Chapter 18 - Page 2

previous indifference had been. He had no knowledge of business methods; he had practised his profession in a magnificent dilettante sort of way which had worn an imposing air and impressed his clients, and, as he was by inheritance a comparatively rich man, he had not been driven by necessity to alter his methods. The sudden prospect of becoming a multimillionaire excited him. He made Napoleonic plans, and was dignified and eloquent.

"Why should I form a company?" he said. "If I am willing to make the first ventures myself, the inevitable returns of profit will do the rest, and there will be no complications. The De Willoughby Mine will be the De Willoughby Mine alone. I prefer that it should be so."

The idea of being sole ruler in the scheme made him feel rather like a king, and he privately enjoyed the sensation. He turned into money all the property he could avail himself of; his library table was loaded with books on mining; he invested in tons of machinery, which were continually arriving from the North, or stopping on the way when it should have been arriving. He sent for engineers from various parts of the country and amazed them with the unprofessional boldness of his methods. He really indulged in a few months of dignified riot, of what he imagined to be a splendidly executive nature. The plans were completed, the machinery placed, the engineers and cohorts of workmen engaged in tremendous efforts, the Judge was beginning to reflect on the management of his future millions, when--the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter.

That was the beginning, and apparently the end. Suddenly the storm of war broke forth, and its tempest, surging through the land, swept all before it. The country was inundated with catastrophes, capitalists foundered, schemes were swamped, the armies surged to and fro. The De Willoughby land was marched and fought over; scores of hasty, shallow graves were dug in it and filled; buildings and machinery were destroyed as if a tornado had passed by. The Judge was a ruined man; his realisable property he had allowed to pass from his hands, his coal remained in the bowels of the earth, the huge income he was to have drawn from it had melted into nothingness.

Nothing could have altered the aspect of this tragedy; but there was a singular fact which added to its intensity and bitterness. In such a hot-bed of secession as was Delisleville, the fact in question was indeed not easily explainable, except upon the grounds either of a Quixotic patriotism or upon those of a general disposition to contradictoriness. A Southern man, the head of a Southern family, the Judge opposed the rebellion and openly sided with the Government. That he had been a man given to argument and contradiction, and always priding himself upon refusing to be led by the majority was not to be denied.

"He is fancying himself a Spartan hero, and looking forward to laurels and