University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

“I cannot say I like it altogether, Squire,” said
the planter. “It may suit my neighbor Jones, here,
well enough to have one of them high-headed Roanoke
planters to come here with his family, and spend
his money. I dare say he will make a pretty good
spec out of them; but, for my part, I would rather
they would stay at home, and live under their own
laws. I ha'nt got no notion, after they saddled that
damned rascal Van Buren upon us so long, that now,
the minute we have shook him off and made a good
government, and good treaties, and all, they should
be wanting to have a sop in our pan. If that's what
they are after, in rebelling against their government,
I don't want to give them no countenance. What
we have done, we have done for ourselves, and we
have a right to all the good of it. They have fixed
their market to their liking, and let it stand so. If
we can get thirty dollars for our tobacco, and they
cannot get ten, I reckon we ha'nt got nobody to thank

for it but ourselves. I dare say, now they see how
the thing works, they would be glad enough to share
with us, but I see plain enough that all they would
get by joining us, we would lose, and may be more
too.”

“You are right there, Mr. Hobson,” said the merchant;
“and that is not all. There's an advantage in
buying as well as selling. Now as to this Mr. Trevor,
or whatever his name is, coming over here, and buying
things cheaper than he could get them at home—why
that he is welcome to. Though yu may be sure, neighbor,
I don't let him have them as cheap as I sell to
you. But as to letting in the Norfolk merchants to
all the advantage of our treaty with England, that is
another matter. For though, when we deepen the bar
at Ocracock, I have no doubt our town down there
will be another sort of a place to what Norfolk ever
was, yet if Virginia was to join us now, right away,
the most of the trade would go to Norfolk again, and
they would get their goods there as cheap as we get
them here, and may be a little cheaper. So you see
it is against my interest as well as yours; and I don't
like the thoughts of putting in a crop, and letting
another man gather it, any more than you do.”

“It would be harder upon me than any of you,”
said the wagoner; “for if that was the case, that
damned railroad would break up my business, stock
and fluke. As it is, there never was such a time for
wagoning before. Instead of just hauling the little

tobacco that is made here to the end of the railroad,
now I have the hauling of the Virginia tobacco, and
all, down to Commerce.”[1]

It is hard to say whether surprise or disgust most
prevailed in the mind of Douglas at hearing these
remarks. The idea of the advantages lost to Virginia,
by her connexion with the North, had never
entered his mind; but still less had he conceived it
possible that a sordid desire to monopolize these advantages,
could stifle, in the minds of the North
Carolineans, every feeling of sympathy with the oppressed
and persecuted assertors of the rights of
Virginia. The reply of Mr. Hobson to the remark
of the wagoner gave him a yet deeper insight into
that dark and foul corner of the human heart, where
self predominates over all the better affections.

“I don't think that's right fair in you wagoners,”
said he. “You haul the Virginia tobacco
down to Commerce, and when it gets there it is all
the same as mine. Now, if it was not for that, I am
not so mighty sure but I'd get forty dollars instead
of thirty; and I don't like to lose ten dollars to give
you a chance to get one.”

“It is all one to me,” said the wagoner. “You
may just pay me the same for not hauling that they
pay me for hauling, or only half as much, and I will
not haul another hogshead.”

“But if you won't, another will,” said Hobson.

“Like enough,” replied the wagoner; “for all
trades must live; and if them poor devils get a
chance to sell a hogshead or two, instead of leaving
it all to rot, you ought not to grudge them that.”

“Certainly not,” said the merchant, “for I guess
that whatever they get, they take care to lay it all out
in goods on this side of the line. So the money
stays with us after all, and friend Stubbs's hauling
does good to more besides him.”

“I see,” said Hobson, “how it does good to
you, but none to me.”

“But that an't all, Mr. Hobson,” said the landlord,
who had entered while this conversation was going
on. “Them hot-headed fellows over the line there,
like this old Squire Trevor, will be getting themselves
into hot water every now and then; and when
they run away and come to us, if they did not bring
no money, we'd have to feed them free gratis for
nothing. Now Stubbs hauls Squire Trevor's tobacco
to Commerce, and he gets a good price; and
then he gets into trouble, and comes over here to stay
with me, and so he is able to pay me a good price;
and here it is,” added he, showing a roll of notes.

