The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

Hill sat looking at Hiram, who, with all his impenetrability wore a surprised and puzzled expression.

'You don't remember me,' he said.

'No.'

'Why, I am Deacon Hill's son, of Newton. I quit the academy, I guess, just about the time you came. Innis and I were there together. Well, I declare, your innocent look threw me off the track; but I have seen you many a time in Hampton. You used to be with Jessup, didn't you?'

'Yes.'

'You've been coming possum over Joslin; isn't it so?'

'I don't understand you.'

'Oh, never mind; he's a cursed knave, anyway. I shall quit him first of January—keeps me on promises and the lowest kind of a salary, and no end of the dirty work—'

'Such as sham sales of my employer's paper sold A.H. Hill,' interrupted Hiram, dryly.

'Hallo! where did you get hold of that?' said Hill, laughing.

Hiram made no reply; and Innis entering at this moment, the subject was changed.

Hill, who had already imbibed more than was good for him, ordered a brandy toddy; and Hiram, true to his temperance principles, partook of a cup of hot coffee. Before the toddy was half finished, Hill, who was already illustrating the proverb that 'children, fools, and drunken men speak truth,' commenced again about his employer, Joslin.

'Really, Mr. Hill, I don't think you ought to refer to your confidential relations with your principal,' said Hiram, gravely. He knew, cunning fellow, it would only be adding fuel to the fire.

'You be–,' said Hill. 'I tell you what it is, Innis: here's a sell. I'm fairly come over. He is on Joslin's track—I know it, and I'll own up.' He thereupon proceeded to give a general account of Joslin, and how he did business, and what a cowardly, lying knave he was.

Innis laughed. Hiram was quiet, but he did not miss a word. The little supper was finished, and the trio rose to depart.

'I had no idea it was so late,' said Innis.

'Have you far to go?' said Hiram.

'Yes, to Chelsea; and the omnibuses have stopped.'

'Come and stay with me: I have a very nice room.'

Innis saw Hiram was in earnest, and after a little hesitation he assented. Hill bid them good night, and hiccoughed off toward his own quarters; and Hiram with Innis went to the Franklin House.

When these young men reached their room, they did not go to bed. They sat up for an hour or two. What this conference led to we shall see by-and-by.

CHAPTER XII

Hiram rose early, notwithstanding the late hours of the previous night. Innis breakfasted with him and then took his departure. On going to the post office, Hiram found a letter from Mr. Burns, enclosing a full power of attorney, as he had requested. He then went to H. Bennett & Co., where he took up at least an hour of that gentleman's time, apparently quite to that gentleman's satisfaction. Thence Hiram proceeded to the office of a well-known counsellor at law, who had been recommended to him by Mr. Bennett.

The day was spent in preparing certain ominous-looking documents. I am told that on the occasion Hiram exhibited a breadth and clearness of comprehension which astonished the counsellor, who could not help suggesting to the young man that he would make an excellent lawyer, which compliment Hiram received with something very like a sneer. That evening Hiram went to bed early. He slept well. His plans were perfected—his troops in order of battle, only waiting for the signal to be given.

He awoke about sunrise, and rang his bell. A sleepy servant at length replied to it.

'Bring me a Clarion,' said Hiram.

'The papers won't be along, sir, for half an hour.'

'Well, let me have one the moment they come. Here's a quarter; bring a Clarion quick, and I shall ask no change.'

I record this instance of an impatient spirit in Hiram, as probably the last he ever exhibited through his whole life. What could cause it?

Presently the waiter came back. The Clarion was in his hand. Hiram took it eagerly, turned swiftly to the 'City Items,' and nodded with intense satisfaction as his eye rested on one paragraph.

At ten o'clock precisely, Hiram presented himself at the counting room of Elihu Joslin. Again he was forced to wait some time, and again he waited most patiently.

[I ought to state that Hill, in order to keep up his credit with his employer, his bravado being sensibly cooled the following morning, had made up all sorts of stories about Mr. Burns's affairs, which, as he reported, had been pumped from Hiram, whom he professed to have left in a most dilapidated state at the hotel.]

At length Mr. Joslin would see Hiram. The latter entered and sat down.

'Well, my young friend,' said the merchant, 'what do you think of New York? Equal to Burnsville, eh? Did Hill do the polite thing by you?'

