“Ah, Nin! my pretty little Nin! Bless the child! She did? Why couldn’t she come over herself, and comfort an old fellow’s heart? Nin is the prettiest girl in the county! I tell you that, Harry!”
“Miss Nina is in a good deal of trouble. Master Tom came home last night drunk, and to-day he is so cross and contrary she can’t do anything with him.”
“Drunk? Oh, what a sad dog! Tom gets drunk too often! Carries that too far, altogether! Told him that, the last time I talked to him. Says I, ‘Tom, it does very well for a young man to have a spree once in one or two months. I did it myself, when I was young. But,’ says I, ‘Tom, to spree all the time won’t do, Tom!’ says I. ‘Nobody minds a fellow being drunk occasionally; but he ought to be moderate about it, and know where to stop,’ says I; ‘because, when it comes to that, that he is drunk every day, or every other day, why, it’s my opinion that he may consider the devil’s got him!’ I talked to Tom just so, right out square; because, you see, I’m in a father’s place to him. But, Lord, it don’t seem to have done him a bit of good! Good Lord! they tell me he is drunk one half his time, and acts like à crazy creature! Goes too far, Tom does, altogether. Mrs. G. ain’t got any patience with him. She blasts at him every time he comes here, and he blasts at her; so it ain’t very comfortable having him here. Good woman at heart, Mrs. Gordon, but a little strong in her ways, you know; and Tom is strong, too. So it’s fire fight fire when they get together. It’s noways comfortable to a man wanting to have everybody happy around him. Lord bless me! I wish Nin were my daughter! Why can’t she come over here, and live with me? She hasn’t got any more spirit in her than just what I like. Just enough fizz in her to keep one from flatting out. What about those beaux of hers? Is she going to be married? Hey?”
“There’s two gentlemen there, attending upon Miss Nina. One is Mr. Carson, of New York” —
“Hang it all! she isn’t going to marry a d — d Yankee! Why, brother would turn over in his grave!”
“I don’t think it will be necessary to put himself to that trouble,” said Harry, “for I rather think it’s Mr. Clayton who is to be the favored one.”
“Clayton! good blood! — like that! Seems to be a gentlemanly good fellow, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, sir. He owns a plantation, I’m told, in South Carolina.”
“Ah! ah! that’s well! But I hate to spare Nin! I never half liked sending her off to New York. Don’t believe in boarding-schools. I’ve seen as fine girls grown on plantations as any man need want. What do we want to send our girls there, to get fipenny-bit ideas? I thank the Lord I never was in New York, and I never mean to be! Carolina born and raised, I am; and my wife is Virginia — pure breed! No boarding-school about her! And when I stood up to be married to her, there wasn’t a girl in Virginia could stand up with her. Her cheeks were like damask roses! A tall, straight, lively girl, she was! Knew her own mind, and had a good notion of speaking it, too. And there isn’t a woman, now, that can get through the business she can, and have her eyes always on everything. If it does make me uncomfortable, every now and then, I ought to take it, and thank the Lord for it. For if it wa’n’t for her, what with the overseer, and the niggers, and the poor white trash, we should all go to the devil in a heap!”
“Miss Nina sent me over here to be out of Master Tom’s way,” said Harry, after a pause. “He is bent upon hectoring me, as usual. You know, sir, that he always had a spite against me, and it seems to grow more and more bitter. He quarrels with her about the management of everything on the place; and you know, sir, that I try to do my very best, and you and Mrs. Gordon have always been pleased to say that I did well.”
“So we did, Harry, my boy! So we did! Stay here as long as you like. Just suit yourself about that. Maybe you’d like to go out shooting with me.”
“I’m worried,” said Harry, “to be obliged to be away just at the time of putting in the seed. Everything depends upon my overseeing.”
“Why don’t you go hack, then? Tom’s ugliness is nothing but because he is drunk. There’s where it is! I see through it! You see, when a fellow has had a drunken spree, why, the day after it he is all at loose ends and cross — nerves all raveled out, like an old stocking. Then fellows are sulky and surly like. I’ve heard of their having temperance societies up in those northern states, and I think something of that sort would be good for our young men. They get drunk too often. Full a third of them, I should reckon, get the delirium tremens before they are fifty. If we could have a society like them, and that sort of thing, and agree to be moderate! Nobody expects young men to be old before their time; but if they’d agree not to blow out more than once a month, or something in that way!”
