University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
HOW THE MAN IN THE RED CLOAK THREW HIS NET, AND WHAT
HE CAUGHT.

The stranger was silent for some moments, then, drawing his
old red cloak around him, he said:

“Liberty! Well, that is a great word; but, unfortunately,
it is also one of those nobly-sounding terms which
fill the ears only, never conveying to the brain much more
than a vague and doubtful meaning. What is liberty?
True, I ask you to answer a hard question; but you have
drawn it upon yourself, companion, by your anomalous and
contradictory statements.”

“How contradictory, sir?” said his companion, losing
his absent-mindedness, and looking earnestly at the stranger.

“Why,” replied the man in the red cloak, coolly,
“nothing could well be more paradoxical than your views.
You agree that there are classes here, and elsewhere, separated
by unreasonable distinctions, holding, as regards each
other, unjust positions. You do not deny that we—we, the
common people—are the mere hewers of wood and drawers
of water for our masters, and, when I chance to say what is
perfectly reasonable and natural, namely, that we must hate
and envy these dons, why, you answer, `No, no; envy and
hatred are not the elements of progress, the forerunners of
liberty.' I say, they rule us!—the wealthy gentlemen, the
house of burgesses, the English parliament—why not hate
and envy, and, if necessary, match ourselves force for force
against them, and see if we cannot achieve this noble end
you speak of—liberty!”

“Because force—the blind force of envy and hatred,
striking in the dark, and without thought—is the mere
movement of the brute, who closes his eyes, and tears, without
seeing, whatever comes beneath his paws. No, sir!
before we can overturn parliaments, and dictate laws, we
must mould public opinion.”

“Public opinion? What is that?”

“It is the great unseen power which governs the world.”

“Oh yes; the opinion of kings and autocrats. Now I
understand.”

“No, not of kings and autocrats—of common men, the
masses! The calm, just judgment, formed in silence, and
without prejudice, of those men and things which figure on
the great stage of life. Not the mere impulses of envy and
hatred, any more than the jealousy of rank, but the cool,
deliberate weighing of events and personages in the scales
of eternal justice.”

“Fine words. Well, then, you would not overthrow the
present state of things; or, perhaps, you are well content
with the social organization of this colony. We must not
hate, we must not envy—all is for the best!”

“No, sir, all is not for the best; far from it.”

“It seems to me that we are wandering in our ideas, and
liable to misunderstand each other. Let us see, now—explain.

You are more or less dissatisfied with the present position
of things; but you like the gentry, the Established Church,
you admire the traditions of feudalism, and revere his gracious
majesty King George. Eh? Come, let us know if
you do not?”

“We must have misunderstood each other, indeed, sir.
I would overthrow—or, at least, materially change—all that
you have mentioned.”

“What, the gentry—the church—the king? Treason!”

“That cry does not daunt me, sir.”

“Beware; I shall inform on you, and his majesty will
send for you to come and visit his handsome residence, called
the Tower.”

“Let me explain, briefly, what I mean, and meant,” said
his companion, too gloomy to relish these pleasantries of the
stranger. “You have misunderstood me wholly—you would
say that I am an advocate of the present, with all its injustice,
its wrong, its oppression; and, that, because I am not
willing to go and turn out proprietors of great landed estates,
at the point of the bayonet; shatter those splendid mirrors,
which reflect gold, and velvet, and embroidery, with a pistol's
muzzle; organize the lower class, with bludgeons, hay-forks,
cleavers, knives, and scythes, against the gentlemen, who roll
in coaches, and eat from gold and silver plate—you would
say, that, because these revolutionary proceedings, the offspring
of envy and hatred, are not to my taste, I am an advocate
of those oppressions, those bitter wrongs, inflicted on
the commons by the gentry. No, sir! I am not an advocate
of them; I know them too well. I have studied, as
far as possible, with a calm mind, an unbiassed judgment,
this vestige of feudalism which curses us, and I have found,
every where, as in the old feudal system, wrong, oppression,
a haughty and unchristian pride of rank, and birth,
and wealth—”

“Good, good,” said the stranger, no longer interrupting
his companion.