'Mr. Joslin,' said Hiram, seriously, and quite in his natural manner, while he fixed his quiet but strangely searching eyes on him, 'I have an important communication to make to you?'

'Well?'

'I am not what I appear to be!'

'No? What the devil are you then?'

'I am the CONFIDENTIAL CLERK of Joel Burns, sent here by him to ferret out and punish your rascalities. Stay,' continued Hiram—perceiving Joslin was about to break forth in some violent demonstrations. 'Sit down, sir, and hear me through quietly. It is your best course. It is your ONLY course. Now listen. You have undertaken to cheat my employer. You have rendered false accounts of sales, using your own clerks for sham purchasers, and employing stool-pigeon auctioneers. You have attempted to swindle him generally. I have the whole story here. You are in my power.'

'By–! that's more than I'll stand,' shouted Joslin, 'from any d–d Connecticut Yankee.'

'Stop,' said Hiram, authoritatively. 'A word more, and you are ruined past all redemption. Read that,' and he handed him the Clarion, placing his finger on a particular paragraph. Joslin took the paper. His hand trembled, but he managed to read as follows:

'Some extraordinary disclosures have reached us, involving a wholesale paper house in Nassau street in large swindling transactions. We forbear to give the name of the party implicated, but understand that the police to-morrow will be in possession of the facts.'

'Here,' said Hiram, showing a bundle of papers, 'are the documents. Outside there on the curbstone stands an officer. I mean to make short work of it. Will you behave rationally or not?'

Joslin sat down.

'What do you want?' he said at length.

'I want nothing but what is HONEST, sir—that I mean to have,' said Hiram, in a mild, but very firm tone. 'Here is the account as it ought to be rendered. Look it over, and put your name to it.'

'Really, this will take time—a good deal of time,' said Joslin, recovering from his stupor. 'I must consult my bookkeeper.'

'You will consult nobody, and you will settle this account before I leave the room.'

Joslin took the document. He trembled from head to foot. He saw himself completely circumvented.

Hiram proceeded to show him just how the account ought to stand. Very coolly and very accurately he went through the whole.

'I suppose you are right,' said Joslin, moodily, and he affixed his signature to the paper, and began to think he was getting off easy. 'Now, do you want anything more of me?'

'Yes,' said Hiram, 'considerably more. You own one half of the paper mill with Mr. Burns. You must sell out to him. Here is an agreement to sell, drawn ready for your signature.'

'D–d if I will do it for all Burnsville! You've settled with me, and you can't stir a peg farther. Outwitted yourself this time!' said Joslin, triumphantly.

'Not quite so fast. You have settled with Mr. Burns by signing that paper, which gives the lie to your other accounts, and is so much evidence for me before a police court; but Mr. Burns has not settled with you, and won't settle with you till you bind yourself, by signing this document, to sell out to him, on reasonable terms.'

Joslin was again struck dumb.

'You will receive,' continued Hiram, 'just what you paid for it, less my expenses, and charges for my time and trouble in coming to New York, counsel fees, and so forth; and you may think yourself fortunate in falling into conscientious hands!'

Not to pursue the interview farther, Hiram accomplished just exactly what he undertook to do before he entered Joslin's store that morning. The accounts were made right, and Hiram turned to leave the store with the agreement to sell in his pocket. He stopped before going out.

'Mark you,' he said; 'when Joel Burns gets a clean deed of your half the paper mill, according to this agreement, I will tear up these little documents'—exhibiting some law papers. 'Don't forget. You have undertaken to settle with me. I shan't have settled with you till I get the deed. Good morning.'

It was only twelve o'clock when all this was concluded. Hiram marched out of the store triumphant. His impulse on touching the pavement was to jump up and down, run, kick up his heels, and shout all sorts of huzzas. He did none of these, but walked up to the Park very quietly, and then into Broadway. But his heart beat exultantly. A glow of absolute satisfaction suffused his mental, moral, and physical system. It was just the happiest moment of his life. The day was fine—the air clear and bracing. Broadway was filled to overflowing. How he enjoyed the promenade! It was when turning to retrace his steps, after reaching the limits of fashionable resort, that his feelings became so buoyant that it seemed as if he must find some outlet for them. The exquisite beauty of the ladies, the richness of their dresses, and the air and style with which they glided along, put new excitement into his soul.

