The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 16

He choked with pa.s.sion, recovered and rushed on.

"If they ever dare attack us, we won't need _writers_. We'll draw our swords and thrash them! The South is growing rich and powerful."

Lee lifted his hand in a quick gesture of protest.

"A popular delusion, my friend. Under Slave labor the South is growing poorer daily. While the Northern States, under the wage system, ten times more efficient, are draining the blood and treasure of Europe and growing richer by leaps and bounds. Norfolk, Richmond and Charleston should have been the great cities of the Eastern Seaboard. They are as yet unimportant towns in the world commerce. Boston, Philadelphia and New York have become the centers of our business life, of our trade, our culture, our national power. While slavery is scratching the surface of our soil with old-fas.h.i.+oned plows, while we quit work at twelve o'clock every Sat.u.r.day, spend our Sundays at church, and set two negroes to help one do nothing Monday morning, the North is sweeping onward in the science of agriculture. While they invent machines which double their crops, cut their labor down a hundred per cent, we are fighting for new lands in the West to exhaust by our primitive methods. The treasures of the earth yet lie in our mines untouched by pick or spade. Our forests stand unbroken--vast reaches of wilderness. The slave is slow and wasteful. Wage labor, quick, efficient. Our chief industry is the breeding of a race of feverish politicians."

"You know, Colonel Lee, as well as I do that Slavery in the South has been a blessing to the negro."

Lee moved his head in quick a.s.sent.

"I admit that Slavery took the negro from the jungle, from a slavery the most cruel known to human history, that it has taught him the use of tools, the science of agriculture, the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, the first lessons in the alphabet of humanity. But unless we can now close this school, my friend, somebody is going to try to divide this Union some day--"

Ruffin struck his hands together savagely.

"The quicker the better, I say! If the children of the men who created this republic are denied equal rights under its laws and in its Territories, then I say, to your tents, oh, Israel!"

"And do you know what that may mean?"

"A Southern and a Northern Nation. Let them come!"

"The States have been knit together slowly, but inevitably by steam and electricity. I can conceive of no greater tragedy than an attempt to-day to divide them."

"I can conceive of no greater blessing!" Ruffin fairly shouted.

"So William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of Abolition, is saying in his paper _The Liberator_. And, Ruffin, unless we can lock up some hot-heads in the South and such fanatics as Garrison in the North, the mob, not the statesman, is going to determine the laws and the policy of this country. Somebody will try to divide the Union. And then comes the deluge! When I think of it, the words of Thomas Jefferson ring through my soul like an alarm bell in the night. 'I tremble for my country when I reflect that G.o.d is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these black people shall be free--'"

Ruffin lifted his hand in a commanding gesture.

"Don't omit his next sentence, sir--'nor is it less certain, that the two races, equally free, cannot live under the same government--'"

"Exactly," Lee answered solemnly. "And that is the only reason why I have ever allowed myself to own a slave for a moment--the insoluble problem of what to do with him when freed. The one excuse for Slavery which the South can plead without fear before the judgment bar of G.o.d is the blacker problem which their emanc.i.p.ation will create. Unless it can be brought about in a miracle of patience, wisdom and prayer."

He paused and smiled at Ruffin's forlorn expression.

"Will you call your reporter now to take my views?"

"No, sir," the planter growled. "I've changed my mind."

The Colonel laughed softly.

"I thought you might."

Ruffin gazed in silence through the window at the blinking lights in Was.h.i.+ngton, turned and looked moodily at his calm host. He spoke in a slow, dreamy monotone, his eyes on s.p.a.ce seeing nothing:

"Colonel Lee, this country is h.e.l.l bent and h.e.l.l bound. I can see no hope for it."

Lee lifted his head with firm faith.

"Ruffin, this country is in G.o.d's hands--and He will do what's right--"

"That's just what I'm afraid, sir!" Ruffin mused. "Oh, no--I--don't mean that exactly. I mean that we must antic.i.p.ate--"

"The wisdom of G.o.d?"

"That we must prepare to meet our enemies, sir."

"I agree with you. And I'm going to do it. I've been doing a lot of thinking and _soul_ searching since you gave me this troublesome book to read--"

He stopped short, rose and drew the old-fas.h.i.+oned bell cord.

Ben appeared in full blue cloth and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, on duty again as butler.

"Ya.s.sah--"

"I'm glad to see you, Ben. You're feeling yourself again?"

"Ya.s.sah. Praise G.o.d, I'se back at my place once mo', sah."

The master lifted his hand in warning.

"Take care of yourself now. No more risks. You're not as young as you once were."

"Thankee, sah."

"Ask Mrs. Lee to bring me the doc.u.ment on my desk. Find Sam and fetch him here."

Ben bowed.

"Ya.s.sah. Right away, sah."

Lee turned to his guest genially.

"I'm going to ask you to witness what I'm about to do, Ruffin. And you mustn't take offense. We differ about Slavery and politics in the abstract, but whatever our differences on the surface, you are an old Virginia planter and I trust we shall always be friends."

The two men clasped hands and Ruffin spoke with deep emotion.

"I am honored in your friends.h.i.+p, Colonel Lee. However I may differ with you about the Union, we agree on one thing, that the old Dominion is the n.o.blest state on which the sun has ever shown!"

Lee closed his eyes as if in prayer.

"On that we are one. Old Virginia, the mother of Presidents and of states, as I leave her soil I humbly pray that G.o.d's blessings may ever rest upon her!"

"So say I, sir," Ruffin responded heartily. "And I'll try to do the cussin' for her while you do the praying."

Mrs. Lee entered and handed to her husband a folded doc.u.ment, as Ben came from the kitchen with Sam, who bowed and grinned to every one in the room.