购买
下载掌阅APP,畅读海量书库
立即打开
畅读海量书库
扫码下载掌阅APP

Chapter VIII

Eliza’s Escape

Eliza made her desperate retreat across the river just in the dusk of twilight. The grey mist of evening, rising slowly from the river, enveloped her as she disappeared up the bank, and the swollen current and floundering masses of ice presented a hopeless barrier between her and her pursuer. Haley, therefore, slowly and discontentedly returned to the little tavern, to ponder further what was to be done. The woman opened to him the door of a little parlour, covered with a rag carpet, where stood a table with a very shining black oil-cloth, sundry lank, high-backed wood chairs,with some plaster images in resplendent colours on the mantel-shelf, above a very dimly-smoking grate; a long hard-wood settle extended its uneasy length by the chimney, and here Haley sat him down to meditate on the instability of human hopes and happiness in general.

‘What did I want with the little cuss, now,’ he said to himself, ‘that I should have got myself treed like a ’coon, as I am, this yer way?’And Haley relieved himself by repeating over a not very select litany of imprecations on himself, which, though there was the best possible reason to consider them as true, we shall, as a matter of taste, omit.

He was startled by the loud and dissonant voice of a man who was apparently dismounting at the door. He hurried to the window.

‘By the land! if this yer an’t the nearest, now, to what I’ve heard folks call Providence,’ said Haley. ‘I do b’lieve that ar’s Tom Loker.’

Haley hastened out. Standing by the bar, in the corner of the room,was a brawny, muscular man, full six feet in height, and broad in proportion.He was dressed in a coat of buffalo-skin, made with the hair outward,which gave him a shaggy and fierce appearance, perfectly in keeping with the whole air of his physiognomy. In the head and face, every organ and lineament expressive of brutal and unhesitating violence was in a state of the highest possible development. Indeed, could our readers fancy a bulldog come unto man’s estate, and walking about in a hat and coat, they would have no unapt idea of the general style and effect of his physique.He was accompanied by a travelling companion, in many respects an exact contrast to himself. He was short and slender, lithe and cat-like in his motions, and had a peering, mousing expression about his keen black eyes,with which every feature of his face seemed sharpened into sympathy; his thin, long nose, ran out as if it was eager to bore into the nature of things in general; his sleek, thin black hair, was stuck eagerly forward, and all his motions and evolutions expressed a dry, cautious acuteness. The great big man poured out a big tumbler half full of raw spirits, and gulped it down without a word. The little man stood tiptoe, and putting his head first to one side and then to the other, and snuffing considerately in the directions of the various bottles, ordered at last a mint julep, in a thin and quivering voice, and with an air of great circumspection. When poured out, he took it and looked at it with a sharp, complacent air, like a man who thinks he has done about the right thing, and hit the nail on the head, and proceeded to dispose of it in short and well-advised sips.

‘Wal, now, who’d a thought this yer luck ’ad come to me? Why, Loker,how are ye?’ said Haley, coming forward, and extending his hand to the big man.

‘The devil!’ was the civil reply. ‘What brought you here, Haley?’

The mousing man, who bore the name of Marks, instantly stopped his sipping, and, poking his head forward, looked shrewdly on the new acquaintance, as a cat sometimes looks at a moving dry leaf, or some other possible object of pursuit.

‘I say, Tom, this yer’s the luckiest thing in the world. I’m in a devil of a hobble, and you must help me out.’

‘Ugh? aw! like enough!’ grunted his complaisant acquaintance. ‘A body may be pretty sure of that, when you re glad to see ’em; something to be made off of ’em. What’s the blow now?’

‘You’ve got a friend here?’ said Haley, looking doubtfully at Marks;‘partner, perhaps?’

‘Yes, I have. Here, Marks! here’s that ar feller that I was in with in Natchez.’

‘Shall be pleased with his acquaintance,’ said Marks, thrusting out a long thin hand, like a raven’s claw. ‘Mr Haley, I believe?’

‘The same, sir,’ said Haley. ‘And now, gentlemen, seein’ as we’ve met so happily, I think I’ll stand up to a small matter of a treat in this here parlour. So, now, old ’coon,’ said he to the man at the bar, ‘get us hot water, and sugar, and cigars, and plenty of the real stuff , and we’ll have a blow-out.’

Behold, then, the candles lighted, the fire stimulated to the burning point in the grate, and our three worthies seated round a table, well spread with all the accessories to good-fellowship enumerated before.

Haley began a pathetic recital of his peculiar troubles. Loker shut up his mouth, and listened to him with gruff and surly attention. Marks, who was anxiously and with much fidgeting, compounding a tumbler of punch to his own peculiar taste, occasionally looked up from his employment,and, poking his sharp nose and chin almost into Haley’s face, gave the most earnest heed to the whole narrative. The conclusion of it appeared to amuse him extremely, for he shook his shoulders and sides in silence, and perked up his thin lips with an air of great internal enjoyment.

‘So, then, ye’r fairly sewed up, an’t ye?’ he said; ‘he! he! he! It’s neatly done, too.’

‘This yer young-un business makes lots of trouble in the trade,’ said Haley, dolefully.

‘If we could get a breed of gals that didn’t care, now, for their young uns,’ said Marks; ‘tell ye, I think ’twould be ’bout the greatest mod’rn improvement I knows on;’ and Marks patronised his joke by a quiet introductory sniggle.

‘Jest so,’ said Haley; ‘I never couldn’t see into it. Young uns is heaps of trouble to ’em—one would think, now, they’d be glad to get clar on ’em; but they arn’t. And the more trouble a young un is, and the more good for nothing, as a gen’l thing, the tighter they sticks to ’em.’

‘Wal, Mr Haley,’ said Marks, ‘jest pass the hot water. Yes, sir; you say jest what I feel and all’us have. Now, I bought a gal once when I was in the trade, a tight, likely wench she was, too, and quite considerable smart—and she had a young un that was mis’able sickly; it had a crooked back, or something or other; and I jest gin’t away to a man that thought he’d take his chance raisin’ on’t, being it didn’t cost nothin’—never thought, yer know,of the gal’s takin’ on about it—but, Lord, yer oughter see how she went on!Why, re’lly, she did seem to me to valley the child more ’cause ’ twas sickly and cross, and plagued her, and she warn’t making b’lieve, neither—cried about it, she did, and lopped round, as if she’d lost every friend she had. It re’lly was droll to think on’t. Lord, there an’t no end to women’s notions.’‘Wal, jest so with me,’ said Haley. ‘Last summer, down on Red River,I got a gal traded off on me with a likely lookin’ child enough, and his eyes looked as bright as yourn; but, come to look, I found him stone-blind.Fact—he was stone-blind. Wal, ye see, I thought there warn’t no harm in my jest passing him along, and not sayin’ nothin’; and I’d got him nicely swapped off for a keg of whiskey; but come to get him away from the gal,she was jest like a tiger. So ’twas before we started, and I hadn’t got my gang chained up, so, what should she do but ups on a cotton-bale, like a cat, ketches a knife from one of the deck hands, and, I tell ye, she made all fly for a minnit, till she saw ’twan’t no use; and she jest turns round, and pitches head-first, young un and all, into the river—went down plump, and never ris.’

‘Bah!’ said Tom Loker, who had listened to these stories with illrepressed disgust. ‘Shif’less, both on ye! My gals don’t cut up no such shines, I tell ye!’

‘Indeed! how do you help it?’ said Marks, briskly,

‘Help it? why, I buys a gal, and if she’s got a young un to he sold, I jest walks up and puts my fist to her face, and says, “Look here, now; if you give me one word out of your head, I’ll smash yer face in. I won’t hear one word—not the beginning of a word.” I says to ’em, “This yer young un’s mine and not yourn, and you’ve no kind o’ business with it. I’m going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don’t cut up none o’ yer shines about it, or I’ll make ye wish ye’d never been born.” I tell ye, they sees it an’t no play,when I gets hold. I makes ’em as whist as fishes; and if one on ’em begins and gives a yelp, why—’ and Mr Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully explained the hiatus.

