An Outcast | Page 2

whether I have put too much gilding on the
decorations.
I confess that the subject of this work was not congenial to my feelings.

I love to deal with the bright and cheerful of life; to leave the dark and
sorrowful to those whose love for them is stronger than mine. Nor am I
insensible to the liabilities incurred by a writer who, having found favor
with the public, ventures upon so delicate and hazardous an
undertaking. It matters not how carefully and discreetly he perform the
task, there will always be persons enough to question his sincerity and
cast suspicion upon his motives. What, I have already been asked, was
my motive for writing such a book as this? Why did I descend into the
repulsive haunts of the wretched and the gilded palaces of the vicious
for the material of a novel? My answer is in my book.
NEW YORK, January 1st, 1861.

AN OUTCAST.
CHAPTER I.
CHARLESTON.
This simple story commences on a November evening, in the autumn
of 185-. Charleston and New York furnish me with the scenes and
characters.
Our quaint old city has been in a disquiet mood for several weeks.
Yellow fever has scourged us through the autumn, and we have again
taken to scourging ourselves with secession fancies. The city has not
looked up for a month. Fear had driven our best society into the North,
into the mountains, into all the high places. Business men had nothing
to do; stately old mansions were in the care of faithful slaves, and there
was high carnival in the kitchen. Fear had shut up the churches, shut up
the law-courts, shut up society generally. There was nothing for
lawyers to do, and the buzzards found it lonely enough in the
market-place. The clergy were to be found at fashionable
watering-places, and politicians found comfort in cards and the country.
Timid doctors had taken to their heels, and were not to be found.
Book-keepers and bank-clerks were on Sullivan's Island. The poor

suffered in the city, and the rich had not a thought to give them.
Grave-looking men gathered into little knots, at street corners, and
talked seriously of Death's banquet. Old negroes gathered about the
kitchen-table, and terrified themselves with tales of death: timid ones
could not be got to pass through streets where the scourge raged
fiercest. Mounted guardsmen patrolled the lonely streets at night, their
horses' hoofs sounding on the still air, like a solemn warning through a
deserted city.
Sisters of Mercy, in deep, dark garments, moved noiselessly along the
streets, by day and by night, searching out and ministering to the sick
and the dying. Like brave sentinels, they never deserted their posts. The
city government was in a state of torpor. The city government did not
know what to do. The city government never did know what to do.
Four hundred sick and dying lay languishing in the hospital. The city
government was sorry for them, and resolved that Providence would be
the best doctor. The dead gave place to the dying by dozens, and there
has been high carnival down in the dead-yard. The quick succession of
funeral trains has cast a shade of melancholy over the broad road that
leads to it. Old women are vending pies and cakes at the gates, and
little boys are sporting over the newly-made graves, that the wind has
lashed into furrows. Rude coffins stand about in piles, and tipsy
negroes are making the very air jubilant with the songs they bury the
dead to.
A change has come over the scene now. There is no more singing down
in the dead-yard. A bright sun is shedding its cheerful rays over the
broad landscape, flowers deck the roadside, and the air comes balmy
and invigorating. There has been frost down in the lowlands. A solitary
stranger paces listlessly along the walks of the dead-yard, searching in
vain for the grave of a departed friend. The scourge has left a sad void
between friends living and friends gone to eternal rest. Familiar faces
pass us on the street, only to remind us of familiar faces passed away
forever. The city is astir again. Society is coming back to us. There is
bustle in the churches, bustle in the law courts, bustle in the hotels,
bustle along the streets, bustle everywhere. There is bustle at the
steamboat landings, bustle at the railway stations, bustle in all our high

places. Vehicles piled with trunks are hurrying along the streets; groups
of well-dressed negroes are waiting their master's return at the landings,
or searching among piles of trunks for the family baggage. Other
groups are giving Mas'r and Missus such a cordial greeting. Society is
out of an afternoon, on King street, airing its dignity. There is