Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

“He has escaped,” said Clayton quietly.

  “He got right out of the window,” said Mr. Jekyl.

  “Confound you! why didn’t you stop him?” said Tom violently.

  “If that question is addressed to me,” said Clayton, “I do not interfere in your family affairs.”

  “You have interfered, more than you ever shall again!” said Tom roughly. “But there’s no use talking now; that fellow must be chased! He thinks he’s got away from me, — we’ll see! I’ll make such an example of him as shall be remembered!” He rang the bell violently. “Jim,” he said, “did you see Harry go off on my horse?”

  “Yes, sah!”

  “Then why in thunder didn’t you stop him?”

  “I tought Mas’r Tom sent him, — did so!”

  “You knew better, you dog! And now, I tell you, order out the best horses, and be on after him! And if you don’t catch him, it shall be the worse for you! — Stay! Get me a horse! I’ll go myself.”

  Clayton saw that it was useless to remain any longer at Canema. He therefore ordered his horse, and departed. Tom Gordon cast an evil eye after him as he rode away.

  “I hate that fellow!” he said. “I’ll make him mischief one of these days, if I can!”

  As to Clayton, he rode away in bitterness of spirit. There are some men so constituted that the sight of injustice which they have no power to remedy is perfectly maddening to them. This is a very painful and unprofitable constitution, so far as this world is concerned; but they can no more help it than they can the toothache. Others may say to them, “Why, what is it to you? You can’t help it, and it’s none of your concern;” but still the fever burns on. Besides, Clayton had just passed through one of the great crises of life. All there is in that strange mystery of what man can feel for woman had risen like a wave within him; and, gathering into itself for a time the whole force of his being, had broken, with one dash, on the shore of death, and the waters had flowed helplessly backward. In the great void which follows such a crisis, the soul sets up a craving and cry for something to come in to fill the emptiness; and while the heart says no person can come into that desolate and sacred inclosure, it sometimes embraces a purpose, as in some sort a substitute. In this manner, with solemnity and earnestness, Clayton resolved to receive as a life-purpose a struggle with this great system of injustice, which, like a parasitic weed, had struck its roots through the whole growth of society, and was sucking thence its moisture and nourishment.

  As he rode through the lonely pine woods, he felt his veins throbbing and swelling with indignation and desire. And there arose within him that sense of power which sometimes seems to come over man like an inspiration, and leads him to say, “This shall not be, and this shall be;” as if he possessed the ability to control the crooked course of human events. He was thankful in his heart that he had taken the first step, by entering his public protest against this injustice, in quitting the bar of his native State. What was next to be done, how the evil was to be attacked, how the vague purpose fulfilled, he could not say. Clayton was not aware, any more than others in his situation have been, of what he was undertaking. He had belonged to an old and respected family, and always, as a matter of course, been received in all circles with attention, and listened to with respect. He who glides dreamily down the glassy surface of a mighty river floats securely, making his calculations to row upward. He knows nothing what the force of that seemingly glassy current will be when his one feeble oar is set against the whole volume of its waters. Clayton did not know that he was already a marked man; that he had touched a spot in the society where he lived which was vital, and which that society would never suffer to be touched with impunity. It was the fault of Clayton, and is the fault of all such men, that he judged mankind by himself. He could not believe that anything, except ignorance and inattention, could make men upholders of deliberate injustice. He thought all that was necessary was the enlightening of the public mind, the direction of general attention to the subject. In his way homeward he revolved in his mind immediate measures of action. This evil should no longer be tampered with. He would take on himself the task of combining and concentrating those vague impulses towards good which he supposed were existing in the community. He would take counsel of leading minds. He would give his time to journeyings through the State; he would deliver addresses, write in the newspapers, and do what otherwise lies in the power of a free man who wishes to reach an utterly unjust law. Full of these determinations, Clayton entered again his father’s house, after two days of solitary riding. He had written in advance to his parents of the death of Nina, and had begged them to spare him any conversation on that subject; and therefore, on his first meeting with his mother and father, there was that painful blank, that heavy dullness of suffering, which comes when people meet together feeling deeply on one absorbing subject which must not be named. It was a greater self-denial to his impulsive, warm-hearted mother than to Clayton. She yearned to express sympathy; to throw herself upon his neck; to draw forth his feelings, and mingle them with her own. But there are some people with whom this is impossible; it seems to be their fate that they cannot speak of what they suffer. It is not pride nor coldness, but a kind of fatal necessity, as if the body were a marble prison in which the soul were condemned to bleed and suffer alone. It is the last triumph of affection and magnanimity when a loving heart can respect that suffering silence of its beloved, and allow that lonely liberty in which only some natures can find comfort.

