University of Virginia Library

45. CHAPTER XLV.
ANOTHER DESCENDANT OF THE CAVALIERS.

WHILE the carriage is rolling on, and the occupants are
getting better acquainted, let us hurry forward and
clear the way by a few explanations.

Vance and his party had now been several days in New
York, occupying contiguous suites of rooms at the Astor
House. The ladies consisted of Clara, Madam Volney, and
Mrs. Ripper (late Mrs. Gentry). Esha was, of course, of the
party. She had found her long-lost daughter in Hattie, or Mrs.
Davy, now a widow, whose testimony came in to fortify the
proofs that seemed accumulating to place Clara's identity beyond
dispute. Hattie joyfully resumed her place as Clara's
femme de chambre, though the post was also claimed by the
unyielding Esha.

The gentlemen of the party included Mr. Winslow, Mr.
Semmes, Mr. Ripper, Captain Onslow, Colonel Delancy Hyde,
and a youth not yet introduced.

Never had Vance showed his influence in so marked a degree
as in the change he had wrought in Hyde. Detecting in
the rascal's affection for a widowed sister the one available spot
in his character, Vance, like a great moral engineer, had
mounted on that vantage-ground the guns which were to batter
down the citadels of ignorance, profligacy, and pride, in
which all the regenerative capabilities of Hyde's nature had
been imprisoned so long. The idea of having that poor toiling
sister — her who had “fust taught him to make dirt-pies, down
thar by the old duck-pond” — rescued with her children from
poverty and suffering, placed in a situation of comfort and
respectability, was so overpowering to the Colonel, that it

enabled Vance to lead him like a child even to the abjuring of
strong drink and profanity. Cut off from bragging of his Virginia
birth and his descent from the Cavaliers, — made to see
the false and senseless nature of the slang which he had been
taught to expectorate against the “Yankees,” — Hyde might
have lost his identity in the mental metamorphosis he was undergoing,
were it not that a most timely substitute presented
itself as a subject for the expenditure of his surplus gas.

Vance had collected and arranged a body of proofs for the
establishment of Clara's identification as the daughter of Henry
Berwick; but, if Colonel Hyde's memory did not mislead him,
there was collateral evidence of the highest importance in those
old letters from Charlton, which might be found in a certain
trunk in the keeping of the Widow Rusk in Alabama. With
deep anxiety, therefore, did they await the coming of that
youthful representative of the Hyde family, Master Delancy
Hyde Rusk.

The Colonel stood on the steps of the Astor House from
early morn till dewy eve, day after day, scrutinizing every boy
who came along. Clad in a respectable suit of broadcloth, and
concealing the shorn state of his scalp under a brown wig, he
did no discredit to the character of Mr. Stetson's guests. His
patience was at length rewarded. A boy, travel-soiled and
dusty, apparently fifteen years old, dressed in a butternut-colored
suit, wearing a small military cap marked C. S. A., and
bearing a knapsack on his back, suddenly accosted Colonel
Hyde with the inquiry, “Does Mr. William C. Vance live
here?” In figure, face, and even the hue of his eyebrows, the
youth was a miniature repetition of the Colonel himself; but
the latter, in his wig and his new suit, was not recognized till
the exclamation, “Delancy!” broke in astonishment from his
lips.

“What, uncle? Uncle Delancy?” cried the boy; and the
two forgot the proprieties, and embraced in the very eyes of
Broadway. Then the Colonel led the way to his room.

“Is this 'ere room yourn, Uncle D'lancy? An' is this 'ere
trunk yourn? And this 'ere umbrel? Crikee! What a fine
trunk! And do you and the damned Yankees bet now on the
same pile, Uncle D'lancy?”

“Delancy Hyde Rusk,” said the Colonel solemnly, “stahnd
up thar afore me. So! That 'll do! Now look me straight
in the face, and mind what I say.”

“Yes, uncle,” said Delancy junior, deeply impressed.

“Fust, have yer got them air letters?”

“Yes, uncle, they 're sewed inter my side-pocket, right
here.”

“Wal an' good. Now tell me how 's yer mother an' all the
family.”

“Mother 's middlin' bright now; but Malviny, she died in a
fit last March, and Tom, the innocent, he died too; and Charlotte
Ann, she was buried the week afore your letter cum; and
mother, she had about gi'n up; for we had n't a shinplaster left
after payin' for the buryin', and we thowt as how we should
have ter starve, sure; and lame Andrew Jackson and the two
young 'uns, they wahr lookin' pretty considerable peakid, I kn
tell yer, when all at wunst your letter cum with four hunderd
dollars in it. Crikee! Did n't the old woman scream for joy?
Did n't she hug the childern, and cry, and laugh, and take on,
till we all thowt she was crazy-like? And did n't she jounce
down on her knees, and pray, jest like a minister does?”

