Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  As a reply to this kind and hospitable question, Cæsar produced from various parts of his dress about three pounds of very solid beefsteak, a jar full of cold hominy, half of a very respectable loaf, and a most comfortable little flask of whisky.

  “Oh, Cæsar! Cæsar!” cried the old woman in a voice of deep concern, “has hunger brought you to this! What will our Phebe say? She’d have died of starvation outright, Cæsar, before she’d have demeaned herself to do such a deed.”

  “Why, mother!” replied Cæsar, laughing heartily, and showing his magnificent teeth from ear to ear, “what do you think I have done? — walked into a public, and helped myself without paying for it, I expect? But I mustn’t be angry with you, ‘cause you’re Phebe’s best friend. However, I haven’t been thieving, mother; and what’s more, I’m hardly the least bit hungry; so if you are, eat away, and welcome.”

  A few minutes’ conversation explained the mystery to Juno, and she was fain to confess that it was one quite beyond her guessing.

  “And is this the first time you have crept out, my poor lad? How weary you must be!”

  “The first time, mother! I expect not. Oh dear! oh dear! what would have become of me if I had never once stretched my poor legs since first I took to skulking! No, no, mother, ‘t has not been as bad as that with me neither; for I have walked about this here forest the best part of every night, and always contrived to be safe again in my loft before the good beyond-sea gentleman came to look for me.”

  “But, Cæsar, what for do you walk about the woods with such a sight of provision? Why, you might walk all night and do nothing but eat, and yet have enough for breakfast in the morning.”

  Cæsar’s gay spirit laughed aloud at the notion of his having provided such an occupation for himself during his nocturnal rambles; but the minute after, he sighed, and answered very sentimentally, “No, mother! it was not to be after eating beefsteaks every step I go that I left the gentleman’s lumber-loft: it was to be looking for my poor Phebe — my beautiful Phebe! Isn’t she a beauty, mother? and didn’t I ought to love her? No, no, I never stirred out one of the nights without carrying with me the next day’s food, that the good master always brought to me soon after it was dark — because — but I am afraid I am a fool — because I thought, mother, that if by hap I found Phebe, we might run off to the woods together, and that I might hide her, and leave her with a good supper, breakfast, and dinner, you see, and then get back to my loft, and come to her again next night.”

  Juno looked at him very sternly as he explained this scheme to her, and then said, “You talk of loving Phebe, you, Master Cæsar! I’ll tell you what, my lad — you’re no more worthy of being Phebe’s lover than I am to be queen of the world. She run away into the woods, and lie munching beefsteaks in a hole till you come back again to bring her more! — Fie, fie, fie, Master Cæsar! If I’d fancied you’d been that sort of chap, you might have walked eastward beyond sunrise for me — I never would have stopped you.”

  “Oh, mother! mother!” cried the poor fellow, wringing his hands, “don’t be so cruel hard upon me! I never did, nor I never will do, anything unworthy of Phebe. Don’t I know her education? — and don’t I look upon her to be something higher and better than a poor black mortal like me? — Only I am so in love, mother, you see, that I couldn’t for the life of me keep nonsense out of my head.”

  “Well, well,” said Juno, considerably softened by this apology, “I must not quarrel with true love, I suppose, let it speak ever so wild; and to say truth, it don’t very, much matter, Master Cæsar, how wild you speak, for Phebe will just do what’s right and nothing else, that you may ‘pend upon.”

  “And where is she all this time?” cried Cæsar, bursting out into a sort of renewed ecstasy, “Where is she? — when may I look upon her?”

  Juno opened the door of her hut and looked up at the bright stars.

  “It is past midnight,” said she, “but there’s time for me to go and come, I expect, before dangers awake. Our head devil’s away to Orleans, Cæsar, and that makes us bold. So if you will sit quiet in that corner, and eat your own supper like an honest man, without stowing away any of it in hopes to entice Phebe into the woods, I’ll go and bring her to you.”

  “Go, mother, go!” cried the delighted negro. “Oh! that ever I should live to see this hour!”