  Clayton’s sorrow could only be measured by the eagerness and energy with which, in conversation, he pursued the object with which he endeavored to fill his mind.

  “I am far from looking forward with hope to any success from your efforts,” said Judge Clayton, “the evil is so radical.”

  “I sometimes think,” said Mrs. Clayton, “that I regret that Edward began as he did. It was such a shock to the prejudices of people.”

  “People have got to be shocked,”said Clayton, “in order to wake them up out of old absurd routine. Use paralyzes us to almost every injustice; when people are shocked, they begin to think and to inquire.”

  “But would it not have been better,” said Mrs. Clayton, “to have preserved your personal influence, and thus have insinuated your opinions more gradually? There is such a prejudice against abolitionists; and when a man makes any sudden demonstration on this subject, people are apt to call him an abolitionist, and then his influence is all gone, and he can do nothing.”

  “I suspect,” said Clayton, “there are multitudes now in every part of our State who are kept from expressing what they really think, and doing what they ought to do, by this fear. Somebody must brave this mad-dog cry; somebody must be willing to be odious; and I shall answer the purpose as well as anybody.”

  “Have you any definite plan of what is to be attempted?” said his father.

  “Of course,” said Clayton, “a man’s first notions on such a subject must be crude; but it occurred to me, first, to endeavor to excite the public mind on the injustice of the present slave law, with a view to altering it.”

  “And what points would you alter?” said Judge Clayton.

  “I would give to the slave the right to bring suit for injury, and to be a legal witness in court. I would repeal the law forbidding their education, and I would forbid the separation of families.”

  Judge Clayton sat pondering. At length he said, “And how will you endeavor to excite the public mind?”

  “I shall appeal first,” said Clayton, “to the church and the ministry.”

  “You can try it,” said his father.

  “Why,” said Mrs. Clayton, “these reforms are so evidently called for by justice and humanity, and the spirit of the age, that I can have no doubt that there will be a general movement among all good people in their favor.”

  Judge Clayton made no reply. There are some cases where silence is the most disagreeable kind of dissent, because it admits of no argument in reply.

  “In
my view,” said Clayton, “the course of legal reform, in the first place, should remove all those circumstances in the condition of the slaves which tend to keep them in ignorance and immorality, and make the cultivation of selfrespect impossibe; such as the want of education, protection in the family state, and the legal power of obtaining redress for injuries. After that, the next step would be to allow those masters who are so disposed to emancipate, giving proper security for the good behavior of their servants. They might then retain them as tenants. Under this system, emancipation would go on gradually; only the best masters would at first emancipate, and the example would be gradually followed. The experiment would soon demonstrate the superior cheapness and efficiency of the system of free labor; and self-interest would then come in, to complete what principle began. It is only the first step that costs. But it seems to me that in the course of my life I have met with multitudes of good people, groaning in secret under the evils and injustice of slavery, who would gladly give their influence to any reasonable effort which promises in time to ameliorate and remove them.”

  “The trouble is,” said Judge Clayton, “that the system, though ruinous in the long run to communities, is immediately profitable to individuals. Besides this, it is a source of political influence and importance. The holders of slaves are an aristocracy supported by special constitutional privileges. They are united, against the spirit of the age, by a common interest and danger, and the instinct of self-preservation is infallible. No logic is so accurate.