“I’m afraid,” said Harry, “Master Tom’s too far gone for that.”
“Oh, ay! yes! Pity, pity! Suppose it is so. Why, when a fellow gets so far, he’s like a nigger’s old patched coat — you can’t tell where the real cloth is. Now, Tom; I suppose he never is himself — always up on a wave, or down in the trough! Heigho! I’m sorry!”
“It’s very hard on Miss Nina,” said Harry. “He interferes, and I have no power to stand for her. And, yesterday, he began talking to my wife in a way I can’t bear, nor won’t! He must let her alone!”
“Sho! sho!” said Mr. Gordon. “See what a boy that is, now! That ain’t in the least worth while — that ain’t! I shall tell Tom so. And, Harry, mind your temper! Remember, young men will be young; and if a fellow will treat himself to a pretty wife, he must expect trials. But Tom ought not to do so. I shall tell him. High! there comes Jake, with the basket and the smoke-house key. Now for something to send down to those poor hobgoblins. If people are going to starve, they mustn’t come on to my place to do it. I don’t mind what I don’t see — I wouldn’t mind if the whole litter of ’em was drowned to-morrow; but, hang it, I can’t stand it if I know it! So, here, Jake, take this ham and bread, and look ’em up an old skillet, and see if you can’t tinker up the house a bit. I’d set the fellow to work, when he comes back, only we have two hands to every turn, now, and the niggers always plague ‘em. Harry, you go home, and tell Nin Mrs. G. and I will be over to dinner.”
CHAPTER XVIII
DRED
HARRY spent the night at the place of Mr. John Gordon, and arose the next morning in a very discontented mood of mind. Nothing is more vexatious to an active and enterprising person than to be thrown into a state of entire idleness; and Harry, after lounging about for a short time in the morning, found his indignation increased by every moment of enforced absence from the scene of his daily labors and interest. Having always enjoyed substantially the privileges of a free man in the ability to regulate his time according to his own ideas, to come and go, to buy and sell, and transact business unfettered by any felt control, he was the more keenly alive to the degradation implied in his present position.
“Here I must skulk around,” said he to himself, “like a partridge in the bushes, allowing everything to run at loose ends, preparing the way for my being found fault with for a lazy fellow by and by; and all for what? Because my younger brother chooses to come, without right or reason, to domineer over me, to insult my wife; and because the laws will protect him in it, if he does it! Ah! ah! that’s it. They are all leagued together! No matter how right I am — no matter how bad he is! Everybody will stand up for him, and put me down; all because my grandmother was born in Africa, and his grandmother was born in America. Confound it all, I won’t stand it! Who knows what he’ll be saying and doing to Lisette while I am gone? I’ll go back and face him, like a man!
I’ll keep straight about my business, and if he crosses me, let him take care! He hasn’t got but one life, any more than I have. Let him look out!”
And Harry jumped upon his horse, and turned his head homeward. He struck into a circuitous path, which led along that immense belt of swampy land to which the name of Dismal has been given. As he was riding along immersed in thought, the clatter of horses’ feet was heard in front of
him. A sudden turn of the road brought him directly facing to Tom Gordon and Mr. Jekyl, who had risen early and started off on horseback, in order to reach a certain stage depot before the heat of the day. There was a momentary pause on both sides; when Tom Gordon, like one who knows his power, and is determined to use it to the utmost, broke out scornfully: —
“Stop, you d — d nigger, and tell your master where you are going!”
“You are not my master!” said Harry, in words whose concentrated calmness conveyed more bitterness and wrath than could have been given by the most violent outburst.
“You d — d whelp!” said Tom Gordon, striking him across the face twice with his whip, “take that, and that! We’ll see if I’m not your master! There, now, help yourself, won’t you? Isn’t that a master’s mark?”