  “You won’t live, Master Caesar, to see many more if you make such outcries as that,” said the old woman, preparing to depart. But stepping back, she added, “Now look you, my lad, this hut is off the grounds a good half mile, and it belongs to me and nobody else, so ’tis but rarely in the broadest sunshine of mid-day that any eyes but my own look within it: for many count that I am a witch, Cæsar; but you are a Christian, and it is not a witch can scare you. Little danger, therefore, is there that human eyes, and those simple ones, should come to peep into it by night, — and so I expect you’re safe enough. But ’tis better sometimes to make sure, surer; so look you here, Cæsar.”

  Juno approached her bed, and pushing it aside, lifted the trap-door, and with a look and attitude sufficiently witchlike to have made some hearts stout enough on ordinary occasions tremble not a little, she pointed to the excavated chamber beneath. This hole, for it was little better, was curiously and very ingeniously ventilated by a sort of chimney that rose behind the hut to the level of the ground outside, but sufficiently surrounded by briars and brambles to escape ten thousand times more observation than was ever likely to fall upon it. This chimney permitted a light placed on a low stool near it to burn clearly, and by its aid the whole of the excavation was made visible. “Here’s my witchcraft, Cæsar,” said Juno, in a chuckling tone, in which triumph and fun were blended. “I have saved the lives of six runaways here already since I have been on the estate, and I may chance to save some more yet, spite of the confidential clerk. If you hear a noise, my lad, that does not begin like this,” — and Juno whistled through the hole in her bamboo, “then dip down here and pull the cord after you, and then you’ll be as safe as the colonel himself — and perhaps a bit safer.”

  Cæsar looked at her and her masterly arrangement with astonishment, then grinned applause, nodded his head, and instantly dipped into the abyss before her eyes, proving that he both understood and could practise her instructions.

  Old Juno made her way to the hut of Peggy in about half the time that would have been allowed her by the most accomplished sporting eye in the world. In truth, this singular power of getting over the ground by a sort of complex movement which it would be impossible to describe was by no means the least important support of her supernatural pretensions.

  A negro hut ever opens with a latch — for all intruders who could annoy the helpless inmates would find a way to achieve an entrance were the door fastened with bars as heavy as those on the gates of Ham. Juno found no difficulty therefore in approaching the bed where Phebe and her mother slept.

  “Phebe!” said the old woman softly.

  “You have found him, Juno!” exclaimed the poor girl, springing out of bed. “Mother! mother! wake! — I am going to see Cæsar!”

  Peggy, who had worked hard and slept heavily, not having that restless fluttering at the heart which had kept Phebe waking during nearly the whole of the two last nights, had some difficulty in fully understanding what was going forward; but when at length it was made clear to her that Cæsar was actually concealed on or near Paradise Plantation, her anxiety clearly proved that she already considered him as a very dear and precious son.

  “Oh Lor! oh Lor!” exclaimed the poor soul in a real agony. “Juno! isn’t this fool-hardy boldness? Think of that dear cretur Cæsar in the hands of the ‘dential clerk!”

  “He’d better be in the hands of the devil, Peggy, that’s a fact — for maybe salvation might fetch him back there, — but for certain sure, mercy would never reach him in the clutches of that other and worser demon. — However, don’t be after scaring the girl with such fancies, when I want to have her steady and
reasonable beyond common. Cæsar is as safe, I tell you, as the President; — so come, Phebe dear; never mind looking smart, girl, — though that’s all in nature; but we have no more than time enough; — come along.”

  “And mayn’t I see dear Cæsar too, Juno?” said the affectionate Peggy, very piteously.

  “And Becky too — and Sally, I suppose!” replied old Juno crossly. “No, you can’t Peggy; one ought to be three witches in one to carry off such jobs as you would put one on: lie still and say nothing to nobody. — Come along, Phebe.”

  In stealthy silence, and keeping cautiously distant from every building, the old woman and her agitated young companion gained at length the place of meeting. Juno stopped before the hut and whistled. In an instant the door flew open, and the weeping Phebe was clasped in the arms of her lover.

