I could not help laughing at this description, delivered with capital mimicry of the male and female voices in the colloquy; but I replied, "It would seem all ladies do not take it so quietly, from what you tell me of Miss Davenport."
"Oh, that's quite a different case," said Mr. Wheatley, with a merry glance of the eye. "She is not your wife yet, you know. She has no chance of being an interesting widow, whose husband was killed in a duel. But, joking apart, for I see you wince, Miss Davenport has cause to dislike duels. Her father was killed in a duel by a dear friend and near connection, all in consequence of a confounded mistake; and his death was followed by a long train of law-suits and misfortunes, quite sufficient to give her a horror of the pleasant little practice of being shot at without pay. By the way, I don't think she knows one-half of her own history, poor girl!" he added, in a meditative tone; "if she did, it might make some difference."
His words, from the manner in which they were spoken, seemed to me to have more significance than appeared upon the surface; but I had other things to think of, and the next moment he rambled on in his usual way, saying,--
"Now don't be surprised, and don't show any irritation, if you find a dozen or two people on the ground, black and white. It is just as likely as not; and mind, if they chance to get in the line of fire, shoot a white man, and not a black. A white man's life here is worth nothing; a black man is worth from nine hundred to a thousand dollars. We are a commercial people, and always take a business-like view of these transactions. Pray when is this pigeon-shooting to come off?"
He proceeded to ask a great number of questions, but I cut him short, saying, "You must excuse me, my good friend, for keeping up some of my Old English prejudices here, while you and I are alone together. From me you shall hear none of the particulars, though I dare say Mr. Byles will tell you all about it. With us, it is a matter of etiquette for a principal in such an affair to talk about it to no one but his second."
"Oh, very well," he answered; "perhaps you are right. In my part of the country, I mean the part where I was born, they carry matters further than even you do in England, for they won't let us fight at all, and send a man to the penitentiary for asking his friend to take a morning's walk with him. In fact, the three great distinctions between the North and South are these. In the South, they fight duels whenever they can; have slaves for their servants; and grow tobacco and cotton. In New England, they never fight if they can help it; are slaves to their own servants, and make wooden clocks and wooden nutmegs."