Most of those who had the means reversed their flight.  Others, with nothing left but their broken pride, sought aid from the government they abhorred, and were given a free passage back in returning men-of-war.  But when the reflux had waned and died, there was still a residue of half a hundred families, most of whom were so destitute that they could not reach the coast.  With them stayed a very few who were held by their premature investments or by a deeper loyalty or a greater pride.  Among the latter was the head of the divided house of Leighton.

The Reverend Orme Leighton was one of those to whom the war had brought a double portion of bitterness, for the Leightons of Leighton, Virginia, had fought not alone against the North, but against the North and the Leightons of Leighton, Massachusetts.

To the Reverend Orme Leighton, a schism in the church would have meant nothing unless it came to the point of cracking heads; but a schism in governmental policy, which placed the right to govern one’s self and own black chattel in the balance, found him taking sides from the first, thundering out from the pulpit, supported by text and verse, the divine right of personal dominion by purchase, and in superb contradiction voicing the constitutional right to self-government.  When the day of words was past, he did not wait for the desperate cry of the South in her later need.  Abandoning gown and pulpit for charger and saber, he was of the first to rally, of the last to muster out.  Nor at the end of the long struggle did he find solace in the knowledge that he had fought a good fight.  To him more than the South had fallen.  God had withheld his hand from the just cause, and Leighton had fought against Leighton!

It was characteristic of the Reverend Orme Leighton that the rancor which came with defeat was not visited upon those members of his clan who had fought against him.  But for that very reason it was all the more poignantly directed against that vague entity, the North.  Never, while life lasted, would he bow to the dominion of a tyranny, much more, of a tyranny which, by dividing the Leightons, had in a measure forced neutrality upon the gods.

Leighton House, Virginia, found a ready and fitting purchaser in one of the Leightons of Massachusetts.  With the funds thus provided, the Reverend Orme Leighton moved, lock, stock, and barrel, six thousand miles to the south.  He settled at San Paulo, where he bought for a song a considerable property on the outskirts of the city.  He rented, besides, a large building in the center of the town, and established therein the Leighton Academy.  Here he labored single handed until his worth as an instructor became known; then the sudden prosperity of the venture drove him to engage an ever-increasing staff.  The academy developed rapidly into a recognized local institution.  The first material revenue from the successful school was applied to building a fitting home on the property bought for a song.