  “In, in, foolish children!” cried their protecting genius. “It’s well that the bull-frogs and the cattiedids can tell no tales.”

  If true affection could suffice to make two creatures happy though surrounded by danger and threatened with tortures and death, Cæsar and Phebe must have enjoyed the boon, for their attachment to each other was very strong, and for a few moments perhaps they tasted an unmixed joy. But there is something in the condition of a slave that, beyond every other marked by human misery, defies the power of hope to gild its future; and herein perhaps lies, though it sounds like a paradox, the secret of those light smiles and all that careless merriment of which we are told by those who would defend the abomination. It is only when it is possible that some change may alter our condition that we feel either anxious or hopeful about it. King David fasted and wept while his spirit was suspended between hope and fear; but when all was over — when all hope had fled, he arrayed himself and feasted. A negro slave has no hope for the future; he, therefore, gives himself to the careless merriment of the present whenever it greets him; forgetful perhaps, for the moment, of the labour and the lash that awaits him with the morrow’s sun, but as far removed in his laughter from any feeling that deserves the name of human happiness as the morris-dancer who cuts a caper on a mountebank’s stage.

  After the first few moments, during which nothing was remembered by either but that they were once more together, the sense of Cæsar’s danger came back to the mind of Phebe, and she burst into tears.

  “Oh, Phebe! Phebe!” exclaimed the unhappy young man, “don’t turn so very soon from joy to sorrow! Think what a dear blessing it is to look in one another’s face — and don’t cry, Phebe, till we are forced to part. — And how do they treat my pretty Phebe? — tell me all — tell me all, Phebe,” he repeated, while his voice trembled as he asked the question. “They don’t give her the lash, Juno? — Surely no master could order the lash to Phebe?”

  “No, my dear Cæsar — I have escaped well as yet; don’t think of me — think only of yourself. Oh, Juno! dear, dear, Juno! what is to become of him?” said Phebe, vainly endeavouring to check her tears.

  “And that’s what I must work my old brain to find out. ’Tis no easy job, that’s a fact, children; but maybe I’ll contrive something for him for all that; so wipe up your tears, deary, and forget all about it for tonight.”

  Another trembling half-hour was spent in asking and answering questions concerning their respective situations since they were torn asunder; and then the old woman interfered, with the unwelcome tidings that they must part. The poor souls acknowledged it, declared that she was quite right, and that they would go directly; but still another and another word succeeded, till Juno lost all patience, and finally protested that they should never meet again in her hut if they lingered another moment.

  This threat produced the desired effect; poor Phebe impressed a hasty kiss on Cæsar’s forehead, and was out of sight in a moment.

  “And you have got to steal to your roost at Reichland?” said the old woman, addressing the disconsolate lover; “and that before any of the German people are about? You might as safely march into Congress, and say you won’t be a slave. Just look eastward, Master Cresar, that’s all; just listen to the twittering of the birds, — they are not such fools as you — they know their time if you don’t, and they tell you as loud as they can speak that it’s morning; morning, morning, and that it will be broad daylight in less than an hour; and so, to pay you for your kissing and your jabbering, you must just slip down again into my strong box. There! take your provender with ye — and bide still till I call you.”

  Infinitely too unhappy to discuss the possibility of his getting back to Reichland, and pretty nearly indifferent to what might next befal him, Cæsar uttered not a word, but meekly obeying her commands, let himself down into the recess, which was speedily covered by the trap-door. Another moment sufficed to replace the little bed in its usual position; and so proudly satisfied was Juno with the security of her guest, that she would probably have seen one of their taskmasters enter her dwelling with more of triumph and satisfaction than of alarm.

  CHAPTER IX.

  WITH all her wild vagaries, old Juno was perfectly capable of forming a very just estimate of the value of such a friend as the one Cæsar had found at Reichland; and not only prudently determined that his enforced absence should not be left unexplained, but moreover, that if it were in the power of an old woman to do it, the kindness manifested should be wrought upon, to become still further useful.

