"You are a foreigner, Signor. I may be permitted to speak freely to you. You are a man of culture and sympathy and you can understand me. As God is my judge, I have neither desired nor expected this position. I took particular pains to forestall and make it impossible. But it has come. I am not a politician. I have never stooped to their tricks. I cannot lie and smile and bend to low chicanery. I hate a fool and I cannot hedge and trim and be all things to all men. I have never been a demagogue. I'm too old to begin. Other men are better suited to this position than I--"
He paused, overcome. Socola studied him with surprise.
"Permit me to say, sir," he ventured disinterestedly, "that such a spirit is evidence that your people have risen to the occasion and that their choice may be an inspiration."
The leader's eye suddenly pierced his guest's.
"God knows what is best. It may be His hand. It may be that I must bow to His will--"
Again he paused and looked wistfully at Socola's youthful face.
"You are young, Signor--you do not know what it is to yield the last ambition of life! I have given all to my country for the past years. I have sacrificed health and wealth and every desire of my soul--peace and contentment here with those I love! When I saw this mighty struggle coming, I feared a tragic end for my people. I fear it now. The man who leads her armies will win immortality no matter what the fate of her cause--I've dreamed of this, Signor--but they've nailed me to the cross!"
He called his negroes together and made them an affectionate speech. They responded with deep expressions of their devotion and their faith. With the greatest sorrow of life darkening his soul he left next day for his inauguration at Montgomery.
Socola left Briarfield with the assurance of the President-elect of the Confederacy that he might spend a week with the Bartons and yet be in ample time for the inauguration at Montgomery.
He boarded the steamer at the Davis landing and floated lazily down to Baton Rouge.
From Briarfield he carried an overwhelming impression of the folly of Slavery from its economic point of view. The thing which amazed his orderly New England mind was the confusion, the waste, the sentimental extravagance, the sheer idiocy of the slave system of labor as contrasted with the free labor of the North.