The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
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he returned to it. He tried to compose himself to write, although the recollection of each act of the morning hung like a cloud over the back of his head. Therefore the first sheet of legal cap was spoiled utterly. But Stephen had a deep sense of failure. He had gone through the ground glass door with the firm intention of making a clean breast of the ownership of Hester. Now, as he sat still, the trouble grew upon him. He started a new sheet, and ruined that: Once he got as far as his feet, and sat down again. But at length he had quieted to the extent of deciphering ten lines of Mr. Whipple's handwriting when the creak of a door shattered his nerves completely.
He glanced up from his work to behold--none other than Colonel Comyn Carvel.
Glancing at Mr. Richter's chair, and seeing it empty, the Colonel's eye roved about the room until it found Stephen. There it remained, and the Colonel remained in the middle of the floor, his soft hat on the back of his head, one hand planted firmly on the gold head of his stick, and the other tugging at his goatee, pulling down his chin to the quizzical angle.
"Whoopee!" he cried.
The effect of this was to make one perspire freely. Stephen perspired. And as there seemed no logical answer, he made none.
Suddenly Mr. Carvel turned, shaking with a laughter he could not control, and strode into the private office the door slammed behind him. Mr. Brice's impulse was flight. But he controlled himself.
First of all there was an eloquent silence. Then a ripple of guffaws. Then the scratch-scratch of a quill pen, and finally the Judge's voice.
"Carvel, what the devil's the matter with you, sir?"
A squall of guffaws blew through the transom, and the Colonel was heard slapping his knee.
"Judge Whipple," said he, his voice vibrating from suppressed explosions, "I am happy to see that you have overcome some of your ridiculous prejudices, sir."
"What prejudices, sir?" the Judge was heard to shout.
"Toward slavery, Judge," said Mr. Carvel, seeming to recover his gravity. "You are a broader man than I thought, sir."
An unintelligible gurgle came from the Judge. Then he said.
"Carvel, haven't you and I quarrelled enough on that subject?"
"You didn't happen to attend the nigger auction this morning when you were at the court?" asked the Colonel, blandly.
"Colonel," said the Judge, "I've warned you a hundred times against the stuff you lay out on your counter for customers."
"You weren't at the auction, then," continued the Colonel, undisturbed. "You missed it, sir. You missed seeing this young man you've just employed buy the prettiest quadroon wench I ever set eyes on."
Now indeed was poor Stephen on his feet. But whether to fly in at the one entrance or out at the other, he was undecided.
"Colonel," said Mr. Whipple, "is that true?"
"Sir!" "MR. BRICE!"
It did not seem to Stephen as if he was walking when he went toward the ground glass door. He opened it. There was Colonel Carvel seated on the bed, his goatee in his hand. And there was the Judge leaning forward from his hips, straight as a ramrod. Fire was darting from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "Mr. Brice," said he, "there is one question I always ask of those whom I employ. I omitted it in your case because I have known your father and your grandfather before you. What is your opinion, sir, on the subject of holding human beings in bondage?"
The answer was immediate,--likewise simple.
"I do not believe in it, Mr. Whipple."
The Judge shot out of his chair like a long jack-in-the box, and towered to his full height.
"Mr. Brice, did you, or did you not, buy a woman at auction to-day?"
"I did, sir."
Mr. Whipple literally staggered. But Stephen caught a glimpse of the Colonel's hand slipping from his chin cover his mouth.
"Good God, sir!" cried the Judge, and he sat down heavily. "You say that you are an Abolitionist?"
"No, sir, I do not say that. But it does not need an Abolitionist to condemn what I saw this morning."
"Are you a slave-owner, sir?" said Mr. Whipple.
"Yes, sir."
"Then get your coat and hat and leave my office, Mr. Brice."
Stephen's coat was on his arm. He slipped it on, and turned to go. He was, if the truth were told, more amused than angry. It was Colonel Carvel's voice that stopped him.
"Hold on, Judge," he drawled, "I reckon you haven't got all the packing out of that case."
Mr. Whipple locked at him in a sort of stupefaction. Then he glanced at Stephen.
"Come back here, sir," he cried. "I'll give you hearing. No man shall say that I am not just."
Stephen looked gratefully at the Colonel.
"I did not expect one, sir," he said..
"And you don't deserve one, sir," cried the Judge.
"I think I do," replied Stephen, quietly.
The Judge suppressed something.
"What did you do with this person?" he demanded
"I took her to Miss Crane's boarding-house," said Stephen.
It was the Colonel's turn to explode. The guffaw which came from hire drowned every other sound.
"Good God!" said the Judge, helplessly. Again he looked at the Colonel, and this time something very like mirth shivered his lean frame. "And what do you intend to do with her?" he asked in strange tones.
"To give her freedom, sir, as soon as I can find somebody to go on her bond."
Again silence. Mr. Whipple rubbed his nose with more than customary violence, and looked very hard at Mr. Carvel, whose face was inscrutable. It was a solemn moment.
"Mr. Brice," said the Judge, at length, "take off your coat, sir I will go her bond."
It was Stephen's turn to be taken aback. He stood regarding the Judge curiously, wondering what manner of man he was. He did not know that this question had puzzled many before him.
"Thank you, sir," he said.
His hand was on the knob of the door, when Mr. Whipple called him back abruptly. His voice had lost some of its gruffness.
"What were your father's ideas about slavery, Mr. Brice?"
The young man thought a moment, as if seeking to be exact.
"I suppose he would have put slavery among the necessary evils, sir," he said, at length. "But he never could bear to have the liberator mentioned in his presence. He was not at all in sympathy with Phillips, or Parker, or Summer. And such was the general feeling among his friends."
"Then," said the Judge, "contrary to popular opinion in the West and South, Boston is not all Abolition."
Stephen smiled.
"The conservative classes are not at