A FOOL'S ERRAND & Its Sequel, Bricks Without Straw. Albion Winegar Tourgée
or, if there were, he should have been compensated for the same as well as for his cotton, his corn, his tobacco, his fences, his timber, and cattle, unwittingly destroyed, or needfully appropriated, by the national forces. This was not done, however. The wise men decided that it would not do to attempt it.
So the result was, that, while the open and avowed rebel lost his slave-property by the events of the war, the most ardent and devoted Unionist lost his also. It was hard, very hard, when a man had given the best years of his life to the honest acquisition of a species of property which was not only protected, but seemed to have been peculiarly favored and encouraged, by our laws; and when, the life of the nation being in peril, at the risk of his own he stood by her, espoused her cause against his neighbors, made himself an outcast in his own land, — it was hard indeed, when the struggle was over, to see that nation to which he had been so devotedly attached reaching out its hand, and stripping him of the competence thus acquired, and leaving him to suffer, not only the pangs of poverty, but the jeers of those whose treason he had opposed. That the love of these men should gradually grow cold for the country which measured out to friend and foe alike one even measure of punishment, our Fool thought not a matter to be wondered at; but the wise men of the National Capital were unable to believe that this could be. So time wore on, and wise men and fools played at cross-purposes; and the locks of Samson grew while he wrought at the mill.
CHAPTER XXII
COCK-CROW
AFTER the Fool's speech at the political meeting, and the events which succeeded it became generally known, he was much sought after by what were known as Union men among the people. His words seemed to have touched a deep chord in their hearts, not so much from what he had said perhaps, as from the fact that he had dared to say it. They came to him with wonderings and warnings upon their lips. How he dared to stand up and maintain ideas at variance with the accepted creed of that class of men who had always formulated and controlled public opinion, they could not understand. They hated secession, always had hated it; they had voted against in 1861; some had been outspoken against it on the stump, in the street, everywhere, and at all times: but in the main the opposition had been a silent one. The terrible suppressive power which slavery had exercised over liberty of thought and speech had grown into a habit of mind. Men who for generations had been unable to express their thoughts above a whisper, as to one of the institutions by which they were surrounded, became cautious to the verge of timidity. Many a time did our Fool listen to the approval of men who would glance cautiously around before addressing him, and then say in a low, hushed tone, —
"That is what we want. I tell you it did me good to hear you; but you must look out! You don't know these people as I do. It don't do to speak out here as you do at the North."
"But why not?" he would query impatiently. "That was my honest conviction: why should I not speak it out?"
"Hush, hush!" his interviewer would say nervously. "Here, let's step aside a little while, and chat."
And then, perhaps, they would pass out of the public way, into that refuge of free thought at the South, the woods (or "the bushes," as the scraggly growth is more generally termed); and he would listen to some tale of heroic endurance by which his companion had evaded conscription in the time of the war, or avoided prosecution in the ante-war era, which elicited his wonder both for the devotion then displayed for principle, and the caution which was born of it.
"Why do you not speak out?" he would ask.
"Oh, it won't do! I could not live here, or not in any peace at least, if I did; and then my family — they would be cut off from all society: nobody would have any thing to do with them. Why, as careful as I have been, my children are insulted every now and then as 'nigger-worshipers,' and — and" —
"And what?"
"Well — 'Yankee-lovers,'" apologetically. "You see, it's got out in my neighborhood that I came to see you a few weeks ago."
"Well, what of that? Haven't you a right to do so? Can't a man speak his opinions, and act his preferences?"
"You will find out that this old pro-slavery, aristocratic element don't allow people to differ from them peaceably and quietly. If I were you, I'd be mighty careful who I talked to. You don't know any thing about what trouble you may get into any day."
"Well, I shall not," the Fool would reply. "I don't care anything particular about the matter. I am no politician, and don't want to be; but I am going to say just what I think, at all proper times and places, when the spirit moves me so to do."
"Of course, of course," would be the reply. "You know best; but you ought to recollect that you are not at the North, where they allow every man to have his own opinions, and rather despise him if he don't have them, as I take it they do."
So the two men would separate, each wondering at the other; the Fool amazed that one could endure so much for the sake of his own opinion, think so well, apprehend so clearly the state of affairs, and yet be so timid about declaring his convictions. He could not call it cowardice; for many of these men had taken their lives in their hands to shelter men on their way to the Union lines. Others, in the ante-war era, had circulated books and pamphlets in regard to slavery, to be found in possession of which was a capital crime. Others had helped fugitive slaves to escape to freedom, with the terrors of Judge Lynch's rope and fagots before their eyes. Others still, upon being conscripted into the Confederate ranks, had refused to bear arms, even when put into the front rank and under the hottest fire of battle.
They could look at danger and death very calmly; but they could not stand forth openly, and face the glare of social proscription. The Fool could not understand it.
On the other hand, the Southern Unionists could not understand the heedless outspokenness of the Northern man. To them it seemed the very height of folly. It meant proscription, broils, mobs, and innumerable risks which might be avoided by a prudent silence.
These were the warnings of his friends. He received others shortly afterwards, which impressed him more. He had been accustomed to ride into Verdenton occasionally on business, and when he did so, frequently did not start for home until after sundown, especially if the nights were light; a ride in the Southern summer moonlight being an ever-enjoyable romance to an appreciative nature. One night as he was thus returning to Warrington, the low western moon shining full in his face, he was startled, as he passed through a piece of woodland road, by seeing a man ride out from under a low-growing oak which stood close by the roadside, and call his name. The denseness of the shadow had quite hidden both horse and rider, and the Fool was within a few steps of his interlocutor when he emerged into the moonlight. To draw rein, and take a pistol from his belt, was the work of an instant to the ex-soldier, and entirely an instinctive act.
"All right, Colonel," said the horseman pleasantly. "I am glad to see that you carry that useful article, and are handy about getting it out; but it is not necessary now. You know me, I reckon."
"Dr. Gates?" said the Fool inquiringly, as he peered into the shaded face of the horseman, with a blush of shame at having drawn his weapon upon an unknown and undemonstrative wayfarer. "I — ah — you startled me, Doctor, coming from under the tree there; and I have been so long accustomed to an appeal to arms in case of surprise, that I half fancied I had a fight on my hands," he continued half jocosely.
"No excuses, Colonel: I don't blame you, and am, as I said, glad to see it. One frequently avoids danger by being prepared for it. I want to speak to you a moment."
"Well?"
"Come under the tree here," he said, glancing up and down the road. "There's no use standing out there in the moonlight."
When they were in the shade, the doctor said, —
"You may think it is none of my business, and so it is not, in fact; but I have just thought that some one ought to tell you, — and as no one else seems to have done so, I thought I would make it my business to let you know, — that you are acting