the country districts, when a young fellow is paying attention to a young lady, the parents don't ask whether he is in the habit of getting drunk; they take that for granted, and only concern themselves to know whether he gets cross-drunk or amiable-drunk. If the former, they have some hesitation; if the latter, they consent to the match thankfully."

Miss Ravenel understood perfectly that her father was cutting at Lieutenant-Colonel Carter over the shoulders of the convivial gentlemen of Louisiana. She thought him unjust to both parties, but concluded that she would not argue the question; being conscious that the subject was rather too delicately near to her feelings to be discussed without danger of disclosures.

"Well, they are rus.h.i.+ng to their doom," resumed the Doctor, turning aside to general reflections, either because such was the tendency of his mind, or because he thought that he had demolished the Lieutenant-Colonel. "They couldn't wait for whiskey to finish them, as it does other barbarous races. They must call on the political mountains to crush them. Their slaveholding Sodom will perish for the lack of five just men, or a single just idea. It must be razed and got out of the way, like any other obstacle to the progress of humanity. It must make room for something more consonant with the railroad, electric-telegraph, printing-press, inductive philosophy, and practical Christianity."

CHAPTER V.

THE DRAMATIC PERSONAGES GET NEWS FROM BULL RUN.

"Papa, are we going to stay in New Boston forever?" asked Miss Ravenel.

"My dear, I am afraid we shall both have to die some day, after which we can't expect to stay here, pleasant as it might be," replied the Doctor.

"Nonsense, papa! You know what I mean. Are you going to make New Boston a permanent place of residence?"

"How can I tell, my dear? We can't go back to New Orleans at present; and where else should we go? You know that I must consult economy in my choice of a residence. My bank deposits are not monstrous, and there is no telling how long I may be cut off from my resources. New Boston presents two advantages; it gives me some employment and it is tolerably cheap. Through the friendliness of these excellent professors I am kept constantly busy, and am not paid so very badly, though I can't say that I am in any danger of growing suddenly rich. Then I have the run of the university library, which is a great thing. Finally, where else in the United States should we find a prettier or pleasanter little city?"

"The people are dreadfully poky."

"My daughter, I wish you would have the goodness to converse with me in English. I never became thoroughly familiar with the Gold Coast dialects, and not even with the court language of Ashantee."

"It isn't Ashantee at all. Everybody says poky; and it is real poky in you to pretend not to understand it; don't you think so yourself now?

Besides these New Bostonians are so ferociously federal! I can't say a word for the South but the women glare at me as though they wanted to hang me on a sour apple tree, like Jeff Davis."

"My dear, if one of these loyal ladies should say a word for her own lawful government in New Orleans, she would be worse than glared at. I doubt whether the wild-mannered cut-throats of your native city would let her off with plain hanging. Let us thank Heaven that we are among civilized people who only glare at us, and do not stick us under the fifth rib, when we differ with them in opinion."

"Oh papa! how bitter you are on the southerners! It seems to me you must forget that you were born in South Carolina and have lived twenty-five years in Louisiana."

"Oh! oh! the beautiful reason for defending organized barbarism! Suppose I had had the misfortune of being born in the Isle of Pines; would you have me therefore be the apologist of piracy? I do hope that I am perfectly free from the prejudices and trammels of geographical morality. My body was born amidst slavery, but my conscience soon found the underground railroad. I am not boasting; at least I hope not. I have had no plantations, no patrimony of human flesh; very few temptations, in short, to bow down to the divinity of Ashantee. I sincerely thank Heaven for these three things, that I never owned a slave, that I was educated at the north, and that I have been able to visit the free civilization of Europe."

"But why did you live in Louisiana if it was such a Sodom, papa?"

"Ah! there you have me. Perhaps it was because I had an expensive daughter to support, and could pick up four or five thousand dollars a year there easier than anywhere else. But you see I am suffering for having given my countenance to sin. I have escaped out of the burning city, like Lot, with only my family. It is my daily wonder, Lillie, that you are not turned into a pillar of salt. The only reason probably is that the age of miracles is over."