“Is that true, Peggy?” said the old woman abruptly.
“It was my Phebe told me so, — and she’s not given to lying, Juno.”
“If Phebe said it, it is true, and I thank God for it,” replied Juno; “though it is like thanking him for hiding from us the last gleam of light and hope that was left us. Yet I do thank God for it. Their young lives will be saved thereby, and the infernal wretch will thirst for their blood in vain.”
“What blood, Juno? — Come, get to bed; you shake and tremble, and your head seems wandering; you have fasted too long to-day, Juno. Now Phebe is gone from us, I must teach my little Sally to come over for a spell every day to look after you: I am sure you’ve been a friend to me and mine, — and you must not be neglected.”
“That’s well, that’s well, — thank ye, dear Peggy; and now go, and I will shut the door after you. I hope they will not come to me, — I would not see that pretty fair white girl again — no, it would drive me mad!”
It was probably this dread of seeing Lucy, and of her bringing fresh to her mind again, as she had often done, the idea of her own beautiful descendants, which induced old Juno to refuse them entrance when on the following day the brother and sister took her hut, in the circuit of farewell visitings which they made among the Christian part of the slave population of Paradise Plantation; and this same feeling might have contributed, with other gloomy and unsocial thoughts, to keep her during the whole of the Sabbath day and night from all her usual haunts.
But early on the Monday morning, almost before the sun was fully risen, her old habit of restlessness seemed to return upon her, and she rambled out into the dewy forest behind her hut, feeling refreshed and invigorated by the long-accustomed air and exercise from which she had for several days abstained.
Either unconsciously, or it might be to meet the pleasant freshness of that open space, Juno directed her steps to the spot where but a few hours before Edward Bligh and his sister had so nearly lost their freedom or their lives. All was now profoundly still there, and she seated herself upon the stump of a tree, with her chin resting as heretofore upon her faithful bamboo, meditating on the words of hope and patience, which she had so often heard the young preacher pronounce in that dark spot.
While thus buried in thought, and as unconscious of the vicinity of human beings as if she had been alone in the universe, a sound like a distant shout startled her ear.
“What is that?” said she, starting up; “are the fiends making holiday because the holy man is gone?”
Another and another prolonged “hurrah!” found its way through the still air, and onward and onward the fierce sound came. Juno felt stupified. The sun was even now but struggling through the morning mists, and the very slaves were not as yet led out to labour. Then whence and from whom the sound, which, louder than the struggling multitudes of a great city could create, unless under circumstances of some terrible excitement, now rolled along the startled solitude of the forest?
A thought occurred to the aged negress that for a moment brought back as by the touch of enchantment all the strength and energy that she had lately lost.
“They are in insurrection!” she exclaimed aloud in an accent of the wildest ecstasy: “Onward! onward! brave and desperate men! — onward! onward! — We will join you, every soul of us, the whole five hundred! — Onward! onward!” and then added in a hollow whisper— “Whitlaw! I shall have thee at last!”
The sound of voices was now accompanied by that of numerous footsteps, and she felt that, be they what they might, in another moment she would be in the midst of them unless she sought shelter within the numerous masses of underwood that surrounded the place.
Sure as she felt that they were negroes and friends who approached, a mixture of caution and curiosity induced her to conceal herself while they passed, that she might thus at vantage look out upon their strength and, learn their object.
Such a shelter as she sought was easily found; and trembling with eagerness and hope, old Juno ensconced herself behind a bush and awaited the result.
She waited not long. In front of the noisy throng marched four men, each holding high a pole, from whence projected transversely a piece of timber, connecting each with each; and from the frame thus formed, dangled the effigies of two men, evidently intended to represent the process of hanging. The one of these represented a man in the dress of a clergyman; the other bore the black visage of a negro.
Disappointment had assailed poor Juno in so many ways, that it seemed, as she would have herself expressed it, to have become her natural food. She retained her situation till the whole of Edward’s “Temple,” as he was wont to call it, was completely filled with the lowest rabble of Natchez; and perceiving that they meant to make a halt there, she prepared to depart, certain that no noise she might make in doing so could reach the ears of those who were vociferating so vehemently themselves.
Her purpose was, however, immediately changed when she remarked two or three men whose dress proclaimed them of a higher station in society than the rest, step forward from the crowd and prepare to harangue them.
One of these she instantly recognised as WHITLAW; and another of them was Hogstown, with whose person she was also well acquainted. It was Whitlaw who addressed the party first. His speech was violent, and by no means badly calculated to inflame the passions of a white mob, in a country where no night closes in without a thrilling fear that ere morning their wretched, feared, and hated slaves should rise in mutiny and take a bloody vengeance for all they had suffered. He asserted broadly, that numerous gangs of slaves had recently been urged to insurrection and indiscriminate murder of the white population by harangues uttered on the very spot where they then stood, by a fanatic advocate for emancipation called Bligh, supported, protected, and seconded by a German family of abolitionists called Steinmark.