‘That ar’s what ye may call emphasis ,’ said Marks, poking Haley in the side, and going into another small giggle. ‘An’t Tom peculiar? he! he!he! I say, Tom, I s’pect you make ’em understand , for all niggers’ heads is woolly. They don’t never have no doubt o’ your meaning, Tom. If you an’t the devil, Tom, you’s his twin brother, I’ll say that for ye!’

Tom received the compliment with becoming modesty, and began to look as affable as was consistent, as John Bunyan says, with his doggish nature.

Haley, who had been imbibing very freely of the staple of the evening,began to feel a sensible elevation and enlargement of his moral faculties—a phenomenon not unusual with gentlemen of a serious and reflective turn,under similar circumstances.

‘Wal, now, Tom,’ he said, ‘ye re’lly is too bad, as I al’ays have told ye. Ye know, Tom, you and I used to talk over these yer matters down in Natchez, and I used to prove to ye that we made full as much, and was as well off for this yer world, by treatin’ on ’em well, besides keepin’ a better chance for comin’ in the kingdom at last, when wust comes to wust, and thar an’t nothing else left to get, ye know.’

‘Boh!’ said Tom, ‘ don t I know?—don’t make me too sick with any o’yer stuff—my stomach is a leetle riled, now;’ and Tom drank half a glass of raw brandy.

‘I say,’ said Haley, and leaning back in his chair and gesturing impressively, ‘I’ll say this, now, I al’ays meant to drive my trade so as to make money on’t, fust and foremost , as much as any man; but then, trade an’t everything, and money an’t everything, ’cause we’s all got souls. I don’t care, now, who hears me say it—and I think a cussed sight on it, so I may as well come out with it. I b’lieve in religion, and one of these days, when I’ve got matters tight and snug, I calculates to tend to my soul and them ar matters: and so what’s the use of doin’ any more wickedness than’s re’lly necessary?—it don’t seem to me it’s ’t all prudent.’

‘Tend to yer soul!’ repeated Tom, contemptuously; ‘take a bright lookout to find a soul in you—save yourself any care on that score. If the devil sifts you through a hair sieve, he won’t find one.

‘Why, Tom you’re cross,’ said Haley; ‘why can’t ye take it pleasant,now, when a feller’s talking for your good?’

‘Stop that ar jaw o’ yourn, there,’ said Torn, gruffly. ‘I can stand most any talk o’ yourn but your pious talk—that kills me right up. After all,what’s the odds between me and you? ’Tan’t that you care one bit more, or have a bit more feelin’—it’s clear, sheer, dog meanness, wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin; don’t I see through it? And your “gettin’religion”, as you call it, arter all, is too ’spisin’ mean for any crittur, run up a bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time comes!Boh!’

‘Come, come, gentlemen, I say; this isn’t business,’ said Marks.‘There’s different ways, you know, of looking at all subjects. Mr Haley is a very nice man, no doubt, and has his own conscience; and, Tom, you have your ways, and very good ones, too, Tom; but quarrelling, you know,won’t answer no kind of purpose. Let’s go to business. Now, Mr Haley,what is it? You want us to undertake to catch this yer gal?’

‘The gal’s no matter of mine—she’s Shelby’s; it’s only the boy. I was a fool for buying the monkey!’

‘You’re generally a fool!’ said Tom, gruffly

‘Come, now, Loker, none of your huffs,’ said Marks, licking his lips;‘you see, Mr Haley’s a puttin’ us in a way of a good job, I reckon; just hold still—these yer arrangements is my forte. This yer gal, Mr Haley, how is she? What is she?’

‘Wal! white and handsome—well brought up. I’d a gin Shelby eight hundred or a thousand, and then made well on her.’

‘White and handsome—well brought up!’ said Marks, his sharp eyes,nose, and mouth, all alive with enterprise. ‘Look here, now, Loker, a beautiful opening. We’ll do a business here on our own account; we does the catchin’: the boy, of course, goes to Mr Haley—we takes the gal to Orleans to speculate on. An’t it beautiful?’

Tom, whose great, heavy mouth had stood ajar during this communication, now suddenly snapped together, as a big dog closes on a piece of meat, and seemed to be digesting the idea at his leisure.

‘Ye see,’ said Marks to Haley, stirring his punch as he did so, ‘ye see,we has justices convenient at all p’ints along shore that does up any little jobs in our line quite reasonable. Tom, he does the knockin’ down and that ar; and I come in all dressed up—shining boots—everything first chop,when the swearins to be done. You oughter see me now,’ said Marks, in a glow of professional pride, ‘how I can tone it off. One day, I’m Mr Twickem,from New Orleans; ’nother day, I’m just come from my plantation on Pearl River, where I works seven hundred niggers; then, again, I come out a distant relation of Henry Clay, or some old cock in Kentuck. Talents is different, you know. Now, Tom’s a roarer when there’s any thumping or fighting to be done; but at lying, he an’t good, Tom an’t—ye see it don’t come natural to him; but Lord if thar’s a feller in the country that can swear to anything and everything, and put in all the circumstances and flourishes with a longer face, and carry’t through better’n I can, why, I’d like to see him, that’s all! I b’lieve, my heart, I could get along, and snake through,even if justices were more particular than they is. Sometimes I rather wish they was more particular; ’twould be a heap more relishin’ if they was—more fun, yer know.’

Tom Loker, who, as we have made it appear, was a man of slow thoughts and movements, here interrupted Marks by bringing his heavy fist down on the table, so as to make all ring again. ‘ It ll do! ’ he said.

‘Lord bless ye, Tom, ye needn’t break all the glasses,’ said Marks; ‘save your fist for time o’ need.

‘But, gentlemen, an’t I to come in for a share of the profits?’ said Haley

‘An’t it enough we catch the boy for ye?’ said Loker. ‘What do ye want?’

‘Wal,’ said Haley, ‘if I gives you the job, it’s worth something—say ten per cent on the profits, expenses paid.

‘Now,’ said Loker, with a tremendous oath, and striking the table with his heavy fist, ‘don’t I know you , Dan Haley? Don’t you think to come it over me! Suppose Marks and I have taken up the catchin’ trade, jest to ’commodate gentlemen like you, and get nothin’ for ourselves? Not by a long chalk! We’ll have the gal out and out, and you keep quiet, or, ye see,we’ll have both—what’s to hinder? Han’t you show’d us the game? It’s as free to us as you, I hope. If you or Shelby wants to chase us, look where the partridges was last year; if you find them or us you’re quie welcome.’‘Oh, wal, certainly, jest let it go at that,’ said Haley, alarmed: ‘you catch the boy for the job; you allers did trade far with me, Tom, and was up to yer word.’

‘Ye know that,’ said Tom; ‘I don’t pretend none of your snivelling ways, but I won’t lie in my ’counts with the devil himself. What I ses I’ll do, I will do; you know that , Dan Haley.’

‘Jes so, jes so; I said so, Tom,’ said Haley; ‘and if you’d only promise to have the boy for me in a week, at any point you’ll name, that’s all I want.’

‘But it an’t all I want, by a long jump,’ said Tom. ‘Ye don’t think I did business with you, down in Natchez, for nothing, Haley; I’ve learned to hold an eel when I catch him. You’ve got to fork over fifty dollars, fla down, or this child don’t start a peg. I know yer.’

‘Why, when you have a job in hand that may bring a clean profit of somewhere about a thousand or sixteen hundred? Why, Tom, you’re onreasonable,’ said Haley.

