In the upper gallery, where no payment was exacted, many servants with a
sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee slaves; in the boxes the lustre
and sweep of damask and brocade, light laughter, silvery voices, the
flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness and animation of a strangely
compounded society, where the shadows were deep and the lights were high.
Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain
pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and
allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the
drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an
Oriental camp? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad-leafed plant,
the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its native fields
in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer; and there was the warfare,
bequeathed from generation to generation, against the standing armies of
the forest, that subtle foe that slept not, retreated not, whose vanguard,
ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks beyond.
Trapper and trader and ranger might tell of trails through the wilderness vast and hostile, of
canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts of prey, creatures screaming in the
night-time through the ebony woods. Of Indian villages, also, and of red
men who, in the fastnesses that were left them, took and tortured and slew
after strange fashions. The white man, strong as the wind, drove the red
man before his face like an autumn leaf, but he beckoned to the black man,
and the black man came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country,
and the manner of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was
valuable, but the purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also
mention was made to-night.
The master of the tall ship that had brought
him into the James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the
officer of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had
bought him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed,--all
were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the throng
talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of their names,
the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and beasts, the
namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon the ear. The
still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies were spoken of;
ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate craft and sunken
treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea.
The men from Norfolk talked of the great Dismal and its trees of juniper and cypress, the traders of
trading, the masters from William and Mary of the humanities. The greater
men, authoritative and easy, owners of flesh and blood and much land,
holders of many offices and leaders of the people, paid their respects to
horse-racing and cock-fighting, cards and dice; to building, planting, the
genteelest mode of living, and to public affairs both in Virginia and at
home in England. Old friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from
opposite quarters of the house, addressed each other as Tom, or Ned, or
Dick, while old enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged
extremely civil speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual
disgust. In the boxes where glowed the women there was comfit talk, vastly
pretty speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths,
whispering, talk of the play, and, last but not least, of Mr. Haward of
Fair View, and Darden's Audrey.