It had been the lifelong habit of Harry’s position to repress every emotion of anger within himself. But at this moment his face wore a deadly and frightful expression. Still, there was something majestic and almost commanding in the attitude with which he reined back his horse, and slowly lifted his hand to heaven. He tried to speak, but his voice was choked with repressed passion. At last he said: —
“You may be sure, Mr. Gordon, this mark will never be forgotten!”
There are moments of high excitement, when all that is in a human being seems to be roused, and to concentrate itself in the eye and the voice. And in such moments any man, apparently by virtue of his mere humanity, by the mere awfulness of the human soul that is in him, gains power to overawe those who in other hours scorn him. There was a minute’s pause in which neither spoke; and Mr. Jekyl, who was a man of peace, took occasion to touch Tom’s elbow, and say: —
“It seems to me this isn’t worth while — we shall miss the stage.” And as Harry had already turned his horse and was riding away, Tom Gordon turned his, shouting after him, with a scornful laugh: —
“I called on your wife before I came away this morning, and I liked her rather better the second time than I did the first!”
This last taunt flew like a Parthian arrow backward, and struck into the soul of the bondman with even a keener power than the degrading blow. The sting of it seemed to rankle more bitterly as he rode along, till at last he dropped the reins on his horse’s neck, and burst into a transport of bitter cursing.
“Aha! aha! it has come nigh thee, has it? It toucheth thee, and thou faintest!” said a deep voice from the swampy thicket beside him.
Harry stopped his horse and his imprecations. There was a crackling in the swamp, and a movement among the copse of briers; and at last the speaker emerged, and stood before Harry. He was a tall black man, of magnificent stature and proportions. His skin was intensely black, and polished like marble. A loose shirt of red flannel, which opened very wide at the breast, gave a display of a neck and chest of herculean strength. The sleeves of the shirt, rolled up nearly to the shoulders, showed the muscles of a gladiator. The head, which rose with an imperial air from the broad shoulders, was large and massive, and developed with equal force both in the reflective and perceptive department. The perceptive organs jutted like dark ridges over the eyes, while that part of the head which phrenologists attribute to the moral and intellectual sentiments rose like an ample dome above them. The large eyes had that peculiar and solemn effect of unfathomable blackness and darkness which is often a striking characteristic of the African eye. But there burned in them, like tongues of flame in a black pool of naphtha, a subtle and restless fire that betokened habitual excitement to the verge of insanity. If any organs were predominant in the head, they were those of ideality, wonder, veneration, and firmness; and the whole combination was such as might have formed one of the wild old warrior prophets of the heroic ages. He wore a fantastic sort of turban, apparently of an old scarlet shawl, which added to the outlandish effect of his appearance. His nether garments, of coarse negro-cloth, were girded round the waist by a strip of scarlet flannel, in which were thrust a bowie-knife and hatchet. Over one shoulder he carried a rifle, and a shot-pouch was suspended to his belt. A rude game-bag hung upon his arm. Wild and startling as the apparition might have been, it appeared to be no stranger to Harry; for after the first movement of surprise, he said in a tone of familiar recognition, in which there was blended somewhat of awe and respect: —
“Oh, it is you, then, Dred! I didn’t know that you were hearing me!”
“Have I not heard?” said the speaker, raising his arm, and his eyes gleaming with wild excitement. “How long wilt thou halt between two opinions? Did not Moses refuse to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter? How long wilt thou cast in thy lot with the oppressors of Israel, who say unto thee, ‘Bow down that we may walk over thee’? Shall not the Red Sea be divided? ‘Yea,’ saith the Lord, ‘it shall.’”
“Dred! I know what you mean!” said Harry, trembling with excitement.
“Yea, thou dost!” said the figure. “Yea, thou dost! Hast thou not eaten the fat and drunk the sweet with the oppressor, and hid thine eyes from the oppression of thy people? Have not our wives been for a prey, and thou hast not regarded? Hath not our cheek been given to the smiter? Have we not been counted as sheep for the slaughter? But thou saidst, ‘Lo! I knew it not,’ and didst hide thine eyes! Therefore, the curse of Meroz is upon thee, saith the Lord. And thou shalt bow down to the oppressor, and his rod shall be upon thee; and thy wife shall be for a prey!”