‘Yes, and hasn’t we business booked for five weeks to come—all we can do? And suppose we leaves all, and goes to bushwhacking round arter yer young un, and finally doesn’t catch the gal—and gals allers is the devil to catch—what’s then? Would you pay us a cent—would you? I think I see you a doin’ it—ugh! No, no; flap down your fifty. If we get the job, and i pays, I’ll hand it back; if we don’t, it’s for our trouble—that’s far , an’t it,Marks?’

‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Marks, with a conciliatory tone. ‘It’s only a retaining fee, you see—he! he! he!—we lawyers, you know. Wal, we must all keep good-natured, keep easy, yer know. Tom’ll have the boy for yer anywhere ye’ll name; won’t ye, Tom?’

‘If I find the young un, I’ll bring him on to Cincinnati, and leave him at Granny Belcher’s, on the landing,’ said Loker.

Marks had got from his pocket a greasy pocket-book, and taking a long paper from thence, he sat down, and fixing his keen black eyes on it,began mumbling over its contents: ‘ “Barnes—Shelby County—boy Jim,three hundred dollars for him, dead or alive. Edwards—Dick and Lucy—man and wife, six hundred dollars; wench Polly and two children—six hundred for her or her head”—I’m jest a running over our business, to see if we can take up this yer handily. Loker,’ he said, after a pause, ‘we must set Adams and Springer on the track of these yer; they’ve been booked some time.’

‘They’ll charge too much,’ said Tom.

‘I’ll manage that ar; they’s young in the business, and must ’spect to work cheap,’ said Marks, as he continued to read. ‘Ther’s three on ’em easy cases, ’cause all you’ve got to do is to shoot ’em, or swar they is shot;they couldn’t, of course, charge much for that. Them other cases,’ he said,folding the paper, ‘will bear puttin’ off a spell. So now let’s come to the particulars. Now, Mr Haley, you saw this yer gal when she landed?’

‘To be sure—plain as I see you.’

‘And a man helpin’ on her up the bank?’ said Loker.

‘To be sure I did.’

‘Most likely,’ said Marks, ‘she’s took in somewhere; but where’s a question. Tom, what do you say?’

‘We must cross the river tonight, no mistake,’ said Tom.

‘But there’s no boat about,’ said Marks. ‘The ice is running awfully,Tom; an’t it dangerous?’

‘Don’no nothing ’bout that, only it’s got to be done,’ said Tom, decidedly.

‘Dear me,’ said Marks, fidgeting, ‘it’ll be—I say,’ he said, walking to the window, ‘it’s dark as a wolf’s mouth, and Tom—’

‘The long and short is, you’re scared Marks; but I can’t help that,you’ve got to go. Suppose you want to lie by a day or two, till the gal’s been carried on the underground line up to Sandusky or so, before you—’

‘Oh, no; I an’t a grain afraid,’ said Marks, ‘only—’

‘Only what?’ said Tom.

‘Well, about the boat. Yer see there an’t any boat.’

‘I heard the woman say there was one coming along this evening, and that a man was going to cross over in it. Neck or nothing, we must go with him,’ said Tom.

‘I s’pose you’ve got good dogs,’ said Haley.

‘First rate,’ said Marks. ‘But what’s the use? you han’t got nothin’ o’hers to smell on.’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Haley, triumphantly. ‘Here’s her shawl she left on the bed in her hurry; she left her bonnet, too.’

‘That ar’s lucky,’ said Loker; ‘fork over.’

‘Though the dogs might damage the gal, if they come on her unawares,’said Haley.

‘That ar’s a consideration,’ said Marks. ‘Our dogs tore a feller half to pieces, once, down in Mobile, ’fore we could get ’em off.’

‘Well, ye see, for this sort that’s to be sold for their looks, that ar won’t answer, ye see,’ said Haley.

‘I do see,’ said Marks. ‘Besides, if she’s got took in, ’tan’t no go,neither. Dogs is no ’count in these yer up states where these critters gets carried; of course, ye can’t get on their track. They only does down in plantations, where niggers, when they runs, has to do their own running,and don’t get no help.’

‘Well,’ said Loker, who had just stepped out to the bar to make some enquiries, ‘they say the man’s come with the boat; so Marks—’

That worthy cast a rueful look at the comfortable quarters he was leaving, but slowly rose to obey. After exchanging a few words of further arrangement, Haley, with visible reluctance, handed over the fifty dollars to Tom, and the worthy trio separated for the night.

If any of our refined and Christian readers object to the society into which this scene introduces them, let us beg them to begin and conquer their prejudices in time. The catching business we beg to remind them, is rising to the dignity of a lawful and patriotic profession. If all the broad land between the Mississippi and the Pacific becomes one great market for bodies and souls, and human property retains the locomotive tendencies of this nineteenth century, the trader and catcher may yet be among our aristocracy.

While this scene was going on at the tavern, Sam and Andy, in a state of high felicitation, pursued their way home.

Sam was in the highest possible feather, and expressed his exultation by all sorts of supernatural howls and ejaculations, by divers odd motions,and contortions of his whole system. Sometimes he would sit backward,with his face to the horse’s tail and sides, and then, with a whoop and a summerset, come right side up in his place again, and drawing on a grave face, begin to lecture Andy in high-sounding tones for laughing and playing the fool. Anon, slapping his sides with his arms, he would burst forth in peals of laughter, that made the old woods ring as they passed. With all these evolutions, he contrived to keep the horses up to the top of their speed, until, between ten and eleven, their heels resounded on the gravel at the end of the balcony. Mrs Shelby flew to the railings

‘Is that you, Sam? Where are they?’

‘Mas’r Haley’s a restin’ at the tavern; he’s drefful fatigued, Missis.’

‘And Eliza, Sam?’

‘Wal, she’s clar ’cross Jordan. As a body may say, in the land o’Canaan.’

‘Why, Sam, what do you mean?’ said Mrs Shelby, breathless and almost faint, as the possible meaning of these words came over her.

‘Wal, Missis, de Lord He persarves His own. Lizzy’s done gone over the river into ’Hio, as ’markably as if the Lord took her over in a charrit of fire and two hosses.

Sam’s vein of piety was always uncommonly fervent in his mistress’s presence, and he made great capital of scriptural figures and iages.

‘Come up here, Sam,’ said Mr Sheiby, who had followed on to the veranda, ‘and tell your mistress what she wants. Come, come, Emily,’ said he, passing his arm round her, ‘you are cold and all in a shiver; you allow yourself to feel too much.’

‘Feel too much! Am not I a woman—a mother? Are we not both responsible to God for this poor girl? My God, lay not this sin to our charge!’‘What sin, Emily? You see yourself that we have only done what we are obliged to.’

‘There’s an awful feeling of guilt about it, though,’ said Mrs Shelby. ‘I can’t reason it away.’

‘Here, Andy, you nigger, be alive!’ called Sam, under the veranda; ‘take these yer hosses to de barn; don’t ye hear Mas’r a callin’?’ and Sam soon appeared, palm-leaf in hand, at the parlour door.

‘Now, Sam tell us distinctly how the matter was,’ said Mr Shelby.‘Where is Eliza, if you know?’

‘Wal, Mas’r, I saw her with my own eyes a crossin’ on the floatin’ ice. She crossed most ’markably: it wasn’t no less nor a miracle; and I saw a man help her up the ’Hio side, and then she was lost in the dusk.’

‘Sam, I think this rather apocryphal—this miracle. Crossing on floating ice isn’t so easily done,’ said Mr Shelby.

