fate involving that of his enemy. Jack Espey felt sure that he could have proven self-defense, had he permitted himself to be apprehended at the time. But from the circumstance of his hasty flight, uncertain what he had done and animated by ignorant terrors of the law, the lapse of time, the dispersion of witnesses, he feared to submit his action to a legal arbitrament now.

The suspense was in itself a terrible retribution, but it is safe to say that Espey had hardly appreciated its rigors till now, when it hampered his every prospect in life. He had been a man of some substance in his native place, according to the humble rating of the mountaineers, and the lowering of pride involved in his present situation was very bitter to him. He could not ask to be received under Captain Lucy's roof, and its hospitalities certainly would not be offered. He repented of his candor in making known his circumstances when he had "asked for" Adelicia, for in the probation on which he had been placed he recognized the crafty hope of the elder man that the affair would soon blow over. He felt it a poor reward for his frankness, and he determined that it should not go without requital in turn. "Jes' lemme fix up that cussed bother in Tanglefoot, an' durned ef Cap'n Lucy ever shell see Ad'licia's face agin!" he often said to himself.

Meanwhile he hung around as best he might, fraternizing secretly with the moonshiners; for here was the best opportunity of earning enough to provide for his simple wants, and to keep him out of the observation of the law, while awaiting the result in Tanglefoot, whence the news had lately become more hopeful.

He had fallen in with Jasper Larrabee at the blacksmith's shop at the crossroads, where he had paused in his flight for his horse to be shod; the two had "struck up "a mutual liking, and Espey had come with Larrabee to the Cove, where he divided his time pretty equally between his new friend's home and the

Lost Time mine. His frankness had not extended to his recent acquaintances, who knew no reason why he should shun observation except that which they shared with him concerning the still. His utility there and its financial advantages were ample to justify the continuation of his stay in the Cove; and thus, but for his own attack of conscientiousness in revealing his true circumstances to Adelicia and Captain Lucy, he might have seemed as advantageously placed as any of his compeers.

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"Waal," said Adelicia, unaccountably brightened, we-uns hev ter 'bide by Cap'n Lucy's word an' wait awhile, bein' ez he hev tuk keer o' me all my days, mighty nigh. An' ye better be toler❜ble perlite ter Julia, too," she added, with a radiant smile. "Julia's cornsider'ble apt ter take notice o' slights."

He promised humbly, swallowing his pride with a mighty gulp; and as they came out from the woods into the more open spaces shelving to the great crags they encountered Kenniston, a cigar in his mouth, a memorandum in his hand of the boundaries of his land, taken from the calls of his title-deed, a good-humored triumph on his face, and a gay, kind voice as he instantly recognized and greeted Adelicia.

He called her to come and observe the splendor of the view from a certain craggy point where there would be an observatory, and his enthusiasm was not dashed even when she gazed off wonderingly into space, seeing nothing to which she was unaccustomed, and evidently apprehending naught of what he said. He wondered a trifle, subacutely, how much the perception of beauty may be promoted by the sense of contrast. Since she knew no dull levels or discordant scenes, the sublime was merely the natural daily presentment of creation, no more a marvel than the rising of the sun, and thus she was bereft of its appreciation. He wondered, too, if the converse of the proposition were true,

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if those to whom nature is expressed in a meadow, or a series of knobs, or a pond can have no mental conception of the austere splendors of the craggy heights or the stupendous area of infinite detail spread before the eye within a wide horizon piled with mountains. He showed her, too, a small drawing of the projected hotel, which she turned awry and almost reversed to gaze upon it. His good humor extended to her companion, whom he had never before seen. Although usually aloof and averse to strangers, Espey found the suave words a salve to his sore heart. He did not know how much less pleasant Kenniston could be when not pleased. Just now even this new acquaintance harmonized most aptly with his gracious mood. Artistically viewed, poor Espey might have graced the romantic stage, as he stood, in his dark blue shirt and trousers and great spurred boots, defined against the yellow-bronze horse which he held by the bit, his belt full of weapons, his broad white hat far back on his black hair, and his defiant face at once wild and eager and wistful. The man of the alert pencil was moved to wish that he had the art to do him justice.

Kenniston's kind and ingratiating manner as he explained his plans and expectations, which could not interest the mountaineer, who was as foreign to such considerations as deer or bear, secured nevertheless Espey's attention and respectful silence. He looked now and again with a sort of reluctant liking at Kenniston's face as he talked, regretting that, since he attached so much hope and consequence to the project, it would be necessary to burn the buildings down as fast as they were erected.

In the plenitude of his access of amiability, Kenniston lagged behind and let them stroll away homeward together, -as pretty a pair of rustic lovers, he thought, as one could wish to see.

