The materials for happiness must vary according to the nature of those for whose use they are intended. There are some men to whom the acquisition of a slave would cause a feeling of shame; and there are some boys whose hearts would swell with sorrow at leaving for the first time a gentle mother’s side, to become one of the jarring elements which constitute a school. But in the case of the Whitlaws, both father and son experienced feelings of the most unequivocal delight from these circumstances. Instead of feeling shame, Jonathan senior swelled with pride each time his bold triumphant eye met the fearful glance of the poor wretches he had purchased; and Jonathan junior had need of all his discretion to conceal the outward expression of the joy he felt at being within reach of daily watching the knaveries, cruelties, debaucheries, and drunkenness never absent where a slave population disgraces the soil, and which, if report say true, may be found in as great fullness of abomination at Natchez as at any point of earth afflicted with this curse.
CHAPTER VII.
THE following eight years of the life of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw must be passed over very rapidly by his historian. Sometimes during this interval he was at school, but oftener constrained by his still prosperous father to take a spell of labour with him at Mount Etna.
The youth, however, learned to read, to write, and to cast up an account; and moreover, he had been discovered at the seminary by his old steamboat acquaintance, Colonel Dart, who proved to be, as he had himself stated, a personage every way able to assist the youth in his meritorious wish of advancing his fortune.
Colonel Dart possessed the largest estate and was much the largest slave-holder in the neighbourhood of Natchez. As he was accounted a man of vast wealth, it must be presumed that his affairs were well managed, his overseers faithful and careful of his interest, and the numerous gangs of negroes who worked his plantations as well-ordered as they were profitable. But though all this might be, and perhaps was the case, it is nevertheless a certain fact, that Colonel Dart, though a bachelor and member of Congress to boot, did not always repose upon roses. Either from natural disposition, or from having some secret cause of doubt and dread upon his mind, this gentleman passed his life in a state of gnawing anxiety which the worst flogged negro on his estate would have had no cause to envy.
Many were the schemes he had imagined by which he might obtain private and accurate knowledge of all that was going on among the negroes themselves, and also among the white overseers appointed to superintend them; and the first idea suggested to him by the display of character he had witnessed in young Whitlaw was, that if he could get him sufficiently educated, and attach him closely to his service by gratifying his avarice and ambition, the total dependence on his favour in which it would be easy to keep the son of a squatter might prove a better guarantee for his fidelity, than any he had yet been able to put in action with the confidential clerks he had hitherto employed.
This scheme was in some degree defeated by the improved condition of the Whitlaw family; but the idea of one day being able to convert to his own especial use and benefit the courage, activity, and spirit he had remarked in the boy, was never lost sight of by the judicious planter; and he took care, during the time that young Jonathan passed at Natchez, to impress his observing mind with such a conviction of his wealth and generosity as to generate a most ardent desire on the part of the youth to live within the sunshine of his favour.
But for several years Jonathan senior saw more certain profit to himself in keeping his son at borne than in parting with him; and it was not till he was obliged to confess that the stripling was grown into a man, that the desired arrangement took place.
At the age of eighteen and a half, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw was a tall handsome youth, with a quick restless eye which rarely met that of the person he conversed with — thin lips, but a set of very fine teeth within them — a slow and deliberate manner of speaking — and an air of so much self-possession and confidence, that he was supposed by all who saw him to be at least two years older than he really was.
Great as was the desire of the youth himself to become one of Colonel Dart’s family, it is probable that even then his father might have made some difficulty of parting with so useful and efficient a personage, had not such an alteration taken place in his own family as rendered the absence of his son rather convenient than otherwise. Poor Portia, instead of finding her health improve by her change of residence, fell into a dropsy within a few years after their arrival at Mount Etna, which in three months put an end to her languishing existence.
Her death was certainly no great loss to anyone, and Mr. Jonathan Whitlaw soon conceived hopes that it would prove to him a source of gain. One of the most constant customers at his store was a Miss Belinda Tomkins, a young lady of about thirty-five years of age, who had recently by the death of an uncle become the owner of three stout male and two female negroes. This noble inheritance immediately attracted the attention of the neigbourhood, and more than one owner of a settlement who lacked sufficient hands to work it were meditating an attack upon the heiress’s heart; but the prompt measures of the widower baffled them all, and Miss Belinda avowed her readiness to become Mrs. Whitlaw the second, on condition that “the big son that the poor woman what was gone had left behind her should not be kept at home everlasting to trouble her.”
Poor Clio heard not of this condition, or it might have broken her heart; but it was complied with on the part of the father, and thus was Jonathan Jefferson left at liberty to accept the noble offers made him by his patron, and to become the inmate of a mansion infinitely finer than the finest steam-boat on the river.
Colonel Dart had hitherto spoken but vaguely to his young friend of the duties which it would be his special task to fulfil; and it was not till they met at breakfast on the day following young Whitlaw’s admission as an inmate at Paradise Plantation, that he began to enter upon the explanation of his wishes in a manner sufficiently clear and precise to give the confidential clerk a definite idea of what they would be.