'One of these days I shall make their acquaintance. Oh! what a place this is,' he muttered.

Unconsciously he stopped quite still, almost in an ecstacy.

At that moment his attention was attracted by a hearse, which, having accomplished its task, was proceeding at a rapid rate up Broadway. Careening this way and that, it jolted swiftly over the pavement. The driver, either hardened by habit, or, it may be, a little tipsy, exhibited a rollicking, reckless air, as he urged his horse along. As he came opposite Hiram, their eyes met. Influenced by I know not what, perhaps for a joke, perhaps to give the young fellow who was so verdantly staring at him a start, he half checked the animal, as if about to pull up, and gesturing to Hiram in the style of an omnibus driver, motioned him to get inside!

Never before, never afterward, did Hiram receive such a shock. Dismay was so evident on his face, that the man gave vent to a coarse laugh at the success of his experiment, applied the lash to his brute, and dashed furiously on.

What sent that hearse along just then and there? It gave you a ghostly reminder, Hiram. It made you recollect that you were not to lose sight of the other side.

That morning Hiram forgot, yes, forgot to say his prayers. So entirely was he carried away by the Joslin business, that for once he neglected this invariable duty. Now this was not singular under the circumstances. To a genuine spirit the omission would have been followed by no morbid recollections. As Hiram, after the affair of the hearse, took his way to the hotel, the fact that he had not sought God's blessing on his morning's work suddenly presented itself. He was persuaded the shock he received was providential. Arrived at the Franklin, he mounted to his room, and read three or four times the customary amount in the Bible, and prayed longer and more energetically than he ever did before in his life. He was now much more calm, but still a good deal depressed. It was not till after he had partaken of an excellent dinner that he felt entire equanimity.

That evening Hiram was to spend at Mr. Bennett's. True to his rule, which he applied with severity, not to let pleasure interfere with business, he had declined all his cousin's invitations. Now he was at liberty to go and enjoy himself. Mr. Bennett lived in a very handsome house in a fashionable street. His daughters were all older than Hiram, but still they were very pretty, and by no means passée. Mrs. Bennett was quite a grand lady. Mr. B. received Hiram very cordially, and asked immediately how he had got along. Hiram replied briefly. Mr. B. was delighted. Mrs. B. received Hiram very graciously, but with something of a patronizing manner, very different from what she exhibited when spending several weeks at Hampton. The two girls were more cordial. Hiram's country-bred politeness, which omitted not the least point required by books of etiquette, amused them much as the vigorous and very scientific dancing of a country belle amuses the city-bred girl who walks languidly through the measure. Notwithstanding, Hiram managed to make himself agreeable. It was not till two or three young gentlemen of the city came in that they showed slight signs of weariness, and Hiram was transferred to mamma. Our hero was not slow to perceive the disadvantage under which he labored. He was not one whit discouraged. He watched his rivals closely. He smiled occasionally in disdain while listening to some of the conversation. 'They are almost fools,' he said to himself. 'The tailor has done the whole.' Never mind, I can afford to wait.

The next morning Hiram took the boat for New Haven, and on the following morning reached Burnsville. He had written but a line to Mr. Burns, to acknowledge the receipt of the power of attorney, and had given his employer no inkling of what he was attempting to do.

As the stage, a little after sunrise, drove into that beautiful village, Hiram felt glad to get back to its quiet, charming repose. He thought of the glare and hustle and excitement of New York with no satisfaction, contrasted with the placid beauty of the scene he now witnessed. The idea of being welcomed by Louisa and Charlotte Hawkins filled his mind with pleasure, and Sarah Burns did not at that moment suffer in comparison with the Miss Bennetts.

'It is a happy spot!' said Hiram. 'Can I do better than stay in it?'

It was an instinct of his better nature which spoke. He had given way to it for a moment, but only for a moment. The next, the old sense returned and was triumphant.

The stage whirled on, and soon Hiram was driven up to the house of Mrs. Hawkins. How rejoiced they all were to see him! The widow Hawkins had missed him so much! As for Louisa and Charlotte, they were ready to devour him.