‘Easy! couldn’t nobody a done it, without de Lord. Why, now,’ said Sam, ‘ ’twas jist dis yer way. Mas’r Haley, and me, and Andy, we comes up to de little tavern by the river, and I rides a leetle ahead—(I’s so zealous to be a cotchin’ Lizzy, that I couldn’t hold in, noway)—and when I comes by the tavern winder, sure enough there she was, right in plain sight, and dey diggin’ on behind. Wal I looses off my hat, and sings out nuff to raise the dead. Course Lizzy she hars, and she dodges back, when Mas’r Haley he goes past the door; and then, I tell ye, she clared out de side door, she went down de river bank; Mas’r Haley he seed her, and yelled out, and him and me, and Andy, we took arter. Down she come to the river, and thar was the current running ten feet wide by the shore, and over t’other side ice a sawin’and a jigglin’ up and down, kinder as ’twere a great island. We come right behind her, and I thought my soul he’d got her sure enough—when she gin sich a screech as I never hearn, and thar she was, clar over t’other side the current, on the ice, and then on she went, a screeching and a jumpin’—the ice went crack! c’wallop! chunk! and she a boundin’ like a buck! Lord, the spring that ar gal’s got in her an’t common, I’m o’ ’pinion.’

Mrs Shelby sat perfectly silent, pale with excitement, while Sam told his story.

‘God be praised, she isn’t dead!’ she said; ‘but where is the poor child now?’

‘De Lord will provide,’ said Sam, rolling up his eyes piously. ‘As I’ve been a sayin’, dis yer’s a providence and no mistake, as Missis has allers been a instructin’ on us. Thar’s allers instruments ris up to do de Lord’s will. Now, if it hadn’t been for me today, she’d a been took a dozen times.Warn’t it I started off de hosses, dis yer mornin’, and kept ’em chasin’ till nigh dinner time? And didn’t I car Mas’r Haley nigh five miles out of de road, dis evening? or else he’d a come up with Lizzy as easy as a dog arter a ’coon. These yer’s all providences.’

‘They are a kind of providences that you’ll have to be pretty sparing of, Master Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place,’said Mr Shelby, with as much sternness as he could command under the circumstances.

Now, there is no more use in making believe be angry with a negro than with a child; both instinctively see the true state of the case, through all attempts to affect the contrary; and Sam was in no wise disheartened by this rebuke, though he assumed an air of doleful gravity, and stood with the corners of his mouth lowered in most penitential style.

‘Mas’r’s quite right—quite; it was ugly on me—there’s no disputin’that ar; and of course Mas’r and Missis wouldn’t encourage no such works.I’m sensible of dat ar; but a poor nigger like me’s ’mazin’ tempted to act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up such shines as dat ar Mas’r Haley; he an’t no gen’l’man no way; anybody’s been raised as I’ve been can’t help a seein’ dat ar.’

‘Well, Sam,’ said Mrs Shelby, ‘as you appear to have a proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe she may get you some of that cold ham that was left of dinner today. You and Andy must be hungry.’‘Missis is a heap too good for us,’ said Sam, making his bow with alacrity, and departing.

It will be perceived, as has been before intimated, that Master Sam had a native talent that might, undoubtedly, have raised him to eminence in political life—a talent of making capital out of everything that turned up,to be invested for his own especial praise and glory; and having done up his piety and humility, as he trusted, to the satisfaction of the parlour, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head, with a sort of rakish, free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flourishing largely in the kitchen.

‘I’ll speechify these yer niggers,’ said Sam to himself, ‘now I’ve got a chance. Lord, I’ll reel it off to make ’em stare!’

It must be observed that one of Sam’s special delights had been to ride in attendance on his master to all kinds of political gatherings, where, roosted on some rail fence, or perched aloft in some tree, he would sit watching the orators, with the greatest apparent gusto, and then, descending among the various brethren of his own colour, assembled on the same errand, he would edify and delight them with the most ludicrous burlesques and imitations,all delivered with the most imperturbable earnestness and solemnity; and though the auditors immediately about him were generally of his own colour, it not unfrequently happened that they were fringed pretty deeply with those of a fairer complexion, who listened, laughing and winking, to Sam’s great self-congratulation. In fact, Sam considered oratory as his vocation, and never let slip an opportunity of magnifying his office

Now, between Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness; but, as Sam was meditating something in the provision department as the necessary and obvious foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present occasion, to be eminently conciliatory; for he well knew that although‘Missis’ orders’ would undoubtedly be followed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal by enlisting the spirit also. He therefore, appeared before Aunt Chloe with a touchingly subdued, resigned expression, like one who has suffered immeasurable hardships in behalf of a persecuted fellow-creature—enlarged upon the fact that Missis had directed him to come to Aunt Chloe for whatever might be wanting to make up the balance in his solids and fluids—and thus unequivocally acknowledged her right and supremacy in the cooking department, and all thereto pertaining.

The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam’s suavities; and if he had been the prodigal son himself, he could not have been overwhelmed with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found himself seated, happy and glorious,over a large tin pan, containing a sort of olla podrida of all that had appeared on the table for two or three days past. Savoury morsels of ham, golden blocks of corn-cake, fragments of pie of every conceivable mathematical figure, chicken wings, gizzards, and drumsticks, all appeared in picturesque confusion; and Sam, as monarch of all he surveyed, sat with his palm-leaf cocked rejoicingly to one side, and patronising Andy at his right hand.

The kitchen was full of all his compeers, who had hurried and crowded in, from the various cabins, to hear the termination of the day’s exploits.Now was Sam’s hour of glory. The story of the day was rehearsed, with all kinds of ornament and varnishing which might be necessary to heighten its effect; for Sam, like some of our fashionable dilettanti, never allowed a story to lose any of its gilding by passing through his hands. Roars of laughter attended the narration, and were taken up and prolonged by all the small fry, who were lying, in any quantity, about on the floor, or perched in every corner. In the height of the uproar and laughter, Sam, however,preserved an immovable gravity, only from time to time rolling his eyes up, and giving his auditors divers inexpressibly droll glances, without departing from the sententious elevation of his oratory.

‘Yer see, fellow-countrymen,’ said Sam, elevating a turkey’s leg, with energy, ‘yer see, now, what dis yer chile’s up ter, for ’fendin’ yer all—yes,all on yer. For him as tries to get one o’ our people is as good as tryin’ to get all; yer see the principle’s de same,—dat ar’s clar. And anyone o’ these yer drivers that comes smelling round arter any o’ our people, why, he’s got me in his way; I m the feller he’s got to set in with—I’m the feller for yer all to come to, brethren—I’ll stand up for yer rights—I’ll ’fend ’em to the last breath!’

‘Why, but Sam, yer telled me, only this mornin’, that you’d help this yer mas’r to cotch Lizzy; seems to me yer talk don’t hang together,’ said Andy.

‘I tell you now, Andy,’ said Sam, with awful superiority, ‘don’t yer be a-talkin’ ’bout what yer don’t know nothin’ on; boys like you, Andy, means well, but they can’t be ’spected to collusitate the great principles of action.’

Andy looked rebuked, particularly by the hard word ’collusitate’,which most of the youngerly members of the company seemed to consider as a settler in the case, while Sam proceeded—

‘Dat ar was conscience , Andy, when I thought of gwine arter Lizzy,I raily ’spected Mas’r was sot dat way. When I found Missis was sot the contrar, dat ar was conscience more yet —’cause fellers allers gets more by stickin’ to Missis’ side—so you see I’s persistent either way, and sticks up to conscience, and holds on to principles. Yes, principles ,’ said Sam, giving an enthusiastic toss to a chicken’s neck—‘what’s principles good for, if we isn’t persistent, I wanter know? Thar, Andy, you may have dat ar bone, ’tan’t picked quite dean.’

Sam’s audience hanging on his words with open mouth, he could not but proceed—

‘Dis yer matter ’bout persistence, feller-niggers,’ said Sam, with the air of one entering into an abstruse subject, ‘dis yer ’sistency’s a thing what an’t seed into very clar, by most anybody. Now, yer see, when a feller stands up for a thing one day and night, de contrar de next, folks ses (and nat’rally enough they ses), why he an’t persistent—hand me dat ar bit o’corn-cake, Andy. But let’s look inter it. I hope the gen’lemen and der fair sex will ’scuse my usin’ an or’nary sort o’ ’parison. Here! I’m a tryin’ to get top o’ der hay. Wal, I puts up my larder dis yer side; ’tan’t no go; den,’cause I don’t try dere no more, but puts my larder right de contrar side,an’t I persistent? I’m persistent in wanting to get up which ar side my larder is; don’t you see, all on yer?’

