"We have plenty,-we live easy, you see, and our
people are contented," he says, directing his conversation to the
young Englishman, who was suspected of being Franconia's friend. "We
do things different from what you do in your country. Your
countrymen will not learn to grow cotton: they manufacture it, and
hence we are connected in firm bonds. Cotton connects many things,
even men's minds and souls. You would like to be a planter, I know
you would: who would not, seeing how we live? Here is the Elder, as
happy a fellow as you'll find in forty. He can be as jolly as an
Englishman over a good dinner: he can think with anybody, preach
with anybody!" Touching the Elder on the shoulder, he smiles, and
with an insinuating leer, smooths his beard. "I am at your service,"
replies the Elder, folding his arms.
"I pay him to preach for my nigger property,-I pay him to teach them
to be good. He preaches just as I wants him to. My boys think him a
little man, but a great divine. You would like to hear the Elder on
Sunday; he's funny then, and has a very funny sermon, which you may
get by heart without much exertion." The young man seems indifferent
to the conversation. He had not been taught to realise how easy it
was to bring religion into contempt.
"Make no grave charges against me, Marston; you carry your practical
jokes a little too far, Sir. I am a quiet man, but the feelings of
quiet men may be disturbed." The Elder speaks moodily, as if
considering whether it were best to resent Marston's trifling
sarcasm.
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