CHAPTER LI
THE SLAVE HUNT
TOM GORDON, for the next two or three days after his injury, was about as comfortable to manage as a wounded hyena. He had a thousand varying caprices every hour and moment, and now one and now another prevailed. The miserable girls who were held by him as his particular attendants were tormented by every species of annoyance which a restless and passionate man, in his impatience, could devise.
The recent death of Milly’s mistress by the cholera had reduced her under Tom’s authority; and she was summoned now from her work every hour to give directions and advice, which, the minute they were given, were repudiated with curses.
“I declare,” said Aunt Katy, the housekeeper, “if Mas’r Tom isn’t ‘nough to use a body off o’ der feet. It’s jist four times I’s got gruel ready for him dis last two hours, — doing all I could to suit him; and he swars at it, and flings it round real undecent. Why, he’s got fever, and does he spect to make things taste good to him when he’s got fever! Why, course I can’t, and no need of him calling me a devil and all that! That ar’s very unnecessary, I think. I don’t believe in no such! The Gordons allers used to have some sense to ‘em, even if they was cross; but he ain’t got a grain.
I should think he was ‘sessed wid Old Sam, for my part. Bringing ‘sgrace on us all, the way he cuts up! We really don’ know how to hold up our head, none of us. The Gordons have allers been sich a genteel family! Laws, we didn’t know what privileges we had when we had Miss Nina! Them new girls, dressed up in all their flounces and ferbuloes! Guess they has to take it!”
In time, however, even in spite of his chafing and fretfulness, and contempt of physicians’ prescriptions, Tom seemed to recover, by the same kind of fatality which makes ill weeds thrive apace. Meanwhile he employed his leisure hours in laying plans of revenge, to be executed as soon as he should be able to take to his horse again. Among other things, he vowed deep vengeance on Abijah Skinflint, who, he said, he knew must have sold the powder and ammunition to the negroes in the swamp. This may have been true, or may not; but, in cases of lynch law, such questions are indifferent matter. A man is accused, condemned, and judged, at the will of his more powerful neighbor. It was sufficient to Tom that he thought so, and, being sick and cross, thought so just now with more particular intensity.
Jim Stokes, he knew, cherished an animosity of long standing towards Abijah, which he could make use of in enlisting him in the cause. One of the first uses, therefore, which Tom made of his recovered liberty, after he was able to ride out, was to head a raid on Abijah’s shop. The shop was without ceremony dismantled and plundered; and the mob, having helped themselves to his whiskey, next amused themselves by tarring and feathering him; and, having insulted and abused him to their satisfaction, and exacted a promise from him to leave the State within three days, they returned home glorious in their own eyes. And the next week a brilliant account of the affair appeared in the “Trumpet of Liberty,” headed, “SUMMARY JUSTICE.”
Nobody pitied Abijah, of course; and as he would probably have been quite willing to join in the same sort of treatment for any one else, we know not that we are particularly concerned for his doom. The respectable people in the neighborhood first remarked that they didn’t approve of mobs in general, and then dilated, with visible satisfaction, on this in particular, after a fashion of that stupid class that are called respectable people generally. The foolish mob gloried and exulted, not considering that any day the same weapons might be turned against them. The mob being now somewhat drilled and animated, Tom proposed, while their spirit was up, to get up a hunting in the swamp, which should more fully satisfy his own private vengeance. There is a sleeping tiger in the human breast that delights in violence and blood, and this tiger Tom resolved to unchain.
The act of outlawry had already publicly set up Harry as a mark for whatever cruelty drunken ingenuity might choose to perpetrate. As our readers may have a curiosity in this kind of literature, we will indulge them with a copy of this: —
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, CHOWAN COUNTY.