‘It’s the only thing ye ever was persistent in, Lord knows!’ muttered.Aunt Chloe, who was getting rather restive; the merriment of the evening being to her somewhat after the Scripture comparison—like ‘Vinegar upon nitre’.

‘Yes, indeed!’ said Sam, rising, full of supper and glory, for a closing effort. ‘Yes, my feller-citizens and ladies of de other sex in general, I has principles—I’m proud to ’oon ’em—they’s perquisite to dese yer times, and ter all times. I has principles, and I sticks to ’em like forty—jest anything that I thinks is principle, I goes in to’t; I wouldn’t mind if dey burnt me ’live—I’d walk right up to de stake, I would, and say, Here I comes to shed my last blood fur my principles, fur my country, fur der gen’l interests of s’ciety.’

‘Well,’ said Aunt Chloe, ‘one o’ yer principles will have to be to get to bed sometime tonight, and not be a-keepin’ everybody up till mornin’;now, every one of you young uns that don’t want to he cracked had better be scase, mighty sudden.’

‘Niggers! all on yer,’ said Sam, waving his palm-leaf with benignity, ‘I give yer my blessin’; go to bed now, and be good boys.’

And, with this pathetic benediction, the assembly dispersed. uiki1egMmpAvEWgi4O2zi2SDmZOK7Kg86w3tqKyRiAbb9hvVGmLUeRsStMeOLHp8



Chapter IX

In Which ItAppears thata Senator Is buta Man

The light of the cheerful fire shone on the rug and carpet of a cosy parlour, and glittered on the sides of the teacups and well-brightened teapot, as Senator Bird was drawing off his boots, preparatory to inserting his feet in a pair of new handsome slippers, which his wife had been working for him while away on his senatorial tour. Mrs Bird, looking the very picture of delight, was superintending the arrangements of the table, ever and anon mingling admonitory remarks to a number of frolicsome juveniles, who were effervescing in all those modes of untold gambol and mischief that have astonished mothers ever since the flood

‘Tom, let the door-knob alone—there’s a man! Mary! Mary! don’t pull the cat’s tail—poor pussy! Jim, you mustn’t climb on that table—no, no!—You don’t know, my dear, what a surprise it is to us all, to see you here tonight,’ said she, at last, when she found a space to say something to her husband.

‘Yes, yes, I thought I’d just make a run down, spend the night, and have a little comfort at home. I’m tired to death, and my head aches!’

Mrs Bird cast a glance at a camphor-bottle, which stood in the halfopen closet, and appeared to meditate an approach to it, but her husband interposed—

‘No, no, Mary, no doctoring! a cup of your good hot tea, and some of our good home living, is what I want. It’s a tiresome business this legislating!’

And the senator smiled, as if he rather liked the idea of considering himself a sacrifice to his country

‘Well,’ said his wife, after the business of the tea-table was getting rather slack, ‘and what have they been doing in the Senate?’

Now, it was a very unusual thing for gentle little Mrs Bird ever to trouble her head with what was going on in the house of the State, very wisely considering that she had enough to do to mind her own. Mr Bird, therefore,opened his eyes in surprise, and said—

‘Not very much of importance.’

‘Well; but is it true that they have been passing a law forbidding people to give meat and drink to those poor coloured folks that come along? I heard they were talking of some such law, but I didn’t think any Christian legislature would pass it!’

‘Why, Mary, you are getting to be a politician all at once.’

‘No, nonsense! I wouldn’t give a fig for all your politics, generally, but I think this is something downright cruel and unchristian. I hope, my dear, no such law has been passed.’

‘There has been a law passed forbidding people to help off the slaves that come over from Kentucky, my dear; so much of that thing has been done by these reckless Abolitionists, that our brethren in Kentucky are very strongly excited, and it seems necessary, and no more than Christian and land, that something should be done by our State to quiet the excitement.’

‘And what is the law? It don’t forbid us to shelter these poor creatures a night, does it? and to give ’em something comfortable to eat, and a few old clothes, and send them quietly about their business?’

‘Why, yes, my dear; that would be aiding and abetting, you know.’

Mrs Bird was a timid, blushing little woman, of about four feet in height, and with mild blue eyes, and a peach-blow complexion, and the gentlest, sweetest voice in the world; as for courage, a moderate-sized cock-turkey had been known to put her to rout at the very first gobble, and a stout house-dog of moderate capacity would bring her into subjection merely by a show of his teeth. Her husband and children were her entire world, and in these she ruled more by entreaty and persuasion than by command or argument. There was only one thing that was capable of arousing her, and that provocation came in on the side of her unusually gentle and sympathetic nature; anything in the shape of cruelty would throw her into a passion, which was the more alarming and inexplicable in proportion to the general softness of her nature. Generally the most indulgent and easy to be entreated of all mothers, still her boys had a very reverent remembrance of a most vehement chastisement she once bestowed on them because she found them leagued with several graceless boys of the neighbourhood stoning a defenceless kitten.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Master Bill used to say, ‘I was scared that time.Mother came at me so that I thought she was crazy, and I was whipped and tumbled off to bed, without any supper, before I could get over wondering what had come about; and, after that, I heard mother crying outside the door, which made me feel worse than all the rest. I’ll tell you what,’ he’d say, ‘we boys never stoned another kitten!’

On the present occasion, Mrs Bird rose quickly, with very red cheeks,which quite improved her general appearance, and walked up to her husband, with quite a resolute air, and said, in a determined tone, ‘Now,John, I want to know if you think such a law as that is right and Christian?’

‘You won’t shoot me, now, Mary, if I say I do!’

‘I never could have thought it of you, John! You didn’t vote for it?’

‘Even so, my fair politician.’

‘You ought to be ashamed, John! Poor, homeless, houseless creatures!It’s a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I’ll break it, for one the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can’t give a warm supper and a bed to poor,starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!’

‘But, Mary, just listen to me. Your feelings are all quite right, dear,and interesting, and I love you for them; but, then, dear, we mustn’t suffer our feelings to run away with our judgement. You must consider it’s not a matter of private feeling; there are great public interests involved, there is such a state of public agitation rising, that we must put aside our private feelings.’

‘Now, John, I don’t know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.’

‘But in cases where your doing so would involve a great public evil—’

‘Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can’t. It’s always safest, all round, to do as He bids us.’

‘Now, listen to me, Mary, and I can state to you a very clear argument,to show—’

‘Oh, nonsense, John! you can talk all night, but you wouldn’t do it.I put it to you, John, would you now turn away a poor, shivering, hungry creature from your door, because he was a runaway? Would you, now?’

Now, if the truth must be told, our senator had the misfortune to be a man who had a particularly humane and accessible nature, and turning away anybody that was in trouble never had been his forte; and what was worse for him in this particular pinch of the argument was, that his wife knew it, and, of course, was making an assault on rather an indefensible point. So he had recourse to the usual means of gaining time for such cases made and provided; he said ‘ahem’, and coughed several times, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and began to wipe his glasses. Mrs Bird, seeing the defenceless condition of the enemy’s territory, had no more conscience than to push her advantage.

‘I should like to see you doing that, John—I really should! Turning a woman out-of-doors in a snow-storm, for instance; or, maybe you’d take her up and put her in gaol, wouldn’t you? You would make a great hand at that!’

‘Of course, it would be a very painful duty—’ began Mr Bird, in a moderate tone.

‘Duty, John! don’t use that word! You know it isn’t a duty—it can’t be a duty! If folks want to keep their slaves from running away, let ’em treat ’em well—that’s my doctrine. If I had slaves (as I hope I never shall have), I’d risk their wanting to run away from me, or you either, John. I tell you folks don’t run away when they are happy; and when they do run,poor creatures! they suffer enough with cold, and hunger and fear, without everybody’s turning against them; and, law or no law, I never will, so help me God!’

