A FOOL'S ERRAND & Its Sequel, Bricks Without Straw. Albion Winegar Tourgée
I didn't want him to get into no trouble, an' didn't want no harm to come to him. That's all true, an' I've no doubt I said so to him. But I did not approve his doctrine, nor sympathize with his sentiments; nor did I tell him so, though he says I did in the note. I never thought of such a thing. I probably told him I was a magistrate, which was true, and that I was afraid of trouble, which was equally true. Come to think of it, I am of the notion that I told him he had better not preach at the Level Cross. If I didn't, I ought to have done so; for, if they had gone into that neighborhood, they would have been strung up to a tree, certain. Anyhow, the appointment was changed to Shallow Ford meeting house for the next Sunday. That is true, an' I presume it was on my warning. Now, I am represented as doing all this to get these men into my power. I swear to you, Colonel, it's false. I hadn't such an idea. I thought they were fools, and think so yet; but I hadn't any malice or harm against them in the world. But as it happened, without any knowledge or advisement of mine, directly or indirectly, the next Sunday morning, when the meeting was to be at Shallow Ford, there came by my house a party of gentlemen going on to Level Cross, to hear the Wesleyans, they said. I told them they were on the wrong road, just as a matter of politeness, you know; and they came on up to the fork of the road above your place here, and took over to Shallow Ford, sure enough. After they had been gone about an hour or so, it occurred to me that they might be bent on mischief. I don't say I might not have done just the same if I had known their errand; but as a fact I did not, and never suspected it till afterwards."
"Well," asked Servosse, "is the rest of the incident true, — that about dragging the ministers from the pulpit, bucking them across a log, and beating them?"
"Well, I heard afterwards that they did break up the meeting, and give the preachers a little brushing. They might have bucked 'em across a log; more'n likely they did: it's a powerful handy way to larrup a man. I don't allow, though, that it was any thing like so severe as it's represented in the book, though no doubt the preachers thought it pretty rough. I s'pose they weren't used to it — perhaps thought their cloth would save them. I understand they got away powerful quick after that, not waiting for any repetition of the dose, which was about the only sensible thing they did do."
The old man told it with twinkling eyes, and an evident relish of the whole proceeding.
"I have always had some doubt in regard to these incidents," said Servosse, "and am glad to have this confirmed by one who was an actor in it; but you don't pretend to justify such proceedings, Squire?"
"Well, now, Colonel, I don't really see what there is to make such a fuss about," said Hyman. "Here was a peaceable community, living under the protection of the Constitution and laws of the country; and these men, who had no business or interest here, came among us, and advocated doctrines, which, if adopted, would have destroyed the constitution of our society, and perhaps have endangered our lives and families. Such doctrines lead at once and naturally to insurrection among the blacks, and threatened us with all the horrors of San Domingo. I must say, Colonel, I think the gentlemen were very lenient and forbearing, when they only striped the preachers' backs a little, instead of stretching their necks, as would have been done in any less peaceable community under like provocation."
"It is just such intolerance as this, Squire, which makes it next to impossible for the South to accept its present situation. You all want to shoot, whip, hang, and burn those who do not agree with you. It is all the fruit and outcome of two hundred years of slavery: in fact, it is part and parcel of it," said Servosse.
"But you don't think those men had any right to come here, and preach such dangerous doctrines, do you?" asked his neighbor in surprise.
"Certainly," said Comfort: "why not?"
"Why not?" echoed the Squire. "Why, it seems to me the most evident thing on earth that every community has an undoubted right to protect itself. That is all we did, — protected ourselves and our institutions."
"Protected yourselves against your institutions, more properly," said Servosse. "That is the very strength of the abolitionists' position, Squire. No community has any right to have, cherish, or protect any institution which can not bear the light of reason and free discussion."
"But, suppose they do tolerate such an institution, does that give one a right to bring a firebrand among them? Are not they the proper judges of what is the correct thing for their own good, — the keepers of their own consciences?"
"It is useless to discuss the matter," said Servosse. "The arguments you use are the arguments of intolerance and bigotry in all ages. Even men who wish to be liberal-minded, like you, Squire, are blinded by them. You thought it was fair to whip those ministers for preaching what they deemed God's word, because the bulk of the community did not agree with them. That was the very argument which would have been used to justify Tom Savage and the others, if they had succeeded in giving me a flagellation a while ago, as they attempted to do. The principle is the same. I had disagreed with my neighbors, and advocated strange doctrines. By your reasoning they had a right to suppress me by violence, or even by murder if need be."
"Oh, not so bad as that, I hope, Colonel!" said the Squire.
"Yes, it is just as bad as that; and I tell you what it is, neighbor Hyman," said Servosse, "the most dangerous and difficult element of the future, at the South, is this irrepressible intolerance of the opinions of others. You deem disagreement an insult, and opposition a crime, which justifies any enormity. It will bring bitter fruit, and you will see it."
"Oh, I hope not!" said the old man lightly. "I want to get along peaceably now, and I am sure our people want to do the same. We may be a little hot-blooded, and all that; but we are not mean. We are poor now, — have lost every thing but honor; and I hope we shall not lose that. But I must be going. By the way, if you should be writing to any of your friends at the North, and should think of mentioning Nathaniel Hyman, I wish you would just say that he never practiced any deception on the ministers, and was not responsible for the licking they got, directly nor indirectly. Good-evening, ma'am."
He lighted his pipe, and went home, evidently thinking that his connection with this ante bellum barbarity had somehow increased his importance in the eyes of his new neighbors.
CHAPTER XVI
THE EDGE OF HOSPITALITY DULLED
FROM the day of his speech in the grove, the new proprietor of Warrington was a marked man in the community. He was regarded as an "abolitionist" and an incendiary. While his neighbors did not seem to have towards him any especial distrust in their personal intercourse, and generally met him with affability, yet he gradually became aware that a current of wonderful strength was setting against him. He became an object of remark at public assemblies; the newspaper at Verdenton had every now and then slighting allusions to him; and the idea was industriously circulated that he was somehow connected — identified — with "Yankee power," and had been sent to the South for some sinister motive. He was not one of them. He represented another civilization, another development, of which they were naturally suspicious, and especially on account of the peculiar restrictions which slavery had put around them, and which had acted as an embargo on immigration for so many years before the war.
The intercourse between his family and those who constitute what was termed "good society" gradually dwindled, without actual rudeness or tangible neglect, until the few country-people who "neighbored with them," as it is termed there, comprised their only society, if we except the teachers of the colored school and the few Northern families in the town.
Now and then this feeling of hereditary aversion for the Yankee manifested itself unpleasantly; but it was usually only an undemonstrative, latent feeling, which was felt rather than seen in those with whom he associated in business or otherwise, until the first year had passed away, and the crops had been gathered.
Little attention had been paid to the manner in which he had chosen to build houses and sell lands to the colored people, — it being perhaps regarded as merely a visionary idea of the Yankee abolitionist. When, however, the crops