Whereas, complaint upon oath hath this day been made to us, two of the Justices of the Peace for the said county and State aforesaid, by Thomas Gordon, that a certain male slave belonging to him, named Harry, a carpenter by trade, about thirty-five years old, five feet four inches high or thereabouts; dark complexion, stout built; blue eyes, deep sunk in his head; forehead very square, tolerably loud voice, —— hath absented himself from his master’s service, and is supposed to be lurking about in the swamp, committing acts of felony or other misdeeds: These are, therefore, in the name of the State aforesaid, to command said slave forthwith to surrender himself, and return home to his said master. And we do hereby, by virtue of the act of assembly in such case made and provided, intimate and declare that if the said slave Harry doth not surrender himself, and return home immediately after the publication of these presents, that any person or persons may kill and destroy the said slave by such means as he or they may think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offense for so doing, and without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby.
Given under our hands and seal,
JAMES T. MULLER, ( SEAL.)
T. BUTTERCOURT. ( SEAL.)
(The original document from which this is taken can be seen in the Appendix. It appeared in the Wilmington Journal, December 18, 1850.)
One can scarcely contemplate without pity the condition of a population which grows up under the influence of such laws and customs as these. That the lowest brutality and the most fiendish cruelty should be remorselessly practiced, by those whose ferocity thus receives the sanction of the law, cannot be wondered at. Tom Gordon convened at his house an assemblage of those whom he used as the tools and ministers of his vengeance. Harry had been secretly hated by them all in his prosperous days, because, though a slave, he was better dressed, better educated, and, on the whole, treated with more consideration by the Gordon family and their guests than they were; and, at times, he had had occasion to rebuke some of them for receiving from the slaves goods taken from the plantation. To be sure, while he was prosperous they were outwardly subservient to him, as the great man of a great family; but now he was down, as the amiable fashion of the world generally is, they resolved to make up for their former subservience by redoubled insolence.
Jim Stokes, in particular, bore Harry a grudge for having once expressed himself with indignation concerning the meanness and brutality of his calling; and he was therefore the more willing to be made use of on the present occasion. Accordingly, on the morning we speak of, there was gathered’ before the door of the mansion at Canema a confused mélange of men, of that general style of appearance which, in our times, we call “Border Ruffians,” — half drunken, profane, obscene as the harpies which descended on the feast of Æneas. Tom Gordon had only this advantage among them, that superior education and position had given him the power, when he chose, of assuming the appearance and using the language of a gentleman. But he had enough of grossness within to enable him at will to become as one of them. Tom’s arm was still worn in a sling, but, as lack of energy never was one of his faults, he was about to take the saddle with his troop. At present they were drawn up before the door, laughing, swearing, and drinking whiskey, which flowed in abundance. The dogs — the better-mannered brutes of the two, by all odds —— were struggling in their leashes with impatience and excitement. Tom Gordon stood forth on the veranda, after the fashion of great generals of old, who harangued their troops on the eve of battle. Any one who has read the speeches of the leaders who presided over the sacking of Lawrence will get an idea of some features in this style of eloquence which our pen cannot represent.
“Now, boys,” said Tom, “you are getting your names up. You’ve done some good work already. You’ve given that old, sniveling priest a taste of true orthodox doctrine, that will enlighten him for the future. You’ve given that long-nosed Skinflint light enough to see the error
of his ways.”
A general laugh here arose, and voices repeated, —
“Ah, ah, that we did! Didn’t we, though?”
“I reckon you did!” said Tom Gordon. “I reckon he didn’t need candles to see his sins by, that night! Didn’t we make a candle of his old dog-kennel? Didn’t he have light to see his way out of the State by? and didn’t we give him a suit to keep him warm on the road? Ah, boys, that was a warm suit, — no mistake! It was a suit that will stick to him, too! He won’t trade that off for rum, in a hurry, I’m thinking! Will he, boys?”
Bursts of crazy, half-drunken applause here interrupted the orator.
“Pity we hadn’t put a match to it!” shouted one.
