I met
him yesterday in Little Rock, and I never have seen a more insolent
ruffian. He makes no secret of his plans, and he says that blood is
bound to flow. I asked him if he had any to spare, and he cocked his eye
at me and replied that he didn't know but he had."
The Major was silent, abstractedly balancing his knife on the rim of his
plate. Mayo, an adventurer, a scoundrel with a brutish force that passed
for frankness, had at one time almost brought about an uprising among
the negroes of Cranceford County, and eager ears in the North, not the
ears of the old soldier, but of the politician, shutting out the
suggestions of justice, heard only the clamor of a political outrage;
and again arose the loud cry that the South had robbed the inoffensive
negro of his suffrage. But the story, once so full of alarm, was
beginning to be a feeble reminiscence; Northern men with business
interests in the South had begun to realize that the white man, though
often in the wrong, could sometimes be in the right. But now a
problem--graver than the over-thrashed straw of political rights, was
about to be presented.
"I was in hopes that somebody had killed that fellow," said the Major,
and his wife looked up with gentle reproof. "Don't say that, dear. The
Lord will take him in His own good time."
The old gentleman winked at Tom. "I don't know about that," he replied.
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