“These, my friends,” he concluded, “these base white instigators, unworthy of their colour and their station, must be the objects of your just vengeance. Yourselves, your wives, your children are not to be murdered with impunity by the ignorant black nigger agents of these Blighs and Steinmarks, without due vengeance taken on their treacherous heads. — I must here leave you, my friends; but you know my feelings, and you know my power. My friend Mr. Hogstown, who has accompanied you thus far, will explain to you better than I can do the nature of the duty you are upon — and also the zeal and liberality with which it shall be not only protected, but requited.”
This speech, which had been got up with very considerable care from various sources of popular eloquence, was listened to and welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm.
Whitlaw then retreated towards his home; and Hogstown came forward and took his place. His speech was more extemporaneous, and considerably less decorated with any figures of rhetoric, save those of slang; but he rushed with great spirit into the middle of his subject at once, giving the most precise instructions how they were to proceed after arriving at Reichland.
Old Juno, whose seventy odd years had brought not the slightest injury to the sense of hearing, which in her survived in its full acuteness every other, here gave the most earnest attention to the speaker’s words — and they were words of terror. Edward Bligh and the venerable Steinmark were marked for public ignominy and death; the two young women that would be found with them were on no account to be suffered to depart, but made prisoners, and committed to the hands of their noble friend and patron Mr. Whitlaw; while the young Steinmarks, who were likely to make a mischievous and obstinate resistance, were to be mown down indiscriminately, without giving quarter to any of them.
Mr. Hogstown then began to dilate at considerable length on the subject of pillage: — his instructions were at once liberal and minute, and seemed calculated to give satisfaction to all.
Old Juno seized this opportunity to escape from her retreat. Spite of age and greatly increased infirmity, every nerve was now braced to the enterprise of reaching Reichland before the mob. Her inequality in point
of strength was terrible, but in some other respects she had greatly the advantage of her powerful competitors. She knew
“ — Each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle or bushy dell, of that wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side,
Her daily walks, and ancient neighbourhood.”
And she knew that the beaten path into which they would infallibly fall soon after leaving this remote and abandoned clearing would lead them indeed to Reichland, but by a wide and beaten waggon-track, at least twice as long as that she should trace by going across a small morass, which afforded safe treading, however, for one who knew it as well as she did.
With an energy which seemed to herself like inspiration she set off, and far from having overrated the advantage her knowledge of the ground would give, she reached the house ere the head of the advancing squadron had arrived half way to it. But what a scene greeted her! — The whole family, with their two remaining servants, (for the Germans had all been sent forward with the baggage,) and guests were assembled upon the lawn, waiting for the horses which Cæsar was in the very act of bringing round to fasten to the waggon into which the laughing Lotte had already sprung. Hope and happiness shone in every eye, till even Edward’s seemed to catch a mild reflection of it.
The old woman appeared to have lost the power of speaking by the rapid pace at which she had walked, — she stood still when she got into the midst of them, and wrung her hands. There was not one of them who did not believe that she was there to bid them an affectionate but melancholy farewell. Phebe, only, saw something in her manner that seemed in its agony beyond any sorrow she could feel at parting, and hastily leaving the packages she was about to place in the waggon, on the grass beside it, she approached her old friend, and seizing her hands, said hastily— “Juno! Juno! speak, for God’s sake! — What have you got to say?”
“Murder! murder!” replied the poor old woman, panting most painfully; “they will all be murdered within twenty minutes if they do not bide or fly!”
“Master! master!” shrieked Phebe, “come and hear her! — Master Edward! fly! — It is you! it is you!”
“It is all,” cried Juno, recovering her voice so as to be heard by every one of them; “a hideous mob is on the road to destroy you all: Edward, Edward Bligh is their first object-then the good Steinmark — then the women — then the young comely sons — all! all!”
“Oh! were it only me!” cried Edward in dreadful agony.
“How near are they, Juno?” said Frederick Steinmark, looking pale, but in a voice of perfect composure.
“It may be at the distance of half a mile.”
“Hermann,” resumed the father, “you are swift of foot, — fly quickly, and bring Clio Whitlaw hither: say only it is I who want her — Cæsar, put to the horses instantly; Lotte, do not stir; Mary, Lucy, Phebe, get into the waggon, and you, Edward, with them. Drive, Cæsar, to the back gate of Whitlaw’s premises, and wait for me there.”
The women were in the waggon in an instant, but Edward lingered. Frederick gave him a look as stern as his countenance could assume, and said, “Edward! will you delay us?”
The unhappy young man obeyed; but in doing so, tasted the bitterest pang of his painful life. “That he, — he, who as his heart told him was the cause of all, — that he, in the sight of the woman he loved, should be thus forced to shelter himself beside her, while her father, lover, brothers, were left to encounter danger caused by him!” — he might have exclaimed with truth, as he hid his head between his hands. “The bitterness of death is past!”
They had hardly proceeded ten steps, when Clio came running to meet them. Steinmark seized her arms, in a manner at once to command her attention, and to prevent her beginning a string of questions that might not speedily finish.
“My good Clio,” said he, “we are beset by a deadly peril — such as yourself predicted. A mob from Natchez is within a few minutes’ distance of our house. Will you save these helpless women, Clio, by concealing them in the loft in which your goods are stowed?”