“Don’t talk in that way! — don’t!” said Harry, striking out his hands with a frantic gesture, as if to push back the words. “You are raising the very devil in me!”
“Look here, Harry,” said the other, dropping from the high tone he at first used to that of common conversation, and speaking in bitter irony, “did your master strike you? It’s sweet to kiss the rod, isn’t it? Bend your neck and ask to be struck again! — won’t you? Be meek and lowly! that’s the religion for you! You are a slave, and you wear broadcloth, and sleep soft. By and by he will give you a fip to buy salve for those cuts! Don’t fret about your wife! Women always like the master better than the slave! Why shouldn’t they? When a man licks his master’s foot, his wife scorns him, — serves him right. Take it meekly, my boy! ‘Servants, obey your masters.’ Take your master’s old coats — take your wife when he’s done with her — and bless God that brought you under the light of the gospel! Go! you are a slave! But as for me,” he said, drawing up his head, and throwing back his shoulders with a deep inspiration, “I am a free man!
Tree by this,” holding out his rifle. “Free by the Lord of hosts, that numbereth the stars, and calleth them forth by their names. Go home — that’s all I have to say to you! You sleep in a curtained bed. — I sleep on the ground, in the swamps! You eat the fat of the land. I have what the ravens bring me! But no man whips me!
—— no man touches my wife! — no man says to me, ‘Why do ye so?’ Go! you are a slave! — I am free!” And with one athletic bound, he sprang into the thicket, and was gone.
The effect of this address on the already excited mind of the bondman may be better conceived than described. He ground his teeth and clenched his hands.
“Stop!” he cried; “Dred, I will — I will — I’ll do as you tell me — I will not be a slave!”
A scornful laugh was the only reply, and the sound of crackling footsteps retreated rapidly. He who retreated struck up, in a clear, loud voice, one of those peculiar melodies in which vigor and spirit are blended with a wild, inexpressible mournfulness. The voice was one of a singular and indescribable quality of tone; it was heavy as the sub-bass of an organ, and of a velvety softness, and yet it seemed to pierce the air with a keen dividing force which is generally characteristic of voices of much less volume. The words were the commencement of a wild camp-meeting hymn, much in vogue in those parts: —
“Brethren, don’t you hear the sound?
The martial trumpet now is blowing;
Men in order listing round,
And soldiers to the standard flowing.”
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br /> There was a wild, exultant fullness of liberty that rolled in the note; and, to Harry’s excited ear, there seemed in it a fierce challenge of contempt to his imbecility, and his soul at that moment seemed to be rent asunder with a pang such as only those can know who have felt what it is to be a slave. There was an uprising within him, vague, tumultuous, overpowering; dim instincts, heroic aspirations; the will to do, the soul to dare; and then, in a moment, there followed the picture of all society leagued against him, the hopeless impossibility of any outlet to what was burning within him. The waters of a nature naturally noble, pent up, and without outlet, rolled back upon his heart with a suffocating force; and in his hasty anguish he cursed the day of his birth. The spasm of his emotion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Milly coming along the path.
“Why, bless you, Milly,” said Harry in sudden surprise, “where are you going?”
“Oh, bless you, honey, chile, I’s gwine on to take de stage. Dey wanted to get up de wagon for me; but, bless you, says I, what you s’pose de Lord gin us legs for? I never wants no critturs to tug me round, when I can walk myself. And den, honey, it’s so pleasant like, to be a-walking along in de bush here, in de morning; ‘pears like de voice of de Lord is walking among de trees. But bless you, chile, honey, what’s de matter o’ yer face?”
“It’s Tom Gordon, d — n him!” said Harry.
“Don’t talk dat ar way, chile!” said Milly, using the freedom with Harry which her years and weight of character had gradually secured for her among the members of the plantation.
“I will talk that way! Why shouldn’t I? I am not going to be good any longer.”
“Why, ‘twon’t help de matter to be bad, will it, Harry?’Cause you hate Tom Gordon, does you want to act just like him?”
“No!” said Harry, “I won’t be like him, but I’ll have my revenge! Old Dred has been talking to me again, this morning. He always did stir me up so that I could hardly live; and I won’t stand it any longer!”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 85