CHAPTER IX.

BERNARD LYNN.

Bernard Lynn was a tall and muscular man, somewhat inclined to corpulence. His dark complexion was contrasted with the masses of snow-white hair, which surrounded his forehead, and the eyebrows, also white, which gave additional luster to his dark eyes. His features were regular, and there were deep furrows upon his forehead and around his mouth. Despite the good-humored smile which played about his lips, and the cheerful light which flowed from his eyes, there was at times, a haggard look upon his face. One moment all cheerfulness and animation, the next instant his face would wear a faded look; the corners of his mouth would fall; and his eye become vacant and lusterless.

He emptied the goblet of brandy without once taking it from his lips, and the effect was directly seen in his glowing countenance and sparkling eyes.

"Ah! that is good brandy," he cried, smacking his lips, and sinking back in his chair. "You think I am a deep drinker?" he remarked, after a moment's pause.--"Do not wonder at it. There are times in a man's life when he is forced to choose between the brandy bottle and the knife of the suicide."

At the word, his head sunk and his countenance became clouded and sullen.

Before Randolph could reply, he raised his head and exclaimed gayly:

"Do you know, my boy, that I have been a great traveler? Three times I have encircled the globe. I have seen most of what is to be seen under the canopy of heaven. I have been near freezing to death in Greenland, and have been burned almost to a cinder by the broiling sun of India. To-day, in the saloons of Paris; a month after in the midst of an Arabian desert; and the third month, a wanderer among the ruins of ancient Mexico and Yucatan. I have tried all climates, lived with all sorts of people, and seen sights that would make the Arabian Nights seem but poor and tame by contrast. And now, my boy, I'm tired."

And the wan, haggard look came over his face, as he uttered the word "_tired_."

"Your daughter has not accompanied you in these pilgrimages?"

"No. From childhood she was left under careful guardianship, in the bosom of an English family, who lived in Florence. Poor child! I have often wondered what she has thought of me! To-day I have been with her in Florence, and within two months she has received a letter from me, from the opposite side of the globe. But as I said before, I am _tired_. Were it not for one thing I would like to settle down in your country. A fine country,--a glorious country,--only one fault, and that very likely will eat you all up."

"Before I ask the nature of the fault, pardon me for an impertinent question. Of what country are you? You speak of the English as a foreign people; of the Americans in the same manner; yet you speak the language without the slightest accent."

The countenance of Mr. Lynn became clouded and sullen.

"I am of no country," he said harshly. "I ceased to have a country, about the time Eleanor was born. But another time," his tone became milder, "I may tell you all about it."

"And the fault of our country?" said Randolph, anxious to divert the thoughts of his friend from some painful memory, which evidently absorbed his mind, "what is it?"

Mr. Lynn once more filled and slowly drained his goblet.

"You are the last person to whom I may speak of this fault,--"

"How so?"

"You are a planter. You have been reared under peculiar influences. Your mind from childhood has been imperceptibly moulded into a certain form, and that form it is impossible to change. You cannot see, as I can; for I am a spectator, and you are in the center of the conflagration, which I observe from a distance. No, no, Randolph, I can't speak of it to you. But you planters will be wakened some day--you will. God help you in your awakening--hem!"

Randolph's face became pale as death.

"You speak, my friend, of the question of negro slavery. You surely don't consider it an evil. You--you--_hate_ the very mention of the race."

Shading his eyes with his uplifted hand, Bernard Lynn said, with slow and measured distinctness:

"Do I hate the race? Yes, if you could read my heart, you would find hatred to the African race written on its every fiber. The very name of negro fills me with loathing." He uttered an oath, and continued in a lower tone: "By what horrible fatality was that accursed race ever planted upon the soil of the New World!"

Randolph felt his blood boil in his veins; his face was flashed; he breathed in gasps.

"And then it is not sympathy for the negro, that makes you look with aversion upon the institution of American slavery?"

"Sympathy for a libel upon the race--a hybrid composed of the monkey and the man? The idea is laughable. Were the negro in Africa--his own country--I might tolerate him. But his presence in any shape, as a dweller among people of the white race, is a curse to that race, more horrible than the plagues of Egypt or the fires of Gomorrah."

"It is, then, the _influence of negro slavery upon the white race_, which concerns you?" faltered Randolph.