“Ah, well, boys, you did enough for that time! Wait till you catch these sneaking varmints in the swamp; you shall do what you like with them. Nobody shall hinder you, that’s law and order. These foxes have troubled us long ‘enough, stealing at our hen-roosts while we were asleep. We shall make it hot for them if we catch them; and we are going to catch them. There are no two ways about it. This old swamp is like Davy’s coon, — it’s got to come down! And it will come down, boys, when it sees us coming. No mistake about that! Now, boys, mind, catch him alive if you can; but shoot him if you can’t. Remember, I’ll give a hundred and fifty dollars for his head!”
A loud shout chorused this last announcement, and Tom descended in glory to take his place in his saddle.
Once, we suppose, this history would not have been believed had it been told; but of late our own sons and brothers have been hounded and hunted by just such men, with such means.
The fire which began in the dry tree has spread to the green!
Long live the great Christianizing Institution!!!
CHAPTER LII
“ALL OVER”
CLAYTON, at the time of the violent assault which we have described, received an injury upon the head which rendered him insensible. When he came to himself, he was conscious at first only of a fanning of summer breezes. He opened his eyes, and looked listlessly up into the blue sky, that appeared through the thousand leafy hollows of waving boughs. Voices of birds warbling and calling, like answering echoes, to each other, fell dreamily on his ear. Some gentle hand was placing bandages around his head; and figures of women he did not recognize moved whisperingly around him, tending and watching. He dropped asleep again, and thus for many hours lay in a kind of heavy trance.
Harry and Lisette had vacated, for his use, their hut; but as it was now the splendid weather of October, when earth and sky become a temple of beauty and serenity, they tended him during the hours of the day in the open air, and it would seem as if there were no art of healing like to this. As air and heat and water all have a benevolent tendency to enter and fill up a vacuum, so we might fancy the failing vitality of the human system to receive accessions of vigor by being placed in the vicinity of the healthful growths of nature. All the trees which John saw around the river of life and heaven bore healing leaves; and there may be a sense in which the trees of our world bear leaves that are healing both to body and soul. He who hath gone out of the city, sick, disgusted, and wearied, and lain himself down in the forest, under the fatherly shadow of an oak, may have heard this whispered to him in the leafy rustlings of a thousand tongues.
“See,” said Dred to Harry, as they were watching over the yet insensible form of Clayton, “how the word of the Lord is fulfilled on this people. He shall deliver them, every man into the hand of his neighbor; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey!”
“Yes,” said Harry; “but this is a good man; he stands up for our rights. If he had his way, we should soon have justice done us.”
“Yes,” said Dred, “but it is even as it was of old: I Behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men, and some of them shall ye slay. For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears have they closed. Therefore the Lord shall bring upon this generation the blood of all the slain, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, whom they slew between the temple and the altar.’”
After a day or two spent in a kind of listless dreaming, Clayton was so far recovered as to be able to sit up and look about him. The serene tranquillity of the lovely October skies seemed to fall like a spell upon his soul.
Amidst the wild and desolate swamp, here was an island of security, where Nature took men to her sheltering bosom. A thousand birds, speaking with thousand airy voices, were calling from breezy treetops, and from swinging cradles of vine leaves; white clouds sailed, in changing and varying islands, over the heavy green battlements of the woods. The wavering, slumberous sound of thousand leaves, through which the autumn air walked to and fro, consoled him. Life began to look to him like a troubled dream, forever past. His own sufferings, the hours of agony and death which he had never dared to remember, seemed now to wear a new and glorified form. Such is the divine power in which God still reveals himself through the lovely and incorruptible forms of nature.
