“He has more backbone with the men than I have,” acknowledged Mr. Slocum.  “He knows how to manage them, and I don’t.”

As soft as Slocum was a Stillwater proverb.  Richard certainly had plenty of backbone; it was his only capital.  In Mr. Slocum’s estimation it was sufficient capital.  But Lemuel Shackford was a very rich man, and Mr. Slocum could not avoid seeing that it would be decent in Richard’s only surviving relative if, at this juncture, he were to display a little interest in the young fellow’s welfare.

“If he would only offer to advance a few thousand dollars for Richard,” said Mr. Slocum, one evening, to Margaret, with whom he had been talking over the future—­“the property must all come to him some time,—­it would be a vast satisfaction to me to tell the old man that we can get along without any of his ill-gotten gains.  He made the bulk of his fortune during the war, you know.  The old sea-serpent,” continued Mr. Slocum, with hopeless confusion of metaphor, “had a hand in fitting out more than one blockade-runner.  They used to talk of a ship that got away from Charleston with a cargo of cotton that netted the share-holders upwards of two hundred thousand dollars.  He denies it now, but everybody knows Shackford.  He’d betray his country for fifty cents in postage-stamps.”

“Oh, papa! you are too hard on him.”

In words dropped cursorily from time to time, Margaret imparted to Richard the substance of her father’s speech, and it set Richard reflecting.  It was not among the probabilities that Lemuel Shackford would advance a dollar to establish Richard, but if he could induce his cousin even to take the matter into consideration, Richard felt that it would be a kind of moral support to him circumstanced as he was.  His pride revolted at the idea of coming quite unbacked and disowned, as well as empty-handed, to Mr. Slocum.

For the last twelve months there had been a cessation of ordinary courtesies between the two cousins.  They now passed each other on the street without recognition.  A year previously Mr. Shackford had fallen ill, and Richard, aware of the inefficient domestic arrangements in Welch’s Court, had gone to the house out of sheer pity.  The old man was in bed, and weak with fever, but at seeing Richard he managed to raise himself on one elbow.

“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed, mockingly.  “When a rich man is sick the anxious heirs crowd around him; but they’re twice as honestly anxious when he is perfectly well.”

“I came to see if I could do anything for you!” cried Richard, with a ferocious glare, and in a tone that went curiously with his words, and shook to the foundations his character of Good Samaritan.

“The only thing you can do for me is to go away.”

“I’ll do that with pleasure,” retorted Richard bitterly.

And Richard went, vowing he would never set foot across the threshold again.  He could not help having ugly thoughts.  Why should all the efforts to bring about a reconciliation and all the forbearance be on his side?  Thenceforth the crabbed old man might go to perdition if he wanted to.