‘Mary! Mary, my dear, let me reason with you.’

‘I hate reasoning, John—especially reasoning on such subjects.There’s a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing; and you don’t believe in it yourselves, when it comes to practice.I know you well enough, John. You don’t believe it’s right any more than I do; and you wouldn’t do it any sooner than I.’

At this critical juncture old Cudjoe, the black man-of-all-work, put his head in at the door, and wished ‘Missis would come into the kitchen;’ and our senator, tolerably relieved, looked after his little wife with a whimsical mixture of amusement and vexation, and, seating himself in the armchair,began to read the papers.

After a moment his wife’s voice was heard at the door, in a quick, earnest tone, ‘John! John! I do wish you’d come here a moment’

He laid down his paper, and went into the kitchen, and started, quite amazed at the sight that presented itself. A young and slender woman, with garments torn and frozen, with one shoe gone, and the stocking torn away from the cut and bleeding foot, was laid back in a deadly swoon upon two chairs. There was the impress of the despised race on her face, yet none could help feeling its mournful and pathetic beauty, while its stony sharpness, its cold, fixed, deathly aspect, struck a solemn chill over him.He drew his breath short, and stood in silence. His wife, and their only coloured domestic, old Aunt Dinah, were busily engaged in restorative measures; while old Cudjoe had got the boy on his knee, and was busy pulling off his shoes and stockings, and chafing his little cold feet

‘Sure, now, if she an’t a sight to behold!’ said old Dinah, compassionately;‘ ’Pears like ’twas the heat that made her faint. She was tol’able peart when she cum in, and asked if she couldn’t warm herself here a spell; and I was just a askin’ her where she cum from, and she fainted right down. Never done much hard work, guess, by the looks of her hands.’

‘Poor creature!’ said Mrs Bird, compassionately, as the woman slowly unclosed her large dark eyes, and looked vacantly at her. Suddenly an expression of agony crossed her face, and she sprang up, saying, ‘Oh, my Harry! Have they got him?’

The boy, at this, jumped from Cudjoe’s knee, and, running to her side,put up his arms. ‘Oh, he’s here! he’s here!’ she exclaimed.

‘Oh, ma’am!’ said she, wildly, to Mrs Bird, ‘do protect us! don’t let them get him!’

‘Nobody shall hurt you here, poor woman,’ said Mrs Bird, encouragingly.‘You are safe; don’t be afraid.’

‘God bless you!’ said the woman, covering her face and sobbing;while the little boy, seeing her crying, tried to get into her lap.

With many gentle and womanly offices, which none knew better how to render than Mrs Bird, the poor woman was in time rendered more calm.A temporary bed was provided for her on the settle, near the fire; and, after a short time, she fell into a heavy slumber with the child, who seemed no less weary, soundly sleeping on her arm; for the mother resisted, with nervous anxiety, the kindest attempts to take him from her; and even in sleep her arm encircled him with an unrelaxing clasp, as if she could not even then be beguiled of her vigilant hold.

Mr and Mrs Bird had gone back to the parlour, where, strange as it may appear, no reference was made on either side to the preceding conversation; but Mrs Bird busied herself with her knitting-work, and Mr Bird pretended to be reading the paper.

‘I wonder who and what she is!’ said Mr Bird, at last, as he laid it down.

‘When she wakes up and feels a little rested, we will see,’ said Mrs Bird.

‘I say, wife!’ said Mr Bird, after musing in silence over his newspaper.

‘Well, dear!’

‘She couldn’t wear one of your gowns, could she, by any letting down,or such matter? She seems to be rather larger than you are.’

A quite perceptible smile glimmered on Mrs Bird’s lace, as she answered,‘We’ll see.’

Another pause, and Mr Bird again broke out—

‘I say, wife!’

‘Well! What now?’

‘Why, there’s that old bombazine cloak that you keep on purpose to put over me when I take my afternoon’s nap; you might as well give her that—she needs clothes.’

At this instant Dinah looked in to say that the woman was awake and wanted to see Missis.

Mr and Mrs Bird went into the kitchen, followed by the two eldest boys, the smaller fry having, by this time been safely disposed of in bed.

The woman was now sitting up on the settle by the fire. She was looking steadily into the blaze, with a calm, heartbroken expression, very different from her former agitated wildness.

‘Did you want me?’ said Mrs Bird, in gentle tones. ‘I hope you feel better now, poor woman!’

A long-drawn, shivering sigh was the only answer; but she lifted her dark eyes, and fixed them on her with such a forlorn and imploring expression that the tears came into the little woman’s eyes.

‘You needn’t be afraid of anything; we are friends here, poor woman!Tell me where you came from and what you want,’ said she.

‘I came from Kentucky,’ said the woman.

‘When?’ said Mr Bird, taking up the interrogatory.

‘Tonight.’

‘How did you come?’

‘I crossed on the ice.’

‘Crossed on the ice!’ said everyone present.

‘Yes,’ said the woman, slowly, ‘I did. God helping me, I crossed on the ice; for they were behind me—right behind—and there was no other way!’‘Law, Missis,’ said Cudjoe, ‘the ice is all in broken-up blocks a-swinging and a-tettering up and down in the water!’.

‘I know it was—I know it!’ said she, wildly; ‘but I did it! I wouldn’t have thought I could—I didn’t think I should get over, but I didn’t care! I could but die, if I didn’t. The Lord helped me; nobody knows how much the Lord can help ’em, till they try,’ said the woman, with a flashing eye

‘Were you a slave?’ said Mr Bird.

‘Yes, sir; I belonged to a man in Kentucky.’

‘Was he unkind to you?’

‘No, sir; he was a good master.’

‘And was your mistress unkind to you?’

‘No, sir—no! my mistress was always good to me.’

‘What could induce you to leave a good home, then, and run away, and go through such dangers?’

The woman looked up at Mrs Bird, with a keen, scrutinising glance,and it did not escape her that she was dressed in deep mourning.

‘Ma’am,’ she said, suddenly, ‘have you ever lost a child?’

The question was unexpected, and it was a thrust on a new wound; for it was only a month since a darling child of the family had been laid in the grave.

Mr Bird turned around and walked to the window, and Mrs Bird burst into tears; but recovering her voice, she said—

‘Why do you ask that? I have lost a little one.’

‘Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after another—left ’em buried there when I came away; and I had only this one left. I never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort and pride, day and night; and, ma’am, they were going to take him away from me—to sell him—sell him down south, ma’am, to go all alone—a baby that had never been away from his mother in his life! I couldn’t stand it, ma’am. I knew I never should be good for anything if they did; and when I knew the papers were signed, and he was sold, I took him and came off in the night; and they chased me—the man that bought him and some of Mas’r’s folks—and they were coming down right behind me, and I heard ’em. I jumped right on to the ice, and how I got across I don’t know; but, first I knew, a man was helping me up the bank.’

The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a place where tears are dry, but everyone around her was, in some way characteristic of themselves, showing signs of hearty sympathy.

The two little boys, after a desperate rummaging in their pockets in search of those pocket-handkerchiefs which mothers know are never to be found there, had thrown themselves disconsolately into the skirts of their mother’s gown, where they were sobbing, and wiping their eyes and noses, to their hearts’ content; Mrs Bird had her face fairly hidden in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down her black,honest face, was ejaculating, ‘Lord have mercy on us!’ with all the fervour of a camp-meeting; while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes very hard with his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry faces, occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervour. Our senator was a statesman,and of course could not be expected to cry, like other mortals; and so he turned his back to the company, and looked out of the window, and seemed particularly busy in clearing his throat and wiping his spectacle-glasses,occasionally blowing his nose in a manner that was calculated to excite suspicion, had anyone been in a state to observe critically.