  In pursuance of this decision she set off on the following morning for the house of Mr. Steinmark. Notwithstanding her wandering license, she had never entered his premises before, and her shrewd, and in some sort enlightened mind, was powerfully struck by the novel aspect of the whole establishment. In spite of all the sufferings and hated degradation which the system of slavery had brought upon herself, and the misery she had witnessed from its effects on others, Juno had never yet imagined what human nature could be without it. As she entered the large farm-yard, the first peculiarity that attracted her attention was the perfect order and neatness that reigned there. There was something, she hardly knew what, so totally unlike the general air that pervades a scene of labour where slaves are employed, that she seated herself on a block of wood beside the entrance, that she might contemplate it at leisure.

  “Where,” thought Juno, “do they keep all the children? — Maybe they don’t hire breeding servants — and then I expect the little ones don’t roll and tumble about with the other stock, like ours.”

  In truth, there is no feature more remarkable in a regular slave-peopled plantation or farm than the manner in which the children (the multiplication of this branch of produce being one of the most profitable speculations) are seen lying about in the homestead, some half, some wholly naked, all well fattened and fed, but bearing little more resemblance in attitude and action to the being made in God’s own image, than the young swine with whom they associate.

  “And how do they manage,” muttered the old woman, as with her chin resting on her bamboo she continued her examination of the scene, “how do they manage to have all the fences so unaccountable trim, and even the very dunghill kept in handsome shape, and they without a nigger belonging to them?”

  From the still life, her eye was attracted to the widely-opened doors of a large barn opposite to her, in which were two German labourers threshing out wheat. She regarded them steadily for several minutes, and then exclaimed aloud, “If that’s the rate at which a hired white man works, no wonder the master of the land is wealthy. It would take six niggers to do the work of those two.”

  “You’re right there, mother,” said an old German whom Steinmark had brought with him from the Fatherland, and who at that moment entered at the gate beside her. “I have watched negroes work for an hour together, many a time, since I have been in this country, and I never saw one yet who put out the strength of a man. But perhaps they might do better if they worked on their own account, or got profit or praise in any way as other folks do.”

  Juno rose from her seat, and looked at the man with an expression that on younger and
more comely features would have been very touching, for it seemed to speak the sorrow and degradation of a whole race.

  “Happy, happy, happy, are you!” she said, in a low and plaintive voice, which showed that it was not her human temper, but her immortal soul, that was moved by the thoughts suggested. “Do you kneel late and early to thank God for the especial grace to which you are born? — or do you tremble lest his justice should make all even in the world to come? — There lies the master’s house, I expect,” she added, pointing her bamboo towards a roof and chimneys that rose above a thick cluster of flowering shrubs to the left.

  The German nodded assent, but spoke not; for in truth he was puzzled by the singular tenour of her speech, and a spice of native superstition, joined to the very witchlike appearance of the old woman, gave him a sort of tremour as he listened to her which disposed him to avoid farther conversation.

  Proceeding in the direction indicated, and opening a neat low wicket that led from the farmyard, Juno soon found herself upon the wide-spread lawn in front of the portico.

  The windows of the sitting-room were as usual open, and nothing doubting but that so pleasant a room must be the abode of its master, she walked on and presented her singular figure before the eyes of a young trio, who were laughing and talking with much gaiety while examining a large map that lay on the table.

  This happy party consisted of Lotte, Henrich, and the Baron Hochland. No other person was in the room; and they were indulging in the delicious hopes which a letter that had arrived the night before, had opened to them, that they should ere long inhabit the land of their wishes and their birth. This letter was from the Baron Steinmark, and announced the death both of his wife and son by the smallpox: it stated, with deep feeling, the desolation of his bereaved condition, his son having naturally been the object of all his hopes, and concluded by imploring his brother to bring back his family to Westphalia, where his large and desolate castle should receive them, and thereby become once more a home of hope and comfort to himself.