The Colonel's Dream
Page 36
_Thirty-six_
The colonel's eyes were heavy with grief that night, and yet he layawake late, and with his sorrow were mingled many consoling thoughts.The people, his people, had been kind, aye, more than kind. Their warmhearts had sympathised with his grief. He had sometimes been impatientof their conservatism, their narrowness, their unreasoning pride ofopinion; but in his bereavement they had manifested a feeling that itwould be beautiful to remember all the days of his life. All thepeople, white and black, had united to honour his dead.
He had wished to help them--had tried already. He had loved the townas the home of his ancestors, which enshrined their ashes. He wouldmake of it a monument to mark his son's resting place. His fightagainst Fetters and what he represented should take on a newcharacter; henceforward it should be a crusade to rescue fromthreatened barbarism the land which contained the tombs of his lovedones. Nor would he be alone in the struggle, which he now clearlyforesaw would be a long one. The dear, good woman he had asked to behis wife could help him. He needed her clear, spiritual vision; and inhis lifelong sorrow he would need her sympathy and companionship; forshe had loved the child and would share his grief. She knew the peoplebetter than he, and was in closer touch with them; she could help himin his schemes of benevolence, and suggest new ways to benefit thepeople. Phil's mother was buried far away, among her own people; couldhe consult her, he felt sure she would prefer to remain there. Hereshe would be an alien note; and when Laura died she could lie withthem and still be in her own place.
"Have you heard the news, sir," asked the housekeeper, when he camedown to breakfast the next morning.
"No, Mrs. Hughes, what is it?"
"They lynched the Negro who was in jail for shooting young Mr. Fettersand the other man."
The colonel hastily swallowed a cup of coffee and went down town. Itwas only a short walk. Already there were excited crowds upon thestreet, discussing the events of the night. The colonel sought Caxton,who was just entering his office.
"They've done it," said the lawyer.
"So I understand. When did it happen?"
"About one o'clock last night. A crowd came in from Sycamore--not allat once, but by twos and threes, and got together in Clay Johnson'ssaloon, with Ben Green, your discharged foreman, and a lot of otherriffraff, and went to the sheriff, and took the keys, and took Johnsonand carried him out to where the shooting was, and----"
"Spare me the details. He is dead?"
"Yes."
A rope, a tree--a puff of smoke, a flash of flame--or a barbaric orgyof fire and blood--what matter which? At the end there was a lump ofclay, and a hundred murderers where there had been one before.
"Can we do anything to punish _this_ crime?"
"We can try."
And they tried. The colonel went to the sheriff. The sheriff said hehad yielded to force, but he never would have dreamed of shooting todefend a worthless Negro who had maimed a good white man, had nearlykilled another, and had declared a vendetta against the white race.
By noon the colonel had interviewed as many prominent men as he couldfind, and they became increasingly difficult to find as it becameknown that he was seeking them. The town, he said, had been disgraced,and should redeem itself by prosecuting the lynchers. He may as wellhave talked to the empty air. The trail of Fetters was all over thetown. Some of the officials owed Fetters money; others were underpolitical obligations to him. Others were plainly of the opinion thatthe Negro got no more than he deserved; such a wretch was not fit tolive. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of suicide, a grim jokewhich evoked some laughter. Doctor McKenzie, to whom the colonelexpressed his feelings, and whom he asked to throw the influence ofhis church upon the side of law and order, said:
"It is too bad. I am sorry, but it is done. Let it rest. No good canever come of stirring it up further."
Later in the day there came news that the lynchers, after completingtheir task, had proceeded to the Dudley plantation and whipped all theNegroes who did not learn of their coming in time to escape, the claimbeing that Johnson could not have maintained himself in hiding withouttheir connivance, and that they were therefore parties to his crimes.
The colonel felt very much depressed when he went to bed that night,and lay for a long time turning over in his mind the problem thatconfronted him.
So far he had been beaten, except in the matter of the cotton mill,which was yet unfinished. His efforts in Bud Johnson's behalf--theonly thing he had undertaken to please the woman he loved, had provedabortive. His promise to the teacher--well, he had done his part, butto no avail. He would be ashamed to meet Taylor face to face. Withwhat conscience could a white man in Clarendon ever again ask a Negroto disclose the name or hiding place of a coloured criminal? In theeffort to punish the lynchers he stood, to all intents and purposes,single-handed and alone; and without the support of public opinion hecould do nothing.
