Years afterward the house in which he had taken that disastrous sleep was pulled down. In the wall, behind the wainscot, was found his pile of money. How the rats got it through so narrow a crack it seemed hard to realize. Like the hole mentioned by Mercutio, it was not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church door, but it did for Beaufort Watts until the money was found. Suppose that house had been burned or the rats had gnawed up the bills past recognition?
People in power understood how this proud man suffered those many years in silence. Many men looked askance at him. The country tried to repair the work of blasting the man's character. He was made Secretary of Legation to Russia, and was afterward our Consul at Santa Fe de Bogota. When he was too old to wander far afield, they made him Secretary to all the Governors of South Carolina in regular succession.
I knew him more than twenty years ago as Secretary to the Governor. He was a made-up old battered dandy, the soul of honor. His eccentricities were all humored. Misfortune had made him sacred. He stood hat in hand before ladies and bowed as I suppose Sir Charles Grandison might have done. It was hard not to laugh at the purple and green shades of his overblack hair. He came at one time to show me the sword presented to Colonel Shelton for killing the only Indian who was killed in the Seminole war. We bagged Osceola and Micanopy under a flag of truce - that is, they were snared, not shot on the wing.
To go back to my knight-errant: he knelt, handed me the sword, and then kissed my hand. I was barely sixteen and did not know how to behave under the circumstances. He said, leaning on the sword, "My dear child, learn that it is a much greater liberty to shake hands with a lady than to kiss her hand. I have kissed the Empress of Russia's hand and she did not make faces at me." He looks now just as he did then. He is in uniform, covered with epaulettes, aigulettes, etc., shining in the sun, and with his plumed hat reins up his war-steed and bows low as ever.
Now I will bid farewell for a while as Othello did to all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war," and come down to my domestic strifes and troubles. I have a sort of volunteer maid, the daughter of my husband's nurse, dear old Betsy. She waits on me because she so pleases. Besides, I pay her. She belongs to my father-in-law, who has too many slaves to care very much about their way of life. So Maria Whitaker came, all in tears. She brushes hair delightfully, and as she stood at my back I could see her face in the glass. "Maria, are you crying because all this war talk scares you?" said I. "No, ma'am." "What is the matter with you?" "Nothing more than common." "Now listen. Let the war end either way and you will be free. We will have to free you before we get out of this thing. Won't you be glad?" "Everybody knows Mars Jeems wants us free, and it is only old Marster holds hard. He ain't going to free anybody any way, you see."
And then came the story of her troubles. "Now, Miss Mary, you see me married to Jeems Whitaker yourself. I was a good and faithful wife to him, and we were comfortable every way - good house, everything. He had no cause of complaint, but he has left me." "For heaven's sake! Why?" "Because I had twins. He says they are not his because nobody named Whitaker ever had twins."
Maria is proud in her way, and the behavior of this bad husband has nearly mortified her to death. She has had three children in two years. No wonder the man was frightened. But then Maria does not depend on him for anything. She was inconsolable, and I could find nothing better to say than, "Come, now, Maria! Never mind, your old Missis and Marster are so good to you. Now let us look up something for the twins." The twins are named "John and Jeems," the latter for her false loon of a husband. Maria is one of the good colored women. She deserved a better fate in her honest matrimonial attempt. But they do say she has a trying temper. Jeems was tried, and he failed to stand the trial.
April 23d. - Note the glaring inconsistencies of life. Our chatelaine locked up Eugene Sue, and returned even Washington Allston's novel with thanks and a decided hint that it should be burned; at least it should not remain in her house. Bad books are not allowed house room, except in the library under lock and key, the key in the Master's pocket; but bad women, if they are not white, or serve in a menial capacity, may swarm the house unmolested; the ostrich game is thought a Christian act. Such women are no more regarded as a dangerous contingent than canary birds would be.
If you show by a chance remark that you see some particular creature, more shameless than the rest, has no end of children, and no beginning of a husband, you are frowned down; you are talking on improper subjects. There are certain subjects pure-minded ladies never touch upon, even in their thoughts. It does not do to be so hard and cruel. It is best to let the sinners alone, poor things. If they are good servants otherwise, do not dismiss them; all that will come straight as they grow older, and it does! They are frantic, one and all, to be members of the church. The Methodist Church is not so pure-minded as to shut its eyes; it takes them up and turns them out with a high hand if they are found going astray as to any of the ten commandments.
34. William Gilmore Simms, the Southern novelist, was born in Charleston in 1806. He was the author of a great many volumes dealing with Southern life, and at one time they were widely read.
V. MONTGOMERY, ALA.
April 27, 1861 - May 20, 1861
Montgomery, Ala., April 27, 1861. - Here we are once more. Hon. Robert Barnwell came with us. His benevolent spectacles give him a most Pickwickian expression. We Carolinians revere his goodness above all things. Everywhere, when the car stopped, the people wanted a speech, and we had one stream of fervid oratory. We came along with a man whose wife lived in Washington. He was bringing her to Georgia as the safest place.
The Alabama crowd are not as confident of taking Fort Pickens as we were of taking Fort Sumter.
Baltimore is in a blaze. They say Colonel Ben Huger is in command there - son of the "Olmutz" Huger. General Robert E. Lee, son of Light Horse Harry Lee, has been made General-in-Chief of Virginia. With such men to the fore, we have hope. The New York Herald says, "Slavery must be extinguished, if in blood." It thinks we are shaking in our shoes at their great mass meetings. We are jolly as larks, all the same.
Mr. Chesnut has gone with Wade Hampton35 to see President Davis about the legion Wade wants to get up. The President came across the aisle to speak to me at church to-day. He was very cordial, and I appreciated the honor.
Wigfall is black with rage at Colonel Anderson's account of the fall of Sumter. Wigfall did behave magnanimously, but Anderson does not seem to see it in that light. "Catch me risking my life to save him again," says Wigfall. "He might have been man enough to tell the truth to those New Yorkers, however unpalatable to them a good word for us might have been. We did behave well to him. The only men of his killed, he killed himself, or they killed themselves firing a salute to their old striped rag."
Mr. Chesnut was delighted with the way Anderson spoke to him when he went to demand the surrender. They parted quite tenderly. Anderson said: "If we do not meet again on earth, I hope we may meet in Heaven." How Wigfall laughed at Anderson "giving Chesnut a howdy in the other world!"
What a kind welcome the old gentlemen gave me! One, more affectionate and homely than the others, slapped me on the back. Several bouquets were brought me, and I put them in water around my plate. Then General Owens gave me some violets, which I put in my breastpin.
"Oh," said my "Gutta Percha" Hemphill,36 "if I had known how those bouquets were to be honored I would have been up by daylight seeking the sweetest flowers!" Governor Moore came in, and of course seats were offered him. "This is a most comfortable chair," cried an overly polite person. "The most comfortable chair is beside Mrs. Chesnut," said the Governor,