Clayton became interested in Dred as a psychological study. At first he was silent and reserved, but attended to the wants of his guest with evident respect and kindness. Gradually, however, the love of expression, which lies hidden in almost every soul, began to unfold itself in him, and he seemed to find pleasure in a sympathetic listener. His wild jargon of hebraistic phrases, names, and allusions had for Clayton, in his enfeebled state, a quaint and poetic interest. He compared him, in his own mind, to one of those old rude Gothic doorways, so frequent in European cathedrals, where scriptural images, carved in rough granite, mingle themselves with a thousand wayward, fantastic freaks of architecture; and sometimes he thought, with a sigh, how much might have been accomplished by a soul so ardent and a frame so energetic, had they been enlightened and guided.
Dred would sometimes come, in the shady part of the afternoon, and lie on the grass beside him, and talk for hours in a quaint, rambling, dreamy style, through which there were occasional flashes of practical ability and shrewdness. He had been a great traveler, — a traveler through regions generally held inaccessible to human foot and eye. He had explored not only the vast swamp-girdle of the Atlantic, but the everglades of Florida, with all their strange and tropical luxuriance of growth; he had wandered along the dreary and perilous belt of sand which skirts the southern Atlantic shores, full of quicksands and of dangers, and there he had mused of the eternal secret of the tides, with whose restless, never-ceasing rise and fall the soul of man has a mysterious sympathy.. Destitute of the light of philosophy and science, he had revolved in the twilight of his ardent and struggling thoughts the causes of natural phenomena, and settled these questions for himself by theories of his own. Sometimes his residence for weeks had been a stranded hulk, cast on one of these inhospitable shores, where he fasted and prayed, and fancied that answering voices came to him in the moaning of the wind and the sullen swell of the sea.
Our readers behold him now, stretched on the grass beside the hut of Harry and Lisette, in one of his calmest and most communicative moods. The children, with Lisette and the women, were searching for grapes in a distant part of the inclosure; and Harry, with the other fugitive man, had gone to bring in certain provisions which were to have been deposited for them in a distant part of the swamp by some of their confederates on one of the plantations. Old Tiff was hoeing potatoes diligently in a spot not very far distant, and evidently listening to the conversation with an ear of shrewd attention.
“Yes,” said Dred, with that misty light in his eye which one may often have remarked in the eye of enthusiasts, “the glory holds off, but it is coming! Now is the groaning time! That was revealed to me when I was down at Okerecoke, when I slept three weeks in the hulk of a ship out of which all souls had perished.”
“Rather a dismal abode, my friend,” said Clayton, by way of drawing him on to conversation.
“The Spirit drove me there,” said Dred, “for I had besought the Lord to show unto me the knowledge of
things to come; and the Lord bade me to go from the habitations of men, and to seek out the desolate places of the sea, and dwell in the wreck of a ship that was forsaken, for a sign of desolation unto this people. So I went and dwelt there. And the Lord called me Amraphal, because hidden things of judgment were made known unto me. And the Lord showed unto me that even as a ship which is forsaken of the waters, wherein all flesh have died, so shall it be with the nation of the oppressor.”
“How did the Lord show you this?” said Clayton, bent upon pursuing his inquiry.
“Mine ear received it in the night season,” said Dred, “and I heard how the whole creation groaneth and travaileth, waiting for the adoption; and because of this he hath appointed the tide.”
“I don’t see the connection,” said Clayton. “Why because of this?”
“Because,” said Dred, “every day is full of labor, but the labor goeth back again into the seas. So that travail of all generations hath gone back, till the desire of all nations shall come, and He shall come with burning and with judgment, and with great shakings; but in the end thereof shall be peace. Wherefore it is written that in the new heavens and the new earth there shall be no more sea.”
These words were uttered with an air of solemn, assured confidence, that impressed Clayton strangely. Something in his inner nature seemed to recognize in them a shadow of things hoped for. He was in that mood into which the mind of him who strives with the evils of this world must often fall, — a mood of weariness and longing; and heard within him the cry of the human soul, tempest-tossed and not comforted, for rest and assurance of the state where there shall be no more sea.
“So, then,” he said unto Dred,—” so, then, you believe that these heavens and earth shall be made new?”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 121