ow I
return to Richmond, to the Convention, to do that which I never thought
to do, to give my voice for the secession of Virginia."

There was a general movement throughout the room. "So!" said Corbin Wood
very softly. Cousin William rose from the sofa, drew a long breath, and
smote his hands together. "It had to come, Cary, it had to come! North
and South, we've pulled in different directions for sixty years! The
cord had to snap." From among the awed servants came the voice of old
Isham the coachman, "'Secession!' What dat wuhd 'Secession,' marster?"

"That word," answered Warwick Cary, "means, Isham, that Virginia leaves
of her free will a Union that she entered of her free will. The terms of
that Union have been broken; she cannot, within it, preserve her
integrity, her dignity, and her liberty. Therefore she uses the right
which she reserved--the right of self-preservation. Unterrified she
entered the Union, unterrified she leaves it."

He paused, standing in the white light of the candles, among his
children, kinsmen, friends, and slaves. To the last, if ingrained
affection, tolerance, and understanding, quiet guidance, patient care, a
kindly heart, a ready ear, a wise and simple dealing with a simple, not
wise folk, are true constituents of friendship, he was then their friend
as well as their master. They with all the room hung now upon his words.
The light wind blew the curtains out like streamers, the candles
flickered, petals from the blossoms in the jars fell on the floor, the
clock that had ticked in the hall for a hundred years struck eleven.
"There will be war," said the master. "There should not be, but there
will be. How long it will last, how deadly its nature, no man can tell!
The North has not thought us in earnest, but the North is mistaken. We
are in earnest. War will be for us a desperate thing. We are utterly
unprepared; we are seven million against twenty million, an agricultural
country against a manufacturing one. We have little shipping, they have
much. They will gain command of the sea. If we can get our cotton to
Europe we will have gold; therefore, if they can block our ports they
will do it. There are those who think the powers will intervene and that
we will have England or France for our ally. I am not of them. The odds
are greatly against us. We have struggled for peace; apparently we
cannot have it; now we will fight for the conviction that is in us. It
will be for us a war of defe