“An unjustifiable pride! an unchristian arrogance,
scorning charity, humility, all that Christ inculcated, as so
much weakness!” continued the thinker, in his noble and
earnest voice; “I find it here, as I find it in the history of
England, of France, of Germany, of the whole feudal world;

among the gentry of to-day, as the nobles of the middle age!
Go back to that middle age—see the great lord passing in
his splendid armor, and surcoat of cloth of gold, on his glossy
charger, followed by his squires, his men-at-arms, while
the battlements of his great castle ring with trumpets, greeting
his return: see the serf there in the shadow of the wall,
with the ring around his neck, with his wooden shoes, his
goatskin covering—swarthy, with his shaggy beard, his brow
covered with perspiration, as becomes the villein, his cerebral
conformation, as he takes off his greasy cap to lout low
to his master, like the head of the wolf, the jackall, the
hyena. That serf is no longer a man—he is a wild beast,
with strong muscles and sinews like rope, who will fight well
in the field, and be cut to pieces cheerfully, while his master
reaps undying renown, covered by his proof armor of Milan
—yes, he will fight and toil, and go home and kiss his children
in their mud hovel—but he is not a man: his lord is a
man—how can he be of the same race as that splendid and
haughty chevalier, honored by kings and emperors for his
deeds of chivalry, smiled on by fair ladies every where, like
the noble dame who reigns in yonder castle with him. True,
the serf has legs and arms, and his blood, strange to say, is
much the color of the great seigneur's—but they do not belong
to the same race of animals. They both feel it—are
convinced of it. When my lord passes, see the back bent
down; the eyes abased, as in the presence of the God of
Day—the dog-like submission, when harsh words are uttered
by the seigneur to his animal. The serf does not dream of
there being any impropriety in all this—it is a part of the
order of things that he should be a wild beast, his lord a
splendid, noble chevalier, glittering with stars, and clad in
soft silk and velvet. He always submits: he is a part of
the glebe, the stock—like the horse, the hound, the hawk.
Does the seigneur wish some amusement for his noble
guests?—the boor comes, and with another of his class
cudgels away in the court-yard, until he is covered with
bruises, and falls or conquers: and the noble lords and
ladies, glittering like stars in the balcony, throw largesse to
the knaves, who lout humbly, and go down to their proper
place—the kitchen. “There is the past, sir!—look at it!”

The stranger nodded.

“You don't like feudalism,” he said.

“It makes me shudder, sir.”

“How? why it's dead!”

“No: it is alive.”

“Alive, say you?”

“To this very day and hour.”

“What? in full force?”

“No, sir—not in full force: far from it. But in a degree,
at least, it exists.”

“Hum! you are a metaphysician.”

“No, sir, I am practical.”

“You are a dreamer!”

Waters sighed.

“I thought you dreamed as I did,” he said.

“Perhaps I do—who knows?”

Waters was silent.

“Define your idea,” said the stranger. “I understand
you to say—and we won't discuss the subject—that this
thing we call feudalism—which has come in for so much
abuse from you, still exists in a degree? Come! let us see
how it looks in Virginia.”

“We have but the shadow—thank God, the edifice has
crumbled in part: but the flanking towers remain, and that
shadow still lies like gloom upon the land. See how human
thought is still warped and darkened by it—how rank and
unwholesome weeds possess the earth!”

“Root out these weeds, then—begin! Hurl down these
towers which shut out the sunlight,—your historical reading
must have told you of the Jacquerie!”

“Yes, sir! and I have seen how that rising led to worse
evils than before, for hatred was added to contempt. No,
to attack this still vigorous remnant of feudalism, something
besides hammers and pickaxes are necessary; gunpowder,
even, will not blow it into atoms!”

“What, then?”

“The winds of Heaven! God will strike it; he has
thrown down the donjon keep, where captives gnashed their
teeth and cursed and blasphemed in darkness; he will also

level with the ground what remains of the great blot upon
the landscape!”

“Figures, figures!” said the stranger; “come, let us
have ideas!”