‘How came you to tell me you had a kind master?’ he suddenly exclaimed, gulping down very resolutely some land of rising in his throat,and turning suddenly round upon the woman.

‘Because he was a kind master—I’ll say that of him, anyway; and my mistress was kind: but they couldn’t help themselves. They were owing money; and there was some way, I can’t tell how, that a man had a hold on them, and they were obliged to give him his will. I listened, and heard him telling Mistress that, and she begging and pleading for me, and he told her he couldn’t help himself, and that the papers were all drawn; and then it was I took him and left my home, and came away. I knew ’twas no use of my trying to live, if they did it; for ’t ’pears like this child is all I have.’

‘Have you no husband?’

‘Yes, but he belongs to another man. His master is real hard to him,and won’t let him come to see me, hardly ever; and he’s grown harder and harder upon us, and he threatens to sell him down south. It’s like I’ll never see him again!’

The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these words might have led a superficial observer to think that she was entirely apathetic; but there was a calm, settled depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that spoke of something far otherwise.

‘And where do you mean to go, my poor woman?’ said Mrs Bird.

‘To Canada, if I only knew where that was. Is it very far off, is Canada?’said she, looking up, with a simple, confiding air, to Mrs Bird’s face

‘Poor thing!’ said Mrs Bird, involuntarily.

‘Is ’t a very great way off?’ said the woman, earnestly.

‘Much further than you think, poor child!’ said Mrs Bird; ‘but we will try to think what can be done for you. Here, Dinah, make her up a bed in your own room, close by the kitchen, and I’ll think what to do for her in the morning! Meanwhile, never fear, poor woman. Put your trust in God;He will protect you.’

Mrs Bird and her husband re-entered the parlour. She sat down in her little rocking-chair before the fire, swaying thoughtfully to and fro.Mr Bird strode up and down the room, grumbling to himself. ‘Pish!pshaw! confounded awkward business!’ At length, striding up to his wife,he said—

‘I say, wife, she’ll have to get away from here, this very night. That fellow will be down on the scent bright and early tomorrow morning. If’twas only the woman, she could lie quiet till it was over, but that little chap can’t be kept still by a troop of horse and foot, I’ll warrant me;he’ll bring it all out, popping his head out of some window or door. A pretty kettle of fish it would be for me, too, to be caught with them both here just now! No! they’ll have to be got off tonight.’

‘Tonight! How is it possible? Where to?’

‘Well, I know pretty well where to,’ said the senator, beginning to put on his boots, with a reflective air; and, stopping when his leg was half in, he embraced his knee with both hands, and seemed to go off in deep meditation.

‘It’s a confounded awkward, ugly business,’ said he at last, beginning to tug at his boot-straps again, ‘and that’s a fact!’ After one boot was fairly on, the senator sat with the other in his hand, profoundly studying the figure of the carpet. ‘It will have to be done, though, for aught I see—hang it all!’ And he drew the other boot anxiously on, and looked out of the window.

Now, little Mrs Bird was a discreet woman—a woman who never in her life said, ‘I told you so!’ and, on the present occasion, though pretty well aware of the shape her husband’s meditations were taking, she very prudently forbore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her chair,and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord’s intentions, when he should think proper to utter them.

‘You see,’ he said, ‘there’s my old client, Van Trompe, has come over from Kentucky, and set all his slaves free; and he has bought a place seven miles up the creek here, back in the woods, where nobody goes, unless they go on purpose; and it’s a place that isn’t found in a hurry. There she’d be safe enough: but the plague of the thing is, nobody could drive a carriage there tonight, but me .’

‘Why not? Cudjoe is an excellent driver.’

‘Ay, ay, but here it is. The creek has to be crossed twice; and the second crossing is quite dangerous unless one knows it as I do. I have crossed it a hundred times on horseback, and know exactly the turns to take. And so, you see, there’s no help for it. Cudjoe must put in the horses,as quietly as may be, about twelve o’clock, and I’ll take her over; and then, to give colour to the matter, he must carry me on to the next tavern,to take the stage for Columbus that comes by about three or four, and so it will look as if I had had the carriage only for that. I shall get into business bright and early in the morning. But I’m thinking I shall feel rather cheap there, after all that’s been said and done; but, hang it, I can’t help it!’

‘Your heart is better than your head, in this case, John,’ said the wife,laying her little white hand on his. ‘Could I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?’ And the little woman looked so handsome with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that the senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow, to get such a pretty creature into such a passionate admiration of him; and so, what could he do but walk off soberly to see about the carriage? At the door, however, he stopped a moment, and then coming back, he said, with some hesitation—

‘Mary, I don’t know how you’d feel about it, but there’s that drawer full of things—of—of—poor little Henry’s.’ So saying, he turned quickly on his heel, and shut the door after him.

His wife opened the little bedroom door adjoining her room, and,taking the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer,and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy-like, had followed close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at their mother. And, O mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so.

Mrs Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping from the folds of a paper. There was a toy-horse and wagon, a top, a ball—memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heartbreak! She sat down by the drawer, and, leaning her head on her hands over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then suddenly raising her head,she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a bundle.

‘Mamma,’ said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, ‘are you going to give away those things?’

‘My dear boys,’ she said, softly and earnestly, ‘if our dear, loving little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common person—to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more heartbroken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send His blessings with them!’

There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer.

After a while, Mrs Bird opened a wardrobe, and, taking from thence a plain, serviceable dress or two, she sat down busily to her work-table, and, with needle, scissors, and thimble at hand, quietly commenced the ‘letting down’ process which her husband had recommended, and continued busily at it till the old clock in the corner struck twelve, and she heard the low rattling of wheels at the door.

‘Mary,’ said her husband, coming in with his overcoat in his hand, ‘you must wake her up now; we must be off.’

Mrs Bird hastily deposited me various articles she had collected in a small plain trunk, and locking it, desired her husband to see it in the carriage, and then proceeded to call the woman. Soon arrayed in a cloak,bonnet, and shawl, that had belonged to her benefactress, she appeared at the door with her child in her arms. Mr Bird hurried her into the carriage,and Mrs Bird pressed on after her to the carriage steps. Eliza leaned out of the carriage, and put out her hand, a hand as soft and beautiful as was given in return. She fixed her large, dark eyes, frill of earnest meaning,on Mrs Bird’s face, and seemed going to speak. Her lips moved, she tried once or twice, but there was no sound, and pointing upward, with a look never to be forgotten, she fell back in the seat, and covered her face. The door was shut, and the carriage drove on.

What a situation, now, for a patriotic senator, that had been all the week before spurring up the legislature of his native state to pass more stringent resolutions against escaping fugitives, their harbourers and abettors!

Our good senator in his native state had not been exceeded by any of his brethren at Washington, in the sort of eloquence which has won for them immortal renown! How sublimely he had sat with his hands in his pockets, and scouted all sentimental weakness of those who would put the welfare of a few miserable fugitives before great state interests!

He was as bold as a lion about it, and ‘mightily convinced’ not only himself, but everybody that heard him; but then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word; or, at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle, with ‘Ran away from the subscriber’ under it. The magic of the real presence of distress,the imploring human eye, the frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony, these he had never tried. He had never thought that a fugitive might be a hapless mother, a defenceless child, like that one which was now wearing his lost boy’s little well-known cap; and so, as our poor senator was not stone or steel, as he was a man, and a downright noble-hearted one, too, he was, as everybody must see, in a sad case for his patriotism. And you need not exult over him, good brother of the Southern States; for we have some inklings that many of you, under similar circumstances, would not do much better. We have reason to know,in Kentucky, as in Mississippi, are noble and generous hearts, to whom never was tale of suffering told in vain. Ah, good brother! is it fair for you to expect of us services which your own brave, honourable heart, would not allow you to render, were you in our place?