Hiram hurried through his breakfast, hastily adjusted his toilette, and walked over to Mr. Burns's house. He rang the bell. The door was opened by Mr. Burns himself. He greeted Hiram most cordially.

'I did not expect you back so soon. Come in; we are just sitting down to breakfast.'

'I have already breakfasted,' said Hiram, 'and am going to the office. Please look these papers over,' he continued. 'By them you will see precisely what I have been able to do.'

Mr. Burns took the papers and turned to go in. He thought Hiram had accomplished little, and he did not wish to mortify him by asking what.

Just then Sarah Burns came tripping down stairs, and, passing her father, extended her hand to Hiram, and said:

'Welcome back! What have you done?'

'Do not forget your promise,' replied Hiram, in a low, distinct tone. 'I have WON!'

AURORA

'For Waterloo,' says Victor Hugo, 'was not a battle: it was a change of front of the universe.'

Great events are developed by nearness. "To-day," says Emerson, "is a king in disguise." Probably half the soldiers of Constantine's army regarded their leader's adoption of the Cross as his sign of hope and triumph as of small account. Their pay and rations, their weapons, their officers, were the same as before; the enemy before them, their duty to beat him, were unchanged. What availed a symbol more or less on the imperial banner? Even admit that it indicated the emperor's personal rejection of the old and adoption of the newer faith, what of that? Would not everybody else abide by the religion of his own choice, whatever that might be? Away, then, with all theological babble, which plain people can never half understand! Rome and the emperor for ever! Yet in that despised symbol, announcing that the Empire had become the protector instead of the persecutor of the Christian faith, was the germ of a greater transformation than was wrought by the Deluge.

The Proclamation of Freedom by President Lincoln is doubtless open to criticism. Why did he not declare all slaves emancipated? Why not make such legal manumission operative at once? Why intimate that certain States should (or might) be excepted from its operation? Why not declare the slaves liberated because of the essential, inevitable wrong of holding them in bondage? Why not appeal to God for His blessing on the cause henceforward inseparably identified with that of Right and Liberty? Such questions may be multiplied indefinitely; but to what end? What matters that the Proclamation might or should be different, since we have practical concern only with the Proclamation as it is?

For more than a lifetime, slavery has been accepted and regarded as a national institution. The American in Europe was "perplexed in the extreme" by the questionings and criticisms of humane, intelligent observers, who could not comprehend how a country should contain Four Millions of slaves by the official census, yet not be a slaveholding country. With our capital a slaveholding city; with our fortresses in good part constructed by the labor of slaves; with our flag the chief shelter of the African Slave Trade, and our statute book disgraced by the most arbitrary and inhuman Fugitive Slave Law ever devised, it was a nice operation to prove this no slaveholding country, but only one wherein certain citizens, by virtue of local laws, over which we had no control, were permitted to hold Blacks in slavery. And, when it is notorious that the active partisans of slavery filled every Federal office, even in the nominally free States, and excluded rigorously from office every opponent of the baleful system, it is certain that the shrug of the polite Frenchman who listened to our demonstration that ours, after all, was not a slaveholding country, was an indication of complaisance rather than of conviction. To prove this nothing of the sort, while Brazil was placed at the head of modern slaveholding countries, was to overtax the resources of human sophistry.

The Proclamation is an immense fact. If it were no more than a recognition from the highest quarter of the deadly antagonism between slavery and the Union, it would have inexhaustible significance. The American republic, bleeding at every pore while fighting desperately for life, arraigns slavery as her chief enemy and peril. The truth was long since clear to every candid mind; but truth gains force by recognition. Thousands realize a fact thus proclaimed, who have hitherto ignored and resisted it.

For thirty years, the charge of disloyalty has borne heavily on the American champion of Universal Liberty. True, as to a very few, who could not obtain the assent of their consciences to compacts which bound them to aid the oppressor against his victim, they were made a weapon of offense against all. Abolitionists were execrated and hooted by the mob as champions at once of Negro Equality and of National dissolution.

The times are bravely altered. The partnership between Slavery and Unionism is absolutely dissolved. Like most divorces, this involves a deadly quarrel. Not even the soaring platitudes of George Francis Train can longer evoke cheers for the Union blent with curses on Abolition. In a strictly, sternly real sense, "Liberty and Union" are henceforth "one and inseparable!"