“Still,” said Hobson, “I don't see how that

does me any good. If they were to come here begging,
damn the mouthful I'd give them.”

“Then you would leave the whole burden on
the poor tavern-keepers,” said the landlord.

“No—I would not. I would not let them come;
or, if they did, just give them up to their own government.
If they had not a chance to be running
over here, as soon as they got into trouble, they
would keep quiet, and never get a chance to separate,
and so ruin our business, whether they joined us
or no.”

“Old Rip is wide awake at last,” said a voice
from behind; “but it is to his interest only.”

Douglas turned to the voice of the speaker, the
tone of which expressed a scorn and derision most
acceptable to his feelings. He was a tall and fine
looking man, powerfully made, and inclined to be
fat, but not at all unwieldy. The half laughing expression
of his large, blue eye, and the protrusion of
his under lip, spoke his careless contempt of those
whose conversation had called forth his sarcasm.
The attention of the whole company was drawn to
him at the same moment; all looking as if they wished
to say something, without knowing what. At
length the wagoner spoke, on the well understood
principle that, when men talk of what they understand
imperfectly, he who knows least should be
always first to show his ignorance.

“I cannot say I understand rightly what you
mean, stranger,” said he; “but I guess, by the cut
of your jib, that you are one of them high dons from
South Carolina, that always have money to throw
away, and think a body ought never to care any more
for himself than another. But this business don't
consarn you, no how, because these people don't interfere
with your cotton crop.”

“Yes, but they do, though,” said Hobson; “for
if they drive me from tobacco, I shall make cotton.
But, if I can keep them out of the tobacco market,
I shall be willing to give up the making of cotton to
South Carolina.”

“Why that is true,” said the stranger, with a
sudden change of his countenance, from which he
discharged, in a moment, every appearance of intelligence,
but that which seemed to reflect the superior
wisdom of Mr. Hobson. “That is true,” said he,
looking as if making a stupid attempt to think; “I
had not thought of that before.”

As he said this, he sunk slowly and thoughtfully
into a chair, his knees falling far asunder, his arms
dropping across his thighs, his body bent forward,
and his face turned up toward Mr. Hobson, with the
look of one who desires and expects to receive important
information. The whole action spoke so
eloquently to Mr. Hobson's self-esteem, that he went
on, with an air of the most gracious complacency.

“You see, stranger, just shutting only a part of

the Virginia tobacco out of the market, makes a
difference of ten dollars, at the very least, in the price
of mine. Now, we used to make a heap of cotton
in this country, but we are all going to give it up
quite entirely, and then, you see, it stands to reason
it will make a difference of five cents a pound, or
may be ten, in your cotton.”

This interesting proposition was received by the
stranger with a sluggish start of dull surprise; from
which he sunk again into the same appearance of
stolid musing. “To think what a fool I have been,”
said he, after a long pause. Then, scratching his
head, and twisting in his chair, he added: “You are
right. You are right; and the only way to manage
the matter is to get your Legislature to pass a law, as
you say, to make those fellows stay at home.”

“To be sure it would,” said the gratified Hobson;
“but then there are so many conceited fellows
in the Legislature, with a fool's notion in their
heads about taking sides with them that cannot help
themselves, that there is no getting any thing done.”

“Well,” said the stranger, “this gentleman
guessed right when he said I was from South Carolina.
So I don't know any thing about your laws
here. But I suppose you have no law to hurt a
man for taking up one that runs away from the law
in Virginia, and carrying him back. I expect old Van
would pay well for them.”

Hobson looked hard at the stranger, and only answered

with that compound motion of the head,
which, partaking at once of a shake and a nod, expresses
both assent and caution.

The landlord and merchant both exclaimed against
this suggestion, the one illustrating his argument by
the freedom with which his guest had ordered wine
from the bar; the other, by his former experience of
his liberality as a purchaser of goods, while he kept
a store in Mr. Trevor's neighborhood, which he had
withdrawn since the revolution. Among the bystanders
there was no expression of opinion, but that sort
of silence which betokens an idea that what has been
said is well worth considering.