“Did she? Did she, Delancy? Tell it over to me again.
Did she raally pray?”

“I reckon she did n't do nothin' else.”

“Try ter think what she said, Delancy. Try ter think.
It 's important.”

“Wal, 't was all about the Lord Jesus, and Brother D'lancy,
and not forsakin' the righteous, and bless the Lord, O my soul,
and the dear angels that was took away, and then about Brother
D'lancy again, and might the Lord put his everlastin' arms
about him, and might the Lord save his soul alive, and all that
wild sort of talk, yer know. Why, uncle! Uncle D'lancy!
What 's the matter with yer?”

Yes! the old sinner had boo-hooed outright; and then, coving
his face with his hands, he wept as if he were making up
for a long period of drought in the lachrymal line.

We have spoken of the influence which Vance had applied
to this stony nature. We should have spoken of other influences,
perhaps more potent still, that had reached it through

Peek. Before the exodus from New Orleans, Peek had introduced
him to certain phenomena which had shaken the Colonel's
very soul, by the proofs they gave him of powers transcending
those usually ascribed to mortals, or admitted as possible by
science. The proofs were irresistible to his common sense,
First, That there was a power outside of himself that could
read, not only his inmost nature, but his individual thoughts, as
they arose, and this without any aid from him by look, word,
or act.

Here was a test in which there was no room left for deception.
The savans can only explain it by denying it; and there
are in America more than three millions of men and women
who know what the denial amounts to. Given a belief in
clairvoyance, and that in spirits and immortality follows. The
motto of the ancient Pagan theists was, “Si divinatio est, dii
sunt.”[1]

Secondly, Hyde saw heavy physical objects moved about,
floated in the air, made to perform intelligent offices, and all
without the intervention of any agencies recognized as material.

The hard, cold atheism of the man's heart was smitten, rent,
and displaced. For the first time, he was made to feel that the
body's death is but a process of transition in the soul's life;
that our trials here have reference to a future world; that
what we love we become; that heavenly thoughts must be entertained
and relished even here, if we would not have heaven's
occupations a weariness and a perplexity to us hereafter. For
the first time, the awful consciousness came over him as a
reality, that all his acts and thoughts were under the possible
scrutiny of myriads of spiritual eyes, and, above them all, those
Supreme eyes in whose sight even the stars are not pure, —
how much less, then, man that is a worm! For the first time,
he could read the Bible, and catch from its mystic words rich
gleams of comforting truth. For the first time, he could feel
the meaning of that abused and uncomprehended word, pardon;
and he could dimly see the preciousness of Christ's revelations
of the Father's compassion.

Return we to the interview between uncle and nephew.

Having wiped his eyes and steadied his voice, the Colonel
said: “Delancy Hyde Rusk, yer 've got ter larn some things,
and unlarn others. Fust of all, you 're not to swar, never no
more.”

“What, Uncle D'lancy! Can't I swar when I grow up?
You swar, Uncle D'lancy!”

“I 'm clean cured of it, nevvy. Ef ever you har me swar
again, Delancy Hyde Rusk, you jes tell me of 't, an' I 'll put
myself through a month's course of hard-tack an' water.”

“Can't I say hell, Uncle D'lancy, nor damn?”

“You 're not ter use them words profanely, nevvy, unless
you want that air back of yourn colored up with a rope's end.
Now look me straight in the face, Delancy Hyde Rusk, an' tell
me ef yer ever drink sperrits?”

“Wall, Uncle D'lancy, I promised the old woman —”

“Stop! Say you promised mother.”

“Wall, I promised mother I would n't drink, and I have n't.”

“Good! Now, nevvy, yer spoke jest now of the Yankees.
What do yer mean by Yankees?”

“I mean, uncle, ev'ry man born in a State whar they hain't
no niggers to wallop. Yankees are sneaks and cowards. Can't
one Suth'n-born man whip any five Yankees?”

“I reckon not.”

“What! Not ef the Suth'n man 's Virginia-born?”

“I reckon not. Delancy Hyde Rusk, that 's the decoy the
'ristocrats down South have been humbuggin' us poor whites
with tell the common sense is all eat clean out of our brains.
They stuff us up with that air fool's brag so we may help 'em
hold on ter thar niggers. Whar did the Yankees come from?
They camed from England like we did. They speak English
like we do. Thar ahnces'tors an' our ahnces'tors war countrymen.
Now don't be sich a lout as ter suppose that 'cause a
man lives North, and hain't no niggers ter wallop, he must be
either a sneak or a coward, or what Jeff Davis calls a hyena.”