"_It is the influence of negro slavery upon the white race_ which concerns me," echoed Lynn, with bitter emphasis: "But you are a planter. I cannot talk to you. To mention the subject to one of you, is to set you in a blaze. By George! how the devils must laugh when they see us poor mortals, so eager in the pursuit of our own ruin,--so merry as we play with hot coals in the midst of a powder magazine!"

"You may speak to me upon this subject," said Randolph, drawing a long breath, "and speak freely."

"It won't do. You are all blind. There, for instance, is the greatest man among you; his picture hangs at your back--"

Randolph turned and beheld, for the first time, a portrait which hung against the wall behind. It was a sad, stern face, with snow-white hair, and a look of intellect, moulded by an iron Destiny. It was the likeness of JOHN C. CALHOUN,--Calhoun, the John Calvin of Political Economy.

"I knew him when he was a young man," continued Lynn, "I have met and conversed with him. Mind, I do not say that we were _intimate friends_! A braver man, a truer heart, a finer intellect, never lived beneath the sun. _Then_ he felt the evils of this horrible system, and felt that the only remedy, was the removal of the entire race to Africa. Yes, he felt that the black man could only exist beside the white, to the utter degradation of the latter. _Now_, ha! ha! he has grown into the belief, that Slavery,--in other words, _the presence of the black race in the midst of the white_,--is a blessing. To that belief he surrenders everything, intellect, heart, soul, the hope of power, and the approbation of posterity. When Calhoun is blind, how can you planters be expected to see?"

Randolph was silent. "There is in my veins, the blood of this accused race," he muttered to himself.

"In order to look up some of the results of this system," continued Bernard Lynn, "let us look at some of the characteristics of the American people. The north is a trader; it traffics; it buys; it sells; it meets every question with the words, '_Will it pay?_' (As a gallant southron once said to me; 'When the north choose a patron saint, a new name will be added to the calendar, "SAINT PICAYUNE"'). The South is frank, generous, hospitable; there are the virtues of ideal chivalry among the southern people. And yet, the north prospers in every sense, while the south,--_what is the future of the South?_ The west, noble, generous, and free from the traits which mark a nation of mere traffickers, _is just what the south would be, were it_ FREE FROM THE BLACK RACE. Think of that, friend Randolph! You may glean a bit of solid truth from the disconnected remarks of an old traveler."

"But you have not yet instanced a single evil of our institution," interrupted Randolph.

"Are you from the south, and yet, ask me to give you instances of the evils of slavery? Pshaw! I tell you man, the evil of slavery consists in the presence of the black race in the midst of the whites. That is the sum of the matter. You cannot elevate that race save at the expense of the whites--not the expense of money, mark you,--but at the expense of the physical and mental features of the white race. Don't I speak plain enough? The two races cannot live together and _not_ mingle. You know it to be impossible. And do you pretend to say, that the mixture of black and white, can produce anything but an accursed progeny, destitute of the good qualities of each race, and by their very origin, at war with both African and Caucasian? Nay, you need not hold your head in your hands. It is blunt truth, but it is truth."

The bolt had struck home. Randolph had buried his face in his hands,--"I am one of these hybrids," he muttered in agony; "at war at the same time, with the race of my father and my mother."

"But, how would you remedy this evil?" he asked, without raising his head.

"Remove the whole race to Africa," responded Lynn.

"How can this be done?"

"By one effort of southern will. Instead of attempting to defend the system, let the southern people resolve at once, that the _presence of the black race_, is the greatest curse that can befall America. This resolution made, the means will soon follow. One-fourth the expenses of a five years' war would transport the negroes to Africa. One-twentieth part of the sum, which will be expended in the next ten years (I say nothing of the past) in the quarrel of north and south, about this matter, would do the work and do it well. And then, _free from the black race_, the south would go to work and mount to her destiny."

"But, what will become of the race, when they are transported to Africa?"

"If they are really of the human family, they will show it, by the civilization of Africa. They will establish a Nationality for the Negro, and plant the arts on seashore and desert. Apart from the white race, they can rise into their destiny."

"And if nothing is done?" interrupted Randolph.

"If the south continues to defend, and the north to quarrel about slavery,--if instead of making one earnest effort to do something with the evil, they break down national good-feeling, and waste millions of money in mutual threats,--why, in that case, it needs no prophet to foretell the future of the south. That future will realize one of two conditions--"

He paused, and after a moment, repeated with singular emphasis, "_St. Domingo!--St. Domingo!_"

"And the other condition," said Randolph.