The time was well chosen for insuring the willing obedience of the happy youth to any commands that could be laid on him. The display of Colonel Dart’s breakfast-table might have bribed a spirit less pliant to follow wherever interest led than that of Jonathan Jefferson. The early and delicious spring of that southern climate had already brought a world of bright and beautiful flowers into blossom in the spacious garden upon which the breakfast-room opened. A group of luxuriant orange-trees sent their fragrance through the large windows; and the flocks of green birds that ventured to hang upon the branches of the locust-trees, while they pecked the insects from their bark, looked like the brightest emeralds in Aladdin’s enchanted garden. The whole scene indeed was one of luxury and wealth: the breakfast-table was spread with dainties, of which the most “elegant drams” made a part; and the great man who was the envied lord of all sat opposite young Jonathan, courteously pressing him to partake the good cheer, and treating him so completely as his equal and friend, that it is not surprising if the happy youth received every word which fell from his lips as if he had been listening to the law and the prophets. It was thus the dialogue ran: —
“You find yourself more pleasant here, Jonathan, than at the wooding station, or at the store either, I guess? I expect you would not over-well approve to go back again?”
“No, colonel — I calculate that would not suit me in no way. I always prefer to progress — the turning back would make me giddy, I guess.”
“Then progress you shall, my fine fellow, or the fault will be your own, and none other. I think I must begin to let you a little into my confidence, Jonathan, and then we shall understand one another — .” A glass of fine rum was here proffered and accepted. “How many negurs, Jonathan, do you calculate I may own on this plantation — taking in the sugar, rice, cotton grounds, household gang, breeders, and all?”
This question piqued the sagacity and judgment of the confidential clerk, and he pondered upon it so long that his hot-blo
oded patron waxed impatient. “How the devil should you know, boy? You may say that straight off, and no shame neither. I’ll tell you, Jonathan: I own five hundred — sound in wind and limb, and some of them the most splendid patterns that your sharp eyes ever spied. What d’ye say to that, my lad?”
“’Tis grand, colonel. I’d rather own five hundred negurs than be President. Why, they must sweat into dollars uncountable.”
“Pretty well, for that — and my dollars may roll which way I like. But for all that, Jonathan, ’tis no joke now-a-days to own five hundred blacks, I can tell you, boy. While those infernal varment, the missionary hellhounds, that the devil has taken it into his head to send on earth for the alone purpose of plaguing honest men — while they are creeping about like so many cursed copper-heads among the canes, ’tis no holiday to have five hundred slaves, and know that the best among ’em would eat your heart if they could catch it, and a missionary saying grace the while.”
“But we’ve got no missionaries at Natchez, I expect?” replied the young man, looking rather anxiously for the colonel’s reply.
“And who’s to know that, Jonathan? You’re a smart lad, Whitlaw, and that’s the reason I’ve got you here — but you’ve a thing or two to learn yet, my fine fellow, before you’ll be able to tell me where there are missionaries, and where there are not. Maybe you calculate upon their walking about with a cassock and bands? — I wish they did; I wish to God they did, boy, and I’d have my heel upon their throats slick enough. But that’s not the way in these dreadful times, Jonathan. Those viperous varmint that steal out to Liberia to pick a living out of the nigger beasts, always take a spell of canting among the plantations before they set off; and sometimes they come in one shape, and sometimes in another: there’s no knowing when you’re free from ’em. What d’ye think of catching a horse-doctor that pretended he was going to open a store for drugs — what d’ye think, now, of catching him in the fact of praying with one of my black devils that was dying of the small-pox? True, upon my soul; I was in such an unknown rage that I had the nigger flogged before my eyes as long as there was life in him; but as to the white villain, I was obliged to let him go, because at that time nobody had began to think of taking their own vengeance upon whites; but now, my boy, if we can catch ’em, the business lies in our own hands, as right it should. For where will you find anyone to do justice upon the sneaking, canting, rebellious rascals with such hearty good-will as we that suffers by ’em? And there’s no danger at all, — at least there won’t be in a very little time; for it’s as clear as the sun in heaven, that we shall be supported and approved in State, Senate, and Congress, let us do what we will in self-defence.”
This doctrine of “self-defence” was already in some degree familiar to the young man; and, in common with the great majority of slaveholders, Master Jonathan deemed it a most righteous and Christian-like doctrine. Accordingly he answered with all the zeal and spirit his patron wished, and with eloquence warmed by a second bumper of rum.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Colonel: the man what has not courage to do vengeance for himself, don’t deserve the protection of the law in a free country. It’s all very well for the pitiful slaves of the Old World to sit still when they’re injured, twirling their thumbs maybe, till some feller in a big wig takes their part, and pretends to set all right again. That may do, colonel, in the Old World, but it won’t serve for us. What’s freedom for, if we can’t do what we like with our own born slaves? There’s nothing so dispisable in my mind as a man what’s afraid to kick the life out of his own nigger if he sees good. If ’twasn’t for this, I don’t see where our great superiority over the queer English folks lies, that every man in Congress tells us of as soon as he gets on his legs. Isn’t it that each one man of us here is free to do just what he likes, and nothing else? ’Tis that gives us the right to call ourselves free, and without it I don’t see but we’re just as bad off as the fools t’other side the water.”
