" Vincent said. "As to paying
me out some other way, I will look after myself, Dan. I believe that
fellow Jackson is capable of anything, and I will be on the lookout for
him."

"Be sure you do, Massa Vincent. You ride about a great deal, dat fellow
bery like take a shot at you from behind tree. Don't you go near dat
plantation, or sure enuff trouble come."

"I will look out, Dan. There is one thing, I always ride fast; and it
wants a very good shot to hit one at a gallop. I don't think they will
try that; for if he missed, as he would be almost sure to do, it would
be a good deal worse for him than this affair would have been had he
brought it into court. You keep your ears open, Dan, and find out how
they are thinking of punishing that poor follow for my interference on
his behalf."

After breakfast a negro arrived with a note for Mrs. Wingfield from Mr.
Jackson, complaining of the unwarrantable and illegal interference by
her son on behalf of a slave who was being very properly punished for
gross misconduct; and of the personal assault upon his son. The writer
said that he was most reluctant to take legal proceedings against a
member of so highly respected a family, but that it was impossible that
he could submit to such an outrage as this.

Although Mrs. Wingfield had expressed her disapproval of Vincent's
conduct on the evening before, there was no trace of that feeling in her
reply to this letter. She wrote in the third person, coldly
acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Jackson's letter, and saying that she
had heard from her son of his interference to put a stop to one of those
brutal scenes which brought discredit upon the Southern States, and that
she considered he had most rightly punished Mr. Jackson, Jr., for his
inhuman and revolting conduct; that she was perfectly aware the
interference had been technically illegal, but that her son was fully
prepared to defend his conduct if called upon to do so in the courts,
and to pay any fine that might be inflicted for his suffering himself to
be carried away by his righteous indignation. She ended by saying that
as Mr. Jackson was a stranger in Virginia, he was perhaps not aware that
the public sentiment of that State was altogether opposed to such acts
of brutality as that of which his son had been guilty.

"What have you been doing to that fellow Andrew Jackson?" one of
Vincent's friends, a young fellow two years older than himself, said to
him a few days later