"The whole race will be stript of all its noble qualities, and swallowed up in a race, composed of black and white, and cursing the very earth they tread. In the south, the white race will in time be _annihilated_. That garden of the world, composed, I know not of how many states,--extending from the middle states to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi,--will repeat on a colossal scale, the horrible farce, which the world has seen, in the case of St. Domingo."

Bernard Lynn again filled his goblet, and slowly sipped the brandy, while the fire faded from his eyes, the corners of his mouth fell,--his face became faded and haggard again.

Randolph, seated near him, his elbow on his knee, and his forehead supported by his hand, was buried in thought. His face was averted from the light: the varied emotions which convulsed it in every lineament, were concealed from the observation of Bernard Lynn.

Thus they remained for a long time, each buried in his own peculiar thoughts.

"Randolph," said Bernard Lynn,--and there was something so changed and singular in his tone, that Randolph started--"draw near to me. I wish to speak with you."

Randolph looked up, and was astonished by the change which had passed over the face of the traveler. His eyes flashed wildly, his features were one moment fixed and rigid and the next, tremulous and quivering with strong emotion; the veins were swollen on his broad forehead.

"Randolph," he said, in a low, agitated voice, "I am a Carolinian."

"A Carolinian?" echoed Randolph.

"The name of Bernard Lynn is not my real name. It is an assumed name, Randolph. Assumed, do you hear me?" his eyes flashed more wildly, and he seized Randolph's hand, and unconsciously wrung it with an almost frenzied clutch--"Assumed some seventeen years ago, when I forsook my home, my native soil, and became a miserable wanderer on the face of the earth. Do you know why I assumed that name,--do you know?--"

He paused as if suffocated by his emotions. After a moment he resumed in a lower, deeper voice,--

"Did you ever hear the name of ---- ----?"

"It is the name of one of the first and oldest families of Carolina," responded Randolph. "A name renowned in her history, but now extinct, I believe."

"That is my name, my real name, which I have forsaken forever, for the one which I now bear," resumed Bernard Lynn. "I am the last male representative of the family. Seventeen years ago my name disappeared from Carolina. I left home--my native land--all the associations that make life dear, and became a miserable exile. And why?"

He uttered an oath, which came sharp and hissing through his clenched teeth.

Profoundly interested, Randolph, as if fascinated, gazed silently into the flashing eyes of Bernard Lynn.

"I was young,--rich,--the inheritor of an honored name," continued Bernard Lynn, in hurried tones,--"and I was married, Randolph, married to a woman of whom Eleanor is the living picture,--a woman as noble in soul, and beautiful in form as ever trod God's earth. One year after our marriage, when Eleanor was a babe,--nearer to me, Randolph,--I left my plantation in the evening, and went on a short visit to Charleston. I came home the next day, and where I had left my wife living and beautiful, I found only a mangled and dishonored corpse."

His head fell upon his breast,--he could not proceed.

"This is too horrible!" ejaculated Randolph,--"too horrible to be real."

Bernard raised his head, and clutching Randolph's hands--

"The sun was setting, and his beams shone warmly through the western windows as I entered the bedchamber. Oh! I can see it yet,--I can see it now,--the babe sleeping on the bed, while the mother is stretched upon the floor, lifeless and weltering in her blood. Murdered and dishonored--murdered and dishonored--"

As though those words, "murdered and dishonored," had choked his utterance, he paused, and uttered a groan, and once more his head fell on his breast.

At this moment, even as Randolph, absorbed by the revelation, sits silent and pale, gazing upon the bended head of the old man,--at this moment look yonder, and behold the form of a woman, who with finger on her lip, stands motionless near the threshold.

Randolph is not aware of her presence--the old man cannot see her, for there is agony like death in his heart, and his head is bowed upon his breast; but there she stands, motionless as though stricken into stone, by the broken words which she has heard.

It is Eleanor Lynn.

On the very threshold she was arrested by the deep tones of her father's voice,--she listened,--and for the first time heard the story of her mother's death.

And now, stepping backward, her eye riveted on her father's form, she seeks to leave the room unobserved,--she reaches the threshold, when her father's voice is heard once more:--

"Ask me not for details, ask me not," he cried in broken tones, as once more he raised his convulsed countenance to the light "The author of this outrage was not a man, but a negro,--a demon in a demon's shape; and"--he smiled, but there was no merriment in his smile,--"and now you know why I left home, native land, all the associations which make life dear, seventeen years ago. Now you know why I hate the accursed race."

As he spoke, Eleanor Lynn glided from the room.