“By the winds of Heaven—the breath of God—I mean
those eternally progressive steps of mind, which go from
doubt to certainty, from certainty to indignation, from indignation
to revolution!”

“Very well; now we get on firm ground again. We
meet and shake hands over that toast, `Revolution!'”

“Understand me; revolution is not a slight thing. It
levels many valuable things, as the hurricane and the tempest
of rain sweeps away much more than the accumulated
rubbish. Revolution, sir, is the last thing of all—the tornado
which clears the poisonous atmosphere, cannot be
loosed every day or year, for the land is strewed with ruins
by it. The slow steps of public opinion must be hastened,
the soil prepared for the seed, the distance made plain, the
body armed—then, if it is necessary, the conflict.”

“Ah, you come back to your ideas upon education, sir?”

“Yes; I would unfetter the mind.”

“Enlighten it?”

“Yes, sir; I would teach the great mass of the people,
that God made this world, not man; that wrong and oppression
is not the normal state of human things; I would point
out all the falseness, I would point to the lash-marks on the
back; I would, if necessary, pour brine into those bleeding
furrows!”

“Yes, and drive to madness—to what you deprecate,
mad violence!”

“No! for minds would be enlightened, men would see—
and seeing, they would wait. I would have them know
when to strike; I would organize in their minds an opposition,
quiet, stubborn, unbending, never-sleeping; a confidence
in time, faith in the ultimate intervention of God
using them as his instruments.”

“You generalize too much,” said the stranger; “let us
come now to Virginia, at this day and hour. Let us see
what are the great abuses. Speak!”

“First, an established church, which dictates religious
opinion—forces itself upon all the community, armed with
the terrors of the law.”

“Yes, that is just; and I promise you something will
be said soon about the twopenny-act. Well, the church!
What else?”

“The offspring of that feudalism I have spoken of—
aristocracy!”

“Yes, `power of the best;' that is, the wealthiest.
What next?”

“Laws, without representation!” said his companion,
compressing in these short words the great popular grievance
of the age.

“Ah!” said the stranger, with a grim smile, “there is
something in that, too. What more?”

“What more? Is it not enough, sir, for the Established
Church to wring from you, whether you conform or not,
support for its ministers—to stuff itself and its tenets down
your throat? is it not bad enough for the house of burgesses
to legislate for the great landed proprietors alone,
who form the body, ignoring the very existence of the common
man, who has no vote? is any thing more needed to
make us slaves, than laws passed in the English parliament,
crushing our trade, our very lives, without representatives
of us there in council?”

“I confess that seems to me quite enough,” said the
stranger; “and this great, oppressive, intolerant church—
this haughty arrogance of rank—lastly, that English lawlessness,
seem to me to constitute a case of mortification—
gangrene—to be burnt out by the hot iron of revolution!”

“No! it has not gone far enough yet; let us advance
step by step. At present we contemplate that great, intolerant,
bigoted establishment with respect and awe; we bow
to the grand chariot, doffing our caps; we search in our
minds for what will justify that oppression of Parliament;
we are not convinced that this great triple wrong is a wrong.
We doubt; let us scan the matter calmly—dispassionately
investigate the nature of things; let us educate our minds, we
common people, and with the calm, unobscured eyes of truth,
test the error. We will not say to the parsons, `Off with
you, you are the vermin of a rotten system, you shall not
tyrannize over us!' No, let us, with the Bible in our hands,
and God in our hearts, say, `We come to try you, we come
to know whether you are false and bigoted, or true and
Christlike—'”

“Yes,” said the stranger, “and those worthy gentlemen,
who procured benefices by marrying the cast-off mistresses
of lords, will, with one voice, for about the space of
two hours, cry, `Great is Diana of the Ephesians! We
are holy, pure, and immaculate!' What, then?”

“Reason! the light of education still! flooding the whole
system, lighting up every hidden crypt!”

“Good! And you would apply these fine ideas to the
aristocracy, too?”