Though this was a much longer harangue than Colonel Dart was ever in the habit of listening to, except from himself, the sentiments were in such perfect accordance with his own, that he not only permitted his confidential clerk to come to the conclusion of it without interruption, but very nearly embraced him when he had done.
“You are a glorious fellow, Jonathan,” he exclaimed; “upon my soul, you are! Young as you are, you know how to utter the sentiments of a free people. I shall ever consider you in the light of a friend, and not of a dependant; and if you will only—” continued the planter, lowering his voice, “if you will only look out for the enemies of the good cause, and prove your noble free-born principles in practice, you shall find that an American citizen knows how to be grateful. And after all, Jonathan, what can I do with my money; unless it is to reward a true friend? What family have I got, Jonathan, to trouble myself about? Half-a-dozen yellow girls and their brats. They may be mine, or they may be another man’s; and I’m sure I don’t care a cent whether they’re mine or not, provided I’ve the privilege of owning them: therefore I you may see, my dear boy, that there’s a fine opening at Paradise Plantation for a bold young fellow that would prove himself my friend.”
Young Whitlaw sucked in the honied sweetness of these vague but glorious words; and raising his eyes to those of the colonel, with a more fixed and steady glance than was usual with him, he replied:
“Try me, colonel, and maybe you’ll find me worth something.”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE eight years which had produced such important changes in the Whitlaw family, had not passed without leaving their marks behind them over the inhabitants of Reichland.
Fritz, the eldest son, had persuaded his father, though not without difficulty, to permit his trying his fortune with a merchant in Philadelphia, in whose counting-house he had been placed with a considerable premium by his uncle. For neither time, nor the reiterated assurances of Frederick Steinmark, that money was in no way required for the prosperity of himself and his family, could prevent the baron’s affection and liberality from showing themselves whenever he could find or invent an excuse for making a remittance. Karl, for the last five years, had been in possession of a well-constructed and most profitable mill, situated exactly at that point of the hollow way where the maple-trees grew which Jonathan Whitlaw had so greatly wished to enclose. Hermann was his father’s right-hand, and his right-arm too, in the management of the farm; but Henrich, the pale and meditative Henrich, though only five years old when transplanted to the soil on which he grew, had still the air of an exotic. It was not that the climate disagreed with him; for though he looked delicate, and was too tall for his age, having had the full stature of a man, when he had the muscle of only seventeen years to support it, he was not in bad health, but, as his mother used to say, Henrich’s imagination had never got acclimated. The history, the music, the literature of his own country, were the funds from which he drew all the ideas which constituted his happiness. Henrich was the only one of the family who, in reply to the constant inquiries of the Baron Steinmark, whether he could send nothing from the Old World which might assist in making their retired abode more agreeable, had boldly answered, “Yes, — books, dearest uncle, German books, and engravings of the hills and valleys of our fatherland, and songs such as our peasants sing when they are dressing their vines: send me these, dear uncle, and I will pray for you, — I will pray that not even in your dreams you may change the dearly loved landscapes of your own storied land for such dark and dreary forests as those amidst which we live.”
It was thus Henrich had more than once written to the Westphalian baron; and, in return, he not only received the gifts he asked, but with them an earnest invitation to recross the ocean, and return to his protection and the land of his birth. The thought of this return caused a joy so vehement in the breast of the enthusiastic boy, that he dared not trust himself to express it; but, placing the letter in his father’s hand, he hastened to hide himself in the woods, and only reappeared whe
n he thought he could listen to the paternal decision on the answer to be given to it, with a proper degree of external composure.
That answer very nearly killed him, for it was a negative. Frederick Steinmark could not endure to think that a child of Mary’s should be exposed to the possible insolence of the baroness; and, totally unconscious of the blow he was giving, he returned the letter into the hands of Henrich as soon as he saw him, quietly saying, “No, Henrich, Europe is no longer the home of my family, nor can I permit that one should be severed from the rest. You would find no second mother, my boy, in the Baroness Steinmark.”
The subject was alluded to no more, excepting in those occasional moments of unreserved intercourse with his sister, which formed the only charm of his present existence. Lotte sympathised with him, and this sympathy probably prevented the blow from being mortal.
And what had the eight last years done for Lotte? They had turned a fair-haired bright-eyed little girl, into one of the loveliest nymphs that poetry ever fabled, or that nature ever formed. Her features had all the beautiful regularity of her mother’s; but her loveliness was more derived from a look that recalled the sweet and meditative countenance of her father, than from all the brightness with which youth and beauty had adorned her. There was fascination in her eye, enchantment in her smile, and, when that look of gentle thoughtfulness stole upon her face which nature had made so remarkable in that of Steinmark, there was a charm, a holiness, an intellect in her beauty, that made her, even to the accustomed eyes of her family, appear almost too fair for earth.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 7