For thirty years, our great seaboard merchants, our shippers, our factors, have given their patronage to pro-slavery journals and their votes to pro-slavery politicians, with intent to preserve the Union and lay the red spectre of civil war. Their recompense is found in the repudiation of the immense debts for merchandise due them from the South, and a gigantic war waged by the Slave Power for the overthrow of the Union. The profits of a lifetime of obsequious pandering to the master crime of our era are swept away at a blow, and the arm that strikes it is that of the monster they have made such sacrifices of conscience and manhood to conciliate. Was ever retribution more signal?

To-day, the American Union, through the official action of its President and Congress, stands distinctly on the side of Liberty for All. Its success in the fearful struggle forced upon it involves the overthrow and extinction of American slavery. The sentiment of nationality, the instinct which impels every people to deprecate and resist the dismemberment and degradation of their country, the impulse of loyalty, are all arrayed against the traitorous "institution" which, after having so long bent the Union to its ends, now seeks its destruction. It once seemed to the majority patriotic to champion slavery; it is now a sacred duty to resist the bloody Moloch unto death.

The very hesitation of the President to take the decisive step gives weight to his ultimate decision. The compromisers have never tired of eulogizing his firmness, his candor, his patience, his clearness of vision, his independence, and his unsectional patriotism. His associations were largely with the Border State school of conservatives. His favorite counsellor was the most eminent and sturdy Republican opponent of an emancipation policy. His decision in favor of that policy, like the Proclamation which announces it, is entirely his own. The "pressure" to which he deferred was that of an urgent public necessity and the emphatic conviction of the great mass of our loyal citizens.

And, though few days have elapsed since the Proclamation was uttered, the evils predicted by its opponents are already banished to the limbo of chimera. Those officers who threatened to resign in case an emancipation policy were adopted make no haste to justify their menaces. As yet, not one of them has done so; in time, a few may screw their courage to the sticking-point. There are enough who can be spared; and they are generally those who deprecate and denounce an "Abolition war." May they yet prove men of their word!

Outside of the army, the general feeling is one of wonder that this act of direst portent to the rebellion has been so long delayed. Even the rebels share in this amazement. When secession was first openly mooted at the South, every Unionist argued that secession was practical abolition. It has puzzled them to comprehend the weary months through which their prophecies were left unfulfilled. They will be perplexed no longer.

The Opposition in the loyal States is manifestly weakened by the Proclamation. Their dream is of wearing out the Unionists by disappointments and delays, restoring a Democratic ascendency in the government, and then buying back the rebels to an outward loyalty by new concessions and guaranties to slavery. Hence torpid campaigns, languid strategy, advances without purpose, and surrenders without necessity. But the policy of emancipation brings the quarrel to a speedy decision. The rebel States must promptly triumph or brave a social dissolution. Every Union advance into a rebel region henceforth clears a broad district of slaves. The few are hurried off by their masters; the many escape to a land of freedom. How signally this process will be accellerated after the first of January, few will yet believe. Let the war simply go on, with fluctuating fortunes, for a year or two longer, and the new slave empire will be nearly denuded of slaves. The process is at once inevitable and irresistible. Whether the able-bodied slaves thus escaping to the loyal States shall or shall not be used in whatever way they may be found most serviceable against the cruel despotism which so long robbed them of their earnings while crushing out their manhood, is purely a question of time. There are thousands who would last year have revolted against the employment of Blacks in any way in our struggle, who are now ripe for it: every week, as it transpires, adds to their number. Loyal men hesitated at first, believing that the rebellion would easily and speedily be put down. These have now discovered their mistake and amended it. An aristocracy of three hundred thousand generally capable, energetic persons, accustomed to rule, and recognizing a deadly foe in every opponent of their wishes, surrounded by twice so many shrewd and skilful parasites, and wielding the entire resources of ten millions of people, are not easily conquered. The poor Whites fill the ranks of their armies; the Blacks grow the food and perform the labor essential to the subsistence of those armies and of their families. Slavery unassailed is the strongest natural base of a gigantic rebellion: it easily adapts all the resources of a people to the stern exigencies of war. Slavery resisted and undermined is a very different affair, as the annals of this struggle are destined to prove.