The sun was well down; the sky was red; the evening star was in a saffron

haze; the nearest mountains had turned a deep purple, with a vague, translucent, overlaying gray hue like the bloom on a ripe grape; the distant ranges had vanished in the mystery of night. It was not dark, but the flare of the fire within the door of Captain Lucy's cabin was visible as it rose and fell on the puncheon floor in transitory flickers. It was a poor place, but it was home, and to the exile it looked like paradise. Julia had come to the door, and stood there half in the soft outer light, and half in the firelight within. Schooled and docile, Espey remembered his monitor's bidding, and roused his unwilling, flagging energies and his tired, sad heart to evolve some pleasantry as he called out a greeting from the bars. She turned her sleek head and smiled at him. There had never been such eyes in the Cove, except perhaps those which Captain Lucy had opened there first some sixty years before, nor such long, dark, curling lashes. She might, however, have been no more comely, for all Jack Espey cared, than old "T'bithy," Adelicia's cat, who arched her plebeian scantily furred back in the door, and surveyed the landscape with her yellow eyes, and yawned from sheer mental vacuity. He got through the interview with what poor grace he could and from a sense of duty; and as he was about to mount, he, unobserved by the others, offered to take Adelicia's hand. To his amazement, she looked him full in the face with hard, angry eyes, struck down his hand with a petulant gesture, passed him like a flash, and disappeared within the door.

Jack Espey, who had no more recognition of the aspect of jealousy than if he had never felt its power, could but mount and ride away in angry bewilderment; and Kenniston, hearing the furious speed of his horse's hoofs as he went headlong down the dark, rocky road, looked wonderingly after him. "He'll break his neck, at that rate," he said.

Charles Egbert Craddock.

LOOKING back across the graves of more than a million brave men who, on one side or the other, laid down their lives in the struggle for mastery which began in Washington in the winter of 1860-61, the recollection of the flippancy and air of lightness and almost sportiveness with which it was entered upon fills me with amazement. How great things were trifled with as if they were playthings, and great stakes were played for almost as boys play for pennies, I could not now, in the lurid light of subsequent events, ever be made to believe, had not my own eyes been the wit

ness.

I

Much that happened would have been impossible but for the impenetrable veil which shut out the future. What seemed to us then arrant nonsense, and scarcely to be recalled now, after thirty years, with a sober face, was in truth the manifestation of a spirit which finally made possible Andersonville, Gettysburg, and the assassination of Lincoln. sometimes think it almost wicked to hold up the ludicrous side to the public gaze, in the light of such a terrible realization. This article is written with no such purpose, but rather to preserve, if possible, for future instruction and entertainment, the record of some incidents of those days, all trace of which will soon be beyond recall if left alone to the memory of contemporaries and participants.

One of these incidents seemed at the time a genuine burlesque; yet it covered a trap into which it would have been much easier to put a foot than to get it out when once in. Mr. Lincoln was elected President in November, 1860. Within a week after it was known, South Carolina took steps to set up her independence as a sovereign state. She did not seem to have contemplated at the outset the possibility of armed resistance to the carrying out of her scheme, but

proceeded with the formal steps of ordinary legislation, as if that alone, on her part, were sufficient to divide this nation into sections, the several parts set up into sovereignties with all the attributes of independent nationalities. It took her three weeks to get her legislature together and create a convention, which passed an ordinance in high-sounding phrase declaring South Carolina to be a free, independent, and sovereign nation among the nations of the earth, with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. One of the first acts of this new sovereignty was an attempt to negotiate a treaty with the United States. And so, within a month after the election, before the votes had been counted or a single step taken looking to the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, this independent power, which had sprung up in a night, in the very midst of us, waving a foreign flag, in sight of United States forts and arsenals, over all the United States property within its limits, appointed an embassy — ministers plenipotentiary to proceed to the government of the United States, and negotiate a treaty of peaceable surrender to her of the armed fortresses and other property of the United States found within the limits of her dominion when she woke up a sovereign. This embassy came on to Washington with a secretary of legation, and with credentials as formal and a seal as large as ever certified our minister to the Court of St. James. They took a fine house on K Street,the rent of which, it is said, they never paid, unfurled the flag of their legation, and prepared to present their credentials, and to be received as ministers plenipotentiary of the government of South Carolina, resident, as they were

pleased to term it in true diplomatic language, near the government of the United States of America. Most people in Washington looked upon the whole proceeding as a huge joke, as a harmless outcome of the vanity and pride of South Carolina. Not so Mr. Buchanan. The moment they presented their credentials he found himself in a dilemma. If he received them, even addressed them in the character they had put on, he would at once recognize the sovereignty they claimed to represent. If he turned them out of doors, not to say arrested them for the treason they were committing, he would immediately bring on that crisis which it was his prayer night and day might be averted till after the 4th of March. So he did neither, but referred the whole matter to Congress; and Congress referred it to a select committee, of which the writer was one. Alas! disease and death have left him alone with the knowledge of many incidents of the work of that committee, nowhere recorded, soon to become too shadowy for recital.

