The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ dry eye was near. After a time the old man rose again, and with streaming eyes, and upturned face, continued:

      'Dar's One up dar, my chil'ren, dat say: 'Come unter me, all ye dat am weary an' a heaby laden, an' I will gib you ress.' He, de good Lord, he say dat; an' p'raps Juley hard him say it, an' dat make har gwo.' Again his voice failed, and he sank down, weeping and moaning as if his heart would break.

      A pause followed, when the Colonel rose, and aided by Jim and two other blacks, with his own hands nailed down the lid, and lowered the rude coffin into the ground. Then the earth was thrown upon it, and then the long, low chant which the negroes raise over the dead, mingling now with sobs and moans, and breaking into a strange wild wail, went up among the pines, and floating off on the still night air, echoed through the dark woods, till it sounded like music from the grave. I have been in the chamber of the dying; I have seen the young and the beautiful laid away in the earth; but I never felt the solemn awfulness of death as I did when, in the stillness and darkness of night, I listened to the wild grief of that negro group, and saw the bodies of that slave mother and her child, lowered to their everlasting rest by the side of Sam.

      The morning broke bright and mellow with the rays of the winter sun, which in Carolina lends the warmth of October to the chills of January, when, with my portmanteau strapped, and my thin overcoat on my arm, I gave my last 'God bless you' to the octoroon woman, and turned my face toward home.

      Jim shouted, 'All ready,' the driver cracked his whip, and we were on our way to Georgetown.

      The recent rains had hardened the roads, the bridges were repaired, and we were whirled rapidly forward, and at one o'clock reached Bucksville. There we met a cordial welcome, and remained to dinner. Our host pressed us to pass the night at his house, but the Colonel had business with one of his secession friends residing down the road—my wayside acquaintance, Colonel A–, and desired to stay over night with him. At three o'clock, bidding a kindly farewell to Captain B– and his excellent family, we were again on our way.

      The sun was just sinking among the western pines, when we turned into a broad avenue, lined with stately old trees, and rode up to the doorway of the rice-planter. It was a large, square, dingy old house, seated on a gentle knoll, a short half-mile from the river, along whose banks stretched the rice-fields. We entered, and were soon welcomed by its proprietor.

      He received my friend warmly, and gave me a courteous greeting, remarking, when I mentioned that I was homeward bound, that it was wise to go. 'Things are very unsettled; there's no telling what a day may bring forth; feeling is running very high, and a Northern man, whatever his principles, is not safe here. By the way,' he added, 'did you not meet with some little obstruction at Conwayboro, on your way up?'

      'Yes, I did; a person there ordered me back, but when things began to look serious, Scipio, the negro whom you saw with me, got me out of the hobble.'

      'Didn't he tell the gentleman that you were a particular friend of mine, and had met me by appointment at Captain B–'s?' he asked, smiling.

      'I believe he did, sir; but I assure you, I said nothing of the kind, and I think the black should not be blamed, under the circumstances.'

      'Oh! no; I don't blame him. I think he did a smart thing. He might have said you were my grandmother, if it would have served you, for that low fellow is as fractious as the devil, and dead sure on the trigger.'

      'You are very good, sir,' I replied; 'how did you hear of it?'

      'A day or two afterward, B– passed here on his way to Georgetown. I had been riding out, and happened to be at the head of my avenue when he was going by. He stopped, and asked if I knew you. Not knowing then the circumstances, I said that I had met you casually at Bucksville, but had no particular acquaintance with you. He rode on, saying nothing further. The next morning I had occasion to go to Georgetown, and at Mr. Fraser's office accidentally heard that Scip—who is well known and universally liked there—was to have a public whipping that evening. Something prompted me to inquire into it, and I was told that he had been charged by B– with shielding a well-known abolitionist at Conwayboro—a man who was going through the up-country distributing such damnable publications as the New-York Independent and Tribune. I knew, of course, it referred to you, and that it wasn't true. I went to Scip and got the facts, and by stretching the truth a little, finally got him off. There was a slight discrepancy between my two accounts of you,' (and here he laughed heartily,) 'and B–, when we were before the Justice, remarked on it, and came d–d near calling me a liar. It was lucky he didn't, for if he had he'd gone to h–l before the place was hot enough for him.'

      'I can not tell you, my dear sir, how grateful I am to you for this. It would have pained me more than I can express, if Scip had suffered for doing a disinterested kindness to me.'

      Early in the morning we were again on our way, and twelve o'clock found us seated at a dinner of bacon, corn-bread, and waffles, in the 'first hotel' of Georgetown. The Charleston boat was to leave at three o'clock; and, as soon as dinner was over, I sallied out to find Scip. After a half-hour's search I found him on 'Shackelford's wharf,' engaged in loading a schooner bound for New-York with a cargo of cotton and turpentine.

      He was delighted to see me, and after I told him I was going home, and might never see him again, I took his hand warmly in mine, and said:

      'Scip, I have heard of the disgrace that was near being put upon you on my account, and I feel deeply the disinterested service you did to me; now, I can not go away without doing something for you—showing you in some way that I appreciate and like you.'

      'I likes you, massa,' he replied, the tears coming to his eyes; 'I tuk ter you de bery fuss day I seed you, 'case, I s'pose'—and he wrung my hand till it ached—'you pitied de pore brack man. But you karnt do nuffin fur me, massa; I doan't want nuffin; I doan't want ter leab har, 'case de Lord dat put me har arn't willin' I shud gwo. But you kin do suffin, massa, fur de pore brack man, an' dat'll be doin' it fur me, 'case my heart am all in dat. You kin tell dem folks up dar, whar you lib, massa, dat we'm not like de brutes, as dey tink we is. Dat we's got souls, an' 'telligence, an' feelin's, an' am men like demselfs. You kin tell 'em, too, massa—'case you's edication, and kin talk—how de pore wite man am kep' down har; how he'm ragged, an' starvin', an' ob no account, 'case de brack man am a slave. How der chil'ren can't get no schulein', how eben de grow'd-up ones doan't know nuffin—not eben so much as de pore brack slave, 'case de 'stockracy want dar votes, an cudn't get 'em ef dey 'low'd 'em larnin'. Ef your folks know'd all de truf—ef dey know'd how boff de brack an' de pore w'ite man, am on de groun', an' can't git up, ob demselfs—dey'd do suffin—dey'd break de Constertution—dey'd do suffin ter help us. I doan't want no one hurted, I doan't want no one wronged; but jess tink ob it, massa, four million ob bracks, an' nigh so many pore w'ites, wid de bressed Gospil shinin' down on 'em, an' dey not knowin' on it. All dem—ebry one ob 'em—made in de image ob de great God, an' dey driven roun' an' 'bused wuss dan de brutes. You's seed dis, massa, wid your own eyes, an' you kin tell 'em on it; an' you will tell 'em on it, massa;' and again he took my hand while the tears rolled down his cheeks; 'an' Scip will bress you fur it, massa—wid his bery lass breaf he'll bress you; an' de good Lord will bress you, too, massa; he will foreber bress you, for he'm on de side ob de pore an' de 'flicted; his own book say dat, an' it am true, I knows it, fur I feels it har;' and he laid his hand on his heart, and was silent.

      I could not speak for a moment. When I mastered my feelings, I said: 'I will do it Scip; as God gives me strength, I will.'

      Reader, I am keeping my word.

      This is not a work of fiction. It is a record of facts, and therefore the reader will not expect me to dispose of its various characters on artistic principles—that is, lay them away in one of those final receptacles for the creations of the romancer—the СКАЧАТЬ