  “As a matter of personal feeling, many slave-holders would rejoice in some of the humane changes which you propose; but they see at once that any change endangers the perpetuity of the system on which their political importance depends. Therefore they’ll resist you at the very outset, not because they would not, many of them, be glad to have justice done, but because they think they cannot afford it.

  “They will have great patience with you — they will even have sympathy with you — so long as you confine yourself merely to the expression of feeling; but the moment your efforts produce the slightest movement in the community, then, my son, you will see human nature in a new aspect, and know more about mankind than you know now.”

  “Very well,” said Clayton, “the sooner the better.”

  “Well, Edward,” said Mrs. Clayton, “if you are going to begin with the ministry, why don’t you go and talk to your Uncle Cushing? He is one of the most influential among the Presbyterians in the whole State; and I have often heard him lament, in the strongest manner, the evils of slavery. He has told me some facts about its effect on the character of his church members, both bond and free, that are terrible!”

  “Yes,” said Judge Clayton, “your brother will do all that. He will lament the evils of slavery in private circles, and he will furnish you any number of facts, if you will not give his authority for them.”

  “And don’t you think that he will be willing to do something?”

  “No,” said Judge Clayton, “not if the cause is unpopular.”

  “Why,” said Mrs. Clayton, “do you suppose that my brother will be deterred from doing his duty for fear of personal unpopularity?”

  “No,” said Judge Clayton; “but your brother has the interest of Zion on his shoulders, — by which he means the Presbyterian organization, — and he will say that he can’t afford to risk his influence. And the same will be true of every leading minister of every denomination. The Episcopalians are keeping watch over Episcopacy, the Methodists over Methodism, the Baptists over Baptism. None of them dare espouse an unpopular cause, lest the others, taking advantage of it, should go beyond them in public favor. None of them will want the odium of such a reform as this.”

  “But I don’t see any odium in it,” said Mrs. Clayton. “It’s one of the noblest and one of the most necessary of all possible changes.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Judge Clayton, “it will be made to appear extremely odious. The catch-words of abolition, incendiarism, fanaticism, will fly thick as hail. And the storm will be just in proportion to the real power of the movement. It will probably end in Edward’s expulsion from the State.”

  “My father, I should be unwilling to think,” said Clayton, “that the world is quite so bad as you represent it, — particularly the religious world.”

  “I was not aware that I was representing it as very bad,” said Judge Clayton. “I only mentioned such facts as everybody can see about them. There are undoubtedly excellent men in the church.”

  “But,” said Clayton, “did not the church, in the primitive ages, stand against the whole world in arms? If religion be anything; must it not take the lead of society, and be its sovereign and teacher, and not its slave?”

  “I don’t know as to that,” said Judge Clayton. “I think you’ll find the facts much as I have represented them. What the church was in the primitive ages, or what it ought to be now, is not at all to our purpose in making practical calculations. Without any disrespect, I wish to speak of things just as they are. Nothing is ever gained by false expectations.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Clayton, “you lawyers get so uncharitable! I’m quite sure that Edward will find brother ready to go heart and hand with him.”

  “I’m sure I shall be glad of it, if he does,” said Judge Clayton.

  “I shall write to him about it, immediately,” said Mrs. Clayton, “and Edward shall go and talk with him. Courage, Edward! Our woman’s instincts, after all, have some prophetic power in them. At all events, we women will stand by you to the last.”

  Clayton sighed. He remembered the note Nina had written him on the day of the decision, and thought what a brave-hearted little creature she was; and, like the faint breath of a withered rose, the shadowy remembrance of her seemed to say to him, “Go on!”