The committee had subsequently many other more serious matters in charge, but could never bring themselves to treat this otherwise than as a sublime farce, little dreaming of what it was the beginning. They summoned these gentlemen to appear before them, just as they would any other American citizens. Instead of appearing in person, the members of the "embassy" sent their "secretary of legation," who notified the committee, in a very courteous but exceedingly formal manner, that it had overlooked the fact — unintentionally, no doubt that the gentlemen summoned to appear before the committee were ambassadors of a sovereign state, residing, in their diplomatic character alone, near United States government, and acknowledging no authority but that of the government whose commission they bore. It was our first experience of this newfledged eagle, and the bird had spread NO. 430.

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its wings for so lofty a flight at the first opportunity that we stood back in wonder and amazement, uncertain for the moment whether it would soar into the sun or come tumbling down at our feet. We were thus suddenly brought face to face with this new sovereignty flaunting its awful attributes before us, all embodied in the person of this secretary of legation, as he supposed himself to be, and not an imposing personage at that. He was a very young man for one representing in his person the majesty of an independent government, seemingly having hardly attained his majority, with light hair, boyish face, and a mustache trained after the imperial order, rare in those days, which was a surprising success upon a face otherwise so downy. He wore patent-leather shoes and light-colored trousers in very large plaids, twirled on the tips of his fingers a cane with an apparently golden head turned over and finished in the hoof of a horse; in short, he was a dude of the dudes of that day, and fit to be the prototype of the race. Thus equipped and hat in hand, he stood before us personating the new national sovereignty which had sprung into existence out of our very selves, full-armed, like Minerva from the head of Jove. It was his first appearance in diplomacy, and he was evidently intent on making the most of it.

I was directed by the committee to examine him, and, after a few formal inquiries, I asked what had brought him to Washington. "What has brought me to Washington?" he repeated, with an air of injured surprise. "You cannot be ignorant, sir, that the new sovereign state of South Carolina has sent ambassadors to negotiate a treaty of friendship and alliance with this neighboring government of the United States, with which she is desirous of living on the most liberal terms of amity and good fellowship; and I have the honor to be the secretary of that legation, sir." As soon as the committee could recover their breath, a

further inquiry was ventured about the origin of this new government whose existence he had thus announced, and the authority under which it had been created. With a look of supreme contempt or pity for our ignorance, one could hardly tell which, — he proceeded to enlighten us. "South Carolina," he said, "when she consented to become one of the United States, gave up no part of her sovereignty, but only laid it away for future use whenever it seemed meet to her. She now decrees to resume it, and that is sufficient. She only puts on again the vestments of her sovereignty, as a man resumes the raiment he has temporarily laid aside." It was so simple and easy a process that he expressed astonishment at our ignorance. A few questions more, and the committee gave up in despair the hope of getting him down to the earth, or ourselves sufficiently off from it to comprehend this sudden and absolute metamorphosis. He went on, without specific questions, to expound more at length the theory which had given birth to his government, and expatiated upon the enormity of the outrages his "people" expected would happen, and had mapped out beforehand should happen, when Lincoln should be inaugurated. He quoted Grotius and Vattel to prove that the United States forts and other public property found within the limits of South Carolina when she became an independent power became ipso facto her property, with the assertion that the declaration of South Carolina upon the question of her independence and sovereignty was conclusive with her, and she would tolerate no questioning it. The committee were quite overcome with his learning, and equally overawed by his defiant attitude. They looked upon this product of the new order of things as a real prodigy.

"And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew." He, however, took offense at what he considered some impertinent inquiries

put to him about the government he represented, and, gathering up its dignity and sovereignty as well as he might, took them both, with himself, out of such profane presence and back to the nursery on K Street, and the committee saw no more of him. They were never able to get the real ambassadors before them, because, it is presumed, neither Vattel nor Grotius nor any other writer on public law furnished any precedent for bringing such high public functionaries before any lesser body than the supreme authority of the state, unless it was that form of indictment which their real position would suggest. They lingered on, however, were adopted as representatives of the whole Confederacy by Jefferson Davis when he became its head, and hung about Washington under the burden of their mission and of their own importance till Sumter was fired upon, when they took their departure suddenly, with very much less ceremony and pomp than heralded their coming; in a manner, too, resembling more an escape than the leavetaking of diplomatic representatives.

We were subsequently charged with a much more serious duty, of which little beyond our printed report was ever made public. The public mind at Washington had become greatly excited by the belief that a conspiracy had been formed to seize the Capitol and Treasury, to get possession of the archives of the government, and to prevent the counting of the electoral vote and the declaration of the election of Lincoln; thereby creating chaos and anarchy, out of which might come the establishment of the Confederacy as the government de facto in the very halls of the national Capitol. Treason was known to be plotting to that end in the Cabinet itself, and Mr. Buchanan was bewildered and nerveless. We were instructed to investigate the grounds for these apprehensions. Meetings were held with closed doors, and we requested that General Scott, the general of the army, be detailed to aid our investigations. Al