Be that as it may, if our good senator was a political sinner, he was in a fair way to expiate it by his night’s penance. There had been a long continuous period of rainy weather, and the soft rich earth of Ohio, as everyone knows, is admirably suited to the manufacture of mud, and the road was an Ohio railroad of the good old times.

‘And pray, what sort of a road may that be?’ says some eastern traveller,who has been accustomed to connect no ideas with a railroad but those of smoothness or speed.

Know then, innocent eastern friend, that in benighted regions of the west, where the mud is of unfathomable and sublime depth, roads are made of round rough logs, arranged transversely side by side, and coated over in their pristine freshness with earth, turf, and whatsoever may come to hand,and then the rejoicing native calleth it a road, and straightway essayeth to ride thereupon. In process of time, the rains wash off all the turf and grass aforesaid, move the logs hither and thither, in picturesque positions, up,down and crosswise, with divers chasms and ruts of black mud intervening.

Over such a road as this our senator went stumbling along, making moral reflections as continuously as under the circumstances could be expected, the carriage proceeding along much as follows: bump! bump!bump! slush! down in the mud!—the senator, woman, and child, reversing their positions so suddenly as to come, without any very accurate adjustment,against the windows of the downhill side. Carriage sticks fast, while Cudjoe on the outside is heard making a great muster among the horses.After various ineffectual pullings and twitchings, just as the senator is losing all patience, the carriage suddenly rights itself with a bounce, two front wheels go down into another abyss, and senator, woman, and child,all tumble promiscuously on to the front seat; senator’s hat is jammed over his eyes and nose quite unceremoniously, and he considers himself fairly extinguished; child cries, and Cudjoe on the outside delivers animated addresses to the horses, who are kicking, and floundering, and straining,under repeated cracks of the whip. Carriage springs up with another bounce—down go the hind wheels—senator, woman, and child, fly over on to the back seat, his elbows encountering her bonnet, and both her feet being jammed into his hat, which flies off in the concussion. After a few moments the ‘slough’ is passed, and the horses stop, panting; the senator finds his hat, the woman straightens her bonnet and hushes her child, and they brace themselves firmly for what is yet to come

For a while only the continuous bump! bump! intermingled, just by way of variety, with divers side plunges and compound shakes, and they begin to flatter themselves that they are not so badly off after all. At last,with a square plunge, which puts all on to their feet and then down into their seats with incredible quickness, the carriage stops, and, after much outside commotion, Cudjoe appears at the door.

‘Please, sir, it’s powerful bad spot, this yer. I don’t know how we’s to get clar out. I’m a thinkin’ we’ll have to be a gettin’ rails.’

The senator despairingly steps out, picking gingerly for some firm foothold. Down goes one foot an immeasurable depth, he tries to pull it up,loses his balance, and tumbles over into the mud, and is fishedout in a very despairing condition by Cudjoe.

But we forbear, out of sympathy to our readers’ bones. Western travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting process of pulling down rail fences to ply their carriages out of mud holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a silent tear and pass on.

It was full late in the night when the carriage emerged, dripping and bespattered, out of the creek, and stood at the door of a large farmhouse. It took no inconsiderable perseverance to arouse the inmates; but at last the respectable proprietor appeared, and undid the door. He was a great, tall,bristling Orson of a fellow, full six feet and some inches in his stockings,and arrayed in a red flannel hunting-shirt. A very heavy mat of sandy hair, in a decidedly tousled condition, and a beard of some days’ growth, gave the worthy man an appearance, to say the least, not particularly prepossessing.He stood for a few minutes holding the candle aloft, and blinking on our travellers with a dismal and mystified expression that was truly ludicrous.It cost some effort of our senator to induce him to comprehend the case fully; and while he is doing his best at that, we shall give him a little introduction to our readers.

Honest old John Van Trompe was once quite a considerable landholder and slave-owner in the State of Kentucky. Having ‘nothing of the bear about him but the skin’, and being gifted by nature with a great, honest,just heart, quite equal to his gigantic frame, he had been for some years witnessing with repressed uneasiness the workings of a system equally bad for oppressor and oppressed. At last, one day, John’s great heart had swelled altogether too big to wear his bonds any longer, so he just took his pocket-book out of his desk, and went over into Ohio, and bought a quarter of a township of good, rich land, made out free papers for all his people,men, women, and children, packed them up in wagons, and sent them off to settle down; and then honest John turned his face up the creek, and sat quietly down on a snug, retired farm, to enjoy his conscience and his reflections

‘Are you the man that will shelter a poor woman and child from slavecatchers?’ said the senator, explicitly.

‘I rather think I am,’ said honest John, with some considerable emphasis.

‘I thought so,’ said the senator.

‘If there’s anybody comes,’ said the good man, stretching his tall,muscular form upward, ‘why here I’m ready for him; and I’ve got seven sons, each six foot high, and they’ll be ready for ’em. Give our respects to’em,’ said John; ‘tell ’em it’s no matter how soon they call, make no kinder difference to us,’ said John, running his fingers through the shock of hair that thatched his head, and bursting out into a great laugh.

Weary, jaded, and spiritless, Eliza dragged herself up to the door,with her child lying, in a heavy sleep, on her arm. The rough man held the candle to her face, and uttering a kind of compassionate grunt, opened the door of a small bedroom adjoining to the large kitchen where they were standing, and motioned her to go in. He took down a candle, and lighting it, set it upon the table, and then addressed himself to Eliza.

‘Now, I say, gal, you needn’t be a bit afeard, let who will come here. I’m up to all that sort o’ thing,’ said he, pointing to two or three goodly rifles over the mantelpiece; ‘and most people that know me know that ’twouldn’t be healthy to try to get anybody out o’ my house when I’m agin it. So now you jist go to sleep now, as quiet as if yer mother was a rockin’ ye,’ said he,as he shut the door.

‘Why, this is an uncommon handsome un,’ he said to the senator. ‘Ah,well; handsome uns has the greatest cause to run sometimes, if they has any kind o’ feeling, such as decent women should. I know all about that.’

The senator, in a few words, briefly explained Eliza’s history

‘O! ou! aw! now, I want to know?’ said the good man, pitifully; ‘sho!now, sho! That’s natur now, poor crittur! hunted down now like a deer—hunted down, jest for havin’ natural feelin’s, and doin’ what no kind o’mother could help a doin’! I tell ye what, these yer things make me come the nighest to swearin’, now, o’ most anything,’ said honest John, as he wiped his eyes with the back of a great freckled, yellow hand. ‘I tell yer what,stranger, it was years and years before I’d jine the church, ’cause the ministers round in our parts used to preach that the Bible went in for these ere cuttings up; and I couldn’t be up to ’em with their Greek and Hebrew, and so I took up agin ’em, Bible and all. I never jined the church till I found a minister that was up to ’em all in Greek and all that, and he said right the contrary; and then I took right hold, and jined the church—I did now, fact,’said John, who had been all this time uncorking some very frisky bottled cider, which at this juncture he presented.

‘Ye’d better jest put up here, now, till daylight,’ said he, heartily, ‘and I’ll call up the old woman, and have a bed got ready for you in no time.’

‘Thank you, my good friend,’ said the senator, ‘I must be along, to take the night stage for Columbus.’

‘Ah, well, then, if you must, I’ll go a piece with you, and show you a cross road that will take you there better than the road you came on. That road’s mighty bad.’

John equipped himself, and, with a lantern in hand, was soon seen guiding the senator’s carriage towards a road that ran down in a hollow, at the back of his dwelling. When they parted, the senator put into his hand a ten-dollar bill.

‘It’s for her,’ he said briefly

‘Ay, ay,’ said John, with equal conciseness.

They shook hands and parted. uiki1egMmpAvEWgi4O2zi2SDmZOK7Kg86w3tqKyRiAbb9hvVGmLUeRsStMeOLHp8

点击中间区域
呼出菜单
上一章
目录
下一章
×