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  THE NEW MOTHER

  THE cholera at length disappeared, and the establishment of our old friend Tiff proceeded as of yore. His chickens and turkeys grew to maturity, and cackled and strutted joyously. His corn waved its ripening flags in the September breezes. The grave of the baby had grown green with its first coat of grass, and Tiff was comforted for his loss, because, as he said, “he knowed he’s better off.” Miss Fanny grew healthy and strong, and spent many long sunny hours wandering in the woods with Teddy; or, sitting out on the bench where Nina had been wont to read to them, would spell out with difficulty, for her old friend’s comfort and enlightenment, the half-familiar words of the wondrous story that Nina had brought to their knowledge.

  The interior of the poor cottage bore its wonted air of quaint, sylvan refinement; and Tiff went on with his old dream of imagining it an ancestral residence, of which his young master and mistress were the head, and himself their whole retinue. He was sitting in his tent door, in the cool of the day, while Teddy and Fanny had gone for wild grapes, cheerfully examining and mending his old pantaloons, meanwhile recreating his soul with a cheerful conversation with himself.

  “Now, Old Tiff,” said he, “one more patch on dese yer, ‘cause it ain’t much matter what you w’ars. Mas’r is allers a-promising to bring some cloth fur to make a more ‘specable pair; but, laws, he never does nothing he says he will. Ain’t no trusting in dat ‘scription o’ people, — jiggeting up and down de country, drinking at all de taverns, fetching disgrace on de family, spite o’ all I can do! Mighty long time since he been home, anyhow! Shouldn’t wonder if de cholera’d cotched him! Well, de Lord’s will be done! Pity to kill such critturs? Wouldn’t much mind if he should die! Laws, he ain’t much profit to de family, coming home here wid lots o’ old trash, drinking up all my chicken-money down to’Bijah Skinflint’s! For my part, I believe dem devils, when dey went out o’ de swine, went into de whiskey-bar’l. Dis yer liquor makes folks so ugly! Teddy sha’n’t never touch none as long as dere’s a drop o’ Peyton blood in my veins! Lord, but dis yer world is full o”spensations! Por, dear Miss Nina, dat was a-doin’ for de chil’en! she’s gone up among de angels! Well, bre
ss de Lord, we must do de best we can, and we’ll all land on de Canaan shore at last.”

  And Tiff uplifted a quavering stave of a favorite melody: —

  “My brother, I have found

  The land that doth abound

  With food as sweet as manna.

  The more I eat, I find

  The more I am inclined

  To shout and sing hosanna!”

  “Shoo! shoo! shoo!” he said, observing certain longlegged, half-grown chickens, who were surreptitiously taking advantage of his devotional engrossments to rush past him into the kitchen.

  “‘Pears like dese yer chickens never will larn nothing!” said Tiff, finding that his vigorous “shooing” only scared the whole flock in, instead of admonishing them out. So Tiff had to lay down his work; and his thimble rolled one way, and his cake of wax another, hiding themselves under the leaves; while the hens, seeing Tiff at the door, instead of accepting his polite invitation to walk out, acted in that provoking and inconsiderate way that hens generally will, running promiscuously up and down, flapping their wings, cackling, upsetting pots, kettles, and pans, in promiscuous ruin, Tiff each moment becoming more and more wrathful at their entire want of consideration.

  “Bress me, if I ever did see any kind o’ crittur so shaller as hens!” said Tiff, as, having finally ejected them, he was busy repairing the ruin they had wrought in Miss Fanny’s fanciful floral arrangements, which were all lying in wild confusion. “I tought de Lord made room in every beast’s head for some sense, but ‘pears like hens ain’t got the leastest grain! Puts me out, seeing dem crawking and crawing on one leg, ‘cause dey hain’t got sense ‘nough to know whar to set down toder. Dey never has no idees what dey’s going to do, from morning to night, I b’lieve! But, den, dere’s folks dat’s just like ‘em, dat de Lord has gin brains to, and dey won’t use ‘em. Dey’s always settin’ round, but dey never lays no eggs. So hens ain’t de wust critturs, arter all. And I rally don’ know what we’d do widout ‘em!” said Old Tiff relentingly, as, appeased from his wrath, he took up at once his needle and his psalm, singing lustily and with good courage, —