I am an American slave!"
"Curse them! Who dared make you a slave?" cried Scoutbush, turning as
red as a game-cock.
"I was born a slave. My father was a white gentleman of good family:
my mother was a quadroon; and therefore I am a slave;--a negress,
a runaway slave, my lord, who, if I returned to America, should be
seized, and chained, and scourged, and sold.--Do you understand me?"
"What an infernal shame!" cried Scoutbush, to whom the whole thing
appeared simply as a wrong done to Marie.
"Well, my lord?"
"Well, madam?"
"Does not this fact put the question at rest for ever?"
"No, madam! What do I know about slaves? No one is a slave in England.
No madam; all that it does is to make me long to cut half-a-dozen
fellows' throats--" and Scoutbush stamped with rage. "No, madam, you
are you: and if you become my viscountess, you take my rank, I trust,
and my name is yours, and my family yours; and let me see who dare
interfere!"
"But public opinion, my lord?" said Marie, half-pleased,
half-terrified to find the shaft which she had fancied fatal fall
harmless at her feet.
"Public opinion? You don't know England, madam! What's the use of my
being a peer, if I can't do what I like, and make public opinion go
my way, and not I its? Though I am no great prince, madam, but only
a poor Irish viscount, it's hard if I can't marry whom I like--in
reason, that is--and expect all the world to call on her, and treat
her as she deserves.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331