“Yes. I would have men scan that system also; not
strike it blindly; I would have them come with the law of
nature in their hands, the evangel of truth and justice, and
say, `Show us what you are. Show us if you are really
our natural and rightful superiors. Show us whether those
titles you derive from kings, are like the authority of those
kings, derived, as they say, from God, and so, just and right.
Show us if you are really superior beings, because you descend
from the knights of the middle age—we inferior to
you, your born slaves, because we draw our blood from
the serf who tilled the glebe below your grandsire's castle
walls. Show us if this mysterious sentiment of awe we feel
in your presence, is direct from the Deity, planted thus in
us to make us keep our places; or, whether it is the mere
tradition of the past, the echo of injustice, the shadow of
that monstrous oppression of the dark ages, yet lying on our
souls?”

“Very well—and what then?” said the stranger.
“Why, these worthy gentlemen would reply, `Friends, the
distinction of classes is absolutely necessary; some must
rule, others obey; some wear fustian, others velvet; some
must ride in coaches, and eat from gold plate, others jog along
in the dust of the highway, eat their brown bread and swill
their muddy ale. Order is heaven's first law. Come, now,
and listen to this splendid passage from Shakespeare, about
degrees in a state; it is there, in that volume with a gilt
back in the gothic book-case—don't muddy the carpet with
your dirty brogues, or stumble over that damask chair in
reaching it. Very well. Now, listen! Can any thing be
more just than these views? Some must be great, others
small; one must vote, another be denied that privilege. We
are gentlemen, you commoners. Can any thing be plainer,

than that we should have the offices and honors, live easily,
and sustain our proper rank, while you till the glebe, and
leave your interests in our hands?' That is what they would
say—what then?”

“Reason, again!” said his companion; “reason, turning
away from the dazzling pageant, stopping the ears to shut
out the rumbling of the coach and six, forgetting the past,
and questioning that great evangel of right open in their
hands—reason, which should weigh and test, and try the
whole system by the rules of a stern, inexorable logic.”

“I admire your logic! and you think that it would apply
to English legislation on Virginia matters?”

“Yes; I would remonstrate, petition, debate with Parliament;
I would exhaust every means of testing and overthrowing
this cruel and bitter wrong; I would ask for light
—ask nothing but that right should be made manifest—I
would go to the foot of the throne, and say, `Justice, justice,
nothing but justice, as a British subject—as one laboring
under wrong!'”

The stranger's lip curled.

“Well, your system is now tolerably plain,” he said.
“You would go and ask the parsons to tell you if they are,
in truth, pure and immaculate—you would ask the gentry if
they really are the distinguished gentlemen they pretend to
be—you would fall at the feet of King George, and sue for
leave to argue the matter of taxation with his gracious Majesty!
Very well. Now, suppose—it is a very extravagant
supposition, I know, and springs, no doubt, from my
irreverent, incredulous, and obstinate prejudices—suppose, I
say, that the worthy parsons thus adjured, as to their purity,
were to tell you that they were the salt of the earth, and
that your question was an impertinence; suppose—if you can
suppose such an incredible thing—that the wealthy gentleman
tells you that he is your born lord, and that he will
commit you in his quality of justice of the peace, for misdemeanor,
should you intrude upon him again with your
wretched folly; suppose his gracious Majesty were to remove
your humble petition with his royal foot, bidding
you begone, and learn that when money was wanted to support
his splendor, you were to sweat and pay it, and be
silent on pain of being whipped in by armed soldiers; suppose

these disagreeable incidents greeted your philanthropic
exertions—what then?”

“Then, revolution! revolution, if that revolution waded
in blood!” cried his companion, carried away by his fiery
thoughts, and losing all his calmness and self-control; “revolution,
with God for our judge! history for our vindication!
If, after all their sufferings, all their wrongs, all the injustice
of long years, of centuries, the prayers of humanity were
thus answered—revolution! A conflict, bitter, desperate,
unyielding, to the death! A conflict which should root out
these foul and monstrous wrongs, or exterminate us! A
revolution, which should attack and overwhelm for ever, or
be itself overwhelmed! That is the hurricane I spoke of,
sir! If God decrees it, let it come!”