The colonel was beaten, but not dismayed. Perhaps God in his wisdomhad taken Phil away, that his father might give himself morecompletely and single-mindedly to the battle before him. Had Phillived, a father might have hesitated to expose a child's young andimpressionable mind to the things which these volcanic outbursts ofpassion between mismated races might cause at any unforeseen moment.Now that the way was clear, he could go forward, hand in hand with thegood woman who had promised to wed him, in the work he had laid out.He would enlist good people to demand better laws, under which Fettersand his kind would find it harder to prey upon the weak.
Diligently he would work to lay wide and deep the foundations ofprosperity, education and enlightenment, upon which should restjustice, humanity and civic righteousness. In this he would find aworthy career. Patiently would he await the results of his labours,and if they came not in great measure in his own lifetime, he would becontent to know that after years would see their full fruition.
So that night he sat down and wrote a long answer to Kirby's letter,in which he told him of Phil's death and burial, and his own grief.Something there was, too, of his plans for the future, including hismarriage to a good woman who would help him in them. Kirby, he said,had offered him a golden opportunity for which he thanked himheartily. The scheme was good enough for any one to venture upon. Butto carry out his own plans, would require that he invest his money inthe State of his residence, where there were many openings for capitalthat could afford to wait upon development for large returns. He senthis best regards to Mrs. Jerviss, and his assurance that Kirby's planwas a good one. Perhaps Kirby and she alone could handle it; if not,there must be plenty of money elsewhere for so good a thing.
He sealed the letter, and laid it aside to be mailed in the morning.To his mind it had all the force of a final renunciation, a severanceof the last link that bound him to his old life.
Long the colonel lay thinking, after he retired to rest, and themuffled striking of the clock downstairs had marked the hour ofmidnight ere he fell asleep. And he had scarcely dozed away, when hewas awakened by a scraping noise, as though somewhere in the house aheavy object was being drawn across the floor. The sound was notrepeated, however, and thinking it some trick of the imagination, hesoon slept again.
As the colonel slept this second time, he dreamed of a regeneratedSouth, filled with thriving industries, and thronged with a prosperousand happy people, where every man, having enough for his needs, waswilling that every other man should have the same; where law and ordershould prevail unquestioned, and where every man could enter, throughthe golden gate of hope, the field of opportunity, where lay theprizes of life, which all might have an equal chance to win or lose.
For even in his dreams the colonel's sober mind did not stray beyondthe bounds of reason and experience. That all men would ever be equalhe did not even dream; there would always be the strong and the weak,the wise and the foolish. But that each man, in his little life inthis our little world might be able to make the most of himself, wasan ideal which even the colonel's waking hours would not haverepudiated.
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bsp; Following this pleasing thread with the unconscious rapidity ofdreams, the colonel passed, in a few brief minutes, through a long anduseful life to a happy end, when he too rested with his fathers, bythe side of his son, and on his tomb was graven what was said of BenAdhem: "Here lies one who loved his fellow men," and the furtherwords, "and tried to make them happy."
* * * * *
Shortly after dawn there was a loud rapping at the colonel's door:
"Come downstairs and look on de piazza, Colonel," said the agitatedvoice of the servant who had knocked. "Come quick, suh."
There was a vague terror in the man's voice that stirred the colonelstrangely. He threw on a dressing gown and hastened downstairs, and tothe front door of the hall, which stood open. A handsome mahoganyburial casket, stained with earth and disfigured by rough handling,rested upon the floor of the piazza, where it had been depositedduring the night. Conspicuously nailed to the coffin lid was a sheetof white paper, upon which were some lines rudely scrawled in ahandwriting that matched the spelling:
_Kurnell French_:
_Take notis. Berry yore ole nigger somewhar else. He can't stay in Oak Semitury. The majority of the white people of this town, who dident tend yore nigger funarl, woant have him there. Niggers by there selves, white peepul by there selves, and them that lives in our town must bide by our rules._
_By order of_ CUMITTY.