“Will I? — Oh, Jesus, yes! And if they kill me instead, what matters, Mr. Steinmark? One can die but once. — But wait a spell, for the love of God. Sister Whitlaw isn’t up yet, that’s jam; and brother’s away for his bitters to the Eagle: but the niggers — you must bide while I send the niggers off, some one way, some another; mustn’t I?”
“No, Clio. The waggon with the women is already at the gate of your yard; hasten then, good Clio, and place them, and the poor youth with them, as best you can, — your premises will not be suspected; and I will speak to your slaves.”
Steinmark, his sons, and the young Sigismond then proceeded in a body to the Mount Etna mansion, about which many negroes, both male and female, were employed. Frederick called them round him, and in few words told them that a mob from Natchez, determined to execute Lynch-law upon him and his family in consequence of their known hatred to slavery, were — now within a few paces of his house.
“Your good mistress Clio is willing to conceal our women if possible— “will you betray us?”
“No, massa! — no, niggers die first!” was the impressive reply.
“Now then, Cæsar, drive the waggon back, and appear to be packing the furniture in it; and when you are questioned, say that the family are gone. And now, my sons,” continued Frederick, addressing Sigismond also as one of them, “I think the dearer part of ourselves is safe. Young Whitlaw is at the bottom of this, depend upon it; and the mob, paid probably by him, will not be likely to attack the warehouse of his father. As for ourselves, I do not believe it possible they would seek to take our lives; and our best course will be, I think, to walk into the woods in a contrary direction to that which leads to Natchez. They will be long occupied in examining and pilfering the house; and, by the help of our local knowledge here, it is very likely that we shall not encounter them.”
As he spoke, the whole party moved rapidly on in the direction he pointed out; and by the time the bearers of the gallows had reached the lawn at Reichland, all those they came to seek there had disappeared.
Old Juno had placed herself on the ground as soon as she saw the family depart, for at that moment all power to stand seemed to forsake her; but when she remarked the well-assumed air of busy indifference with which Cæsar appeared to be employing himself about the waggon, she got up and joined him in his employment.
It must be observed, that on all occasions when Lynch-law is administered, the real instigators never appear. It passes for the work of passion — a sense of injury — or overwrought enthusiasm on the part of the people; but never as the concerted project of a set of men, who, finding the laws incapable of giving authority as uncompromising as they wish to the iniquitous system which they are determined to pursue, though their country should fall to pieces in the struggle, have devised this appalling means to work their will. Even Hogstown, therefore, though only himself an agent acting as the spring to set this terrific machine in motion, had disappeared; and the throng rushed onward with no leader but their whim and their will, and no command to obey beyond a general standing order to pillage, slay, and destroy to the best of their power.
“What! jest going to start, by G — d!” exclaimed a fellow who walked beside the gallows with a rope in his hand, as if in readiness to put in practice upon a real man the operation already performed on the straw figures dangling from the frame which his companions bore along.
“Stop! you nigger — quit, if you please, handling our property; bide still, you old black rag, and get out of the way — or may be, slave as you are, you may be crushed as slick as if you were a canting white. — Now then, my boys! One brave shout before we set to — hurrah!”
“Hurrah!” screamed the multitude; and in the next moment they were half suffocating each other in their efforts to pass through the doors and windows of the house in search of their prey.
“Had we best bide their coming out again, mother?” said Cæsar.
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br /> “Yes, Cæsar,” replied the old woman firmly. “They never spill slave blood if they can help it, because, as they say, it costs money; and we have nothing to do but answer their questions. REMEMBER — the whole family set off for the wharf at Natchez by the round-about waggon-road just two hours ago.”
“Good!” answered Cæsar composedly”; “I shan’t blunder.”
The two slaves then remained stationed very quietly, as if waiting for orders; Juno leaning against the end of the waggon, and Cæsar caressing the horses’ heads with an air of the greatest indifference as to what those orders should be.
In a few minutes, the rioters, amounting to at least sixty or seventy men, poured out again from the house upon the lawn, and Cæsar and the old woman immediately became the centre of the throng.
“Where are all the d — n rogues and rascals belonging to this here house?” began the inquirer who screamed loudest. “You’d best be after telling us at once, you niggers, or we’ll have your brains out, if we’re obligated to have a subscription among us afterwards to pay for ye.”
“I’ll tell all I know, gentlemen,” said Cæsar; “and I can tell no more if you cut me in slices.”
“Well! that’s a fact at any rate. Speak then, sheep’s head, — where are they all got to?”
“They must be, as nearly as I can guess, gentlemen, ten miles out of twelve of the big waggon-road to Natchez. The Deerborn is as light as a feather, and they’ve got the young baron’s fine pair of horses.”
“And how in the devil’s name did they hear we were coming that long ago?” said one.
“Not possible!” cried another, “for we didn’t hardly know as we was to start ourselves by then.”
“God love ye, gentlemen!” said Cæsar, grinning with a look of admirable ease and fun, “they knowed no more about you than the man in the moon, or maybe they wouldn’t have gone Natchez way, I’m thinking.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 48