“Ain't we down South the master race, Uncle D'lancy?”

“Wall, nevvy, in some respects we air; in some respects
not. In dirt an' vermin, ignorance an' sloth, our poor folks kn
giv thar poor folks half the game, an' beat 'em all holler. In
brag an' swagger our rich folks kn beat thars. But I 'll tell

yer what it is, nevvy: ef, as the slaveholders try to make us
think, it 's slavery that makes us the master race, then we
must be powerful poor cattle to owe it to niggers and not to
ou'selves that we 're better nor the Yankees. Now mind what
I 'm goin' ter say: the best thing for the hull Suth'n people
would be to set ev'ry slave free right off at wunst.”

“What, Uncle D'lancy! Make a nigger free as a white
man? Can't I, when I 'm a man, own niggers like gra'f'ther
Hyde done? What 's the use of growin' up ef I can't have a
nigger to wallop when I want ter, I sh'd like ter know?”

“Delancy Hyde Rusk, them sentiments must be nipped in
the bud.”

The Colonel went to the door and locked it, then cast his
eyes round the room as if in search of something. The boy
followed his movements with a curiosity in which alarm began
to be painfully mingled. Finally, the Colonel pulled a strap
from his trunk, and, approaching Delancy junior, who was now
uttering a noise between a whimper and a howl, seized him by
the nape of the neck, bent him down face foremost on to the
bed, and administered a succession of smart blows on the most
exposed part of his person. The boy yelled lustily; but after
the punishment was over, he quickly subsided into a subdued
snuffling.

“Thar, Delancy Hyde Rusk! yer 'll thahnk me fur that air
latherin' all the days of yer life. Ef I 'd a-had somebody to
do as much for me, forty yars ago, I should n't have been the
beast that Slavery brung me up ter be. Never you talk no
more of keepin' niggers or wallopin' niggers. They 've jest
as much right ter wallop you as you have ter wallop them.
Slavery 's gone up, sure. That game 's played out. Thank
the Lord! Jest you bar in mind, Delancy Hyde Rusk, that
the Lord made the black man as well as the white, and that ef
you go fur to throw contempt on the Lord's work, he 'll bring
yer up with a short turn, sure. Will you bar that in mind fur
the rest of yer life, Delancy Hyde Rusk?”

“Yes, Uncle D'lancy. I woan't do nothin' else.”

“An' ef anybody goes fur to ask yer what you air, jest you
speak up bright an' tell him you 're fust a Union man, an' then
an out-an'-out Abolitionist. Speak it out bold as ef you meant
it, — Ab-o-litionist!”

“What, uncle! a d-d-da —”

The boy's utterance subsided into a whimper of expostulation
as he saw the Colonel take up the strap.

But he was spared a second application. Having given him
his first lesson in morals and politics, Colonel Hyde made him
wash his face, and then took him down-stairs and introduced
him to Vance. The latter received with eagerness the precious
letters of which the boy was the bearer; at once opened them,
and having read them, said to Hyde: “I would not have failed
getting these for many thousand dollars. Still there 's no knowing
what trap the lawyers may spring upon us.”

Turning to Delancy junior, Vance, who had opened all the
windows when the youth came in, questioned him as to his
adventures on his journey. The boy showed cleverness in his
replies. It was a proud day for the elated Hyde when Vance
said: “That nephew of yours shall be rewarded. He 's an
uncommonly shrewd, observing lad. Now take him down-stairs
and give him a hot bath. Soak him well; then scrub
him well with soap and sand. Let him put on an entire new
rig, — shirt, stockings, everything. You can buy them while
he 's rinsing himself in a second water. Also take him to the
barber's and have his hair cut close, combed with a fine-tooth
comb, and shampooed. Do this, and then bring him up to my
room to dinner. Here 's a fifty-dollar bill for you to spend on
him.”

Three hours afterwards Delancy junior reappeared, too much
astonished to recognize his own figure in the glass. Colonel
Hyde had thenceforth a new and abounding theme for gasconade
in describing the way “that air bi, sir, trahv'ld the hull
distance from Montgomery ter New York, goin' through the
lines of both armies, sir, an' bringin' val'able letters better nor
a grown man could have did.”

A dinner at Vance's private table, with ladies and gentlemen
present, put the apex to the splendid excitements of the
day in the minds of both uncle and nephew.