“I wonder is dey gwoine to shoot Doc and Watta wid dem ’ar’, as Ned Dunn said dey is?” thought the child. “Dat looks like dar’s a mighty nice lunch undah ’em, anyhow?” Hanson Baker jerked the lap-robe from his knees, and covered the basket from view. They soon reached Dunn’s store, and alighted, and removing the basket, bade Joe return with the horse and carriage, and remember to stay there closely. As they sat in close conversation in the back part of that groggery, while the General partook of the “nice lunch” the basket did contain, it was plain that “Old Bob Baker, the slave catcher,” and the aristocratic General had little in common except their patronymic and their political opinions and ideas. CHAPTER VI. THE CLOUD THICKENS. “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. Fear him not, Cæsar, he’s not dangerous; He is a noble Roman and well given.” —JULIUS CÆSAR. THE State of South Carolina was settled by political refugees and desperadoes of every description and from every nation, with no unity of ideas or interests; and African slavery was introduced but two years after the first settlement had secured a permanent footing. Hence, arrogance and oppression, rapacity and murder, early became the rule and occupation of the people. The existence and perpetuation of slavery during more than eight generations caused and necessitated an arrest of progress in civilization, and the war which resulted in the emancipation of the slaves and the re-establishment of the Union, found the whites in several of the Southern States, in many respects not far in advance of the people of England in the sixteenth century; and as those feudalistic and inharmonious families—the descendants of the earliest settlers—are still recognized as “the first families,” the “aristocracy of the State”—in the year of our Lord 1876, and of the Republic one hundred—boasting and bravado were accomplishments ostentatiously displayed there, and often sustained by such brutal assault and lawless violence and outrage, as those of the worst days of feudalism. This state of society alone explains the temerity of the threats and preparations for violence, and their fearful consummation, which blacken the history of the Republic’s centennial year. While Robert Baker and his sons were in Dunn’s groggery, informing their counsel respecting the particulars of the suit he was about to conduct for them, many exciting scenes were transpiring in the vicinity, and the streets of the doomed village were becoming lively with the presence of armed men, who were freely imbibing whisky, and threatening to “kill every —— nigger in Baconsville that day.” Especially loud and frequent were the threats against the Captain and Second Lieutenant of the militia company.