Chapter 3

"Wal, I be hurt some," murmured Dan; "a good deal in my back, and a durned sight more in my feelin's. As if I wan't sufferin' a'ready the pangs of death--wus'n death!--a thinkin' about the master, and what's been done to him, arter he'd been so kind to me--and thinkin' he'd think I'm the ongratefulest cuss out of the bad place!--and then to have it all laid on to me by Stackridge and the rest! that's the stun that hurts me wust of any!"

Carl thought, if that was all, he could not assist him much; and he ran on after the men, leaving Pepperill snivelling like a whipped schoolboy on the stones.

Penn's landlady, the worthy Mrs. Sprowl, lived in a lonesome house that stood far back in the fields, at least a dozen rods from the road. She was a widow, whose daughters were either married or dead, and whose only son was a rover, having been guilty of some crime that rendered it unsafe for him to visit his bereaved parent. Penn had chosen her house for his home, partly because she needed some such assistance in gaining a living, but chiefly, I think, because she did not own slaves. The other inmates of her solitary abode were two large, ferocious dogs, which she kept for the sake of their company and protection.

But this night the house looked as if forsaken even by these. It was utterly dark and silent. When Stackridge shook the door, however, the illusion was dispelled by two fierce growls that resounded within.

"Hello! Mrs. Sprowl!" shouted the farmer, shaking the door again, and knocking violently. "Let me in!"

At that the growling broke into savage barks, which made Stackridge lay his hand on the revolver Carl had returned to him. A window was then cautiously opened, and a bit of night-cap exposed.

"If it's you agin," said a shrill feminine voice, "I warn you to be gone! If you think I can't set the dogs on to you, because you've slep' in my house so long, you're very much mistaken. They'll tear you as they would a pa'tridge! Go away, go away, I tell ye; you've been the ruin of me, and I ain't a-going to resk my life a-harboring of you any longer."

"Mrs. Sprowl!" answered the stern voice of the farmer.

"Dear me! ain't it the schoolmaster?" cried the astonished lady. "I thought it was him come back agin to force his way into my house, after I've twice forbid him!"

"Why forbid him?"

"Is it you, Mr. Stackridge? Then I'll be free, and tell ye. I've been informed he's a dangerous man. I've been warned to shet my doors agin' him, if I wouldn't have my house pulled down on to my head."

"Who warned you?"

"Silas Ropes, this very night. He come to me, and says, says he, 'We've gin your abolition boarder a coat, which you must charge to his account;' for you see," added the head at the window, pathetically, "they took the bed he has slep' on, right out of my house, and I don't s'pose I shall see ary feather of that bed ever agin! live goose's feathers they was too! and a poor lone widder that could ill afford it!"

"Where is the master?"

"Wal, after Ropes and his friends was gone, he comes too, an awful lookin' object as ever you see! 'Mrs. Sprowl,' says he, 'don't be scared; it's only me; won't ye let me in?' for ye see, I'd shet the house agin' him in season, detarmined so dangerous a character should never darken my doors agin."

"And he was naked!"

"I 'spose he was, all but the feathers, and suthin' or other he seemed to have flung over him."

"Such a night as this!" exclaimed Stackridge. "You're a heartless jade, Mrs. Sprowl!--I don't wonder the fellow hates slavery," he muttered to himself, "when it makes ruffians of the men and monsters even of the women!--Which way did he go?"

"That's more'n I can tell!" answered the lady, sharply. "It's none o' my business where he goes, if he don't come here! That I won't have, call me what names you please!" And she shut the window.

"Hang the critter! after all Hapgood has done for her!" said the indignant Stackridge,--for it was well-known that she was indebted to the gentle and generous Penn for many benefits. "But it's no use to stand here. We'll go to my house, men,--may be he's there."

V.

_CARL AND HIS FRIENDS._

Carl Minnevich was the son of a German, who, in company with a brother, had come to America a few years before, and settled in Tennessee. There the Minneviches purchased a farm, and were beginning to prosper in their new home, when Carl's father suddenly died. The boy had lost his mother on the voyage to America. He was now an orphan, destined to experience all the humiliation, dependence, and wrong, which ever an orphan knew.

Immediately the sole proprietorship of the farm, which had been bought by both, was assumed by the surviving brother. This man had a selfish, ill-tempered wife, and a family of great boys. Minnevich himself was naturally a good, honest man; but Frau Minnevich wanted the entire property for her own children, hated Carl because he was in the way, and treated him with cruelty. His big cousins followed their mother's example, and bullied him. How to obtain protection or redress he knew not. He was a stranger, speaking a strange tongue, in the land of his father's adoption. Ah, how often then did he think of the happy fatherland, before that luckless voyage was undertaken, when he still had his mother, and his friends, and all his little playfellows, whom he could never see more!

So matters went on for a year or two, until the boy's grievances grew intolerable, and he one day took it into his head to please Frau Minnevich for once in his life, if never again. In the night time he made up a little bundle of his clothes, threw it out of the window, got out himself after it, climbed down upon the roof of the shed, jumped to the ground, and trudged away in the early morning starlight, a wanderer. It has been necessary to touch upon this point in Carl's history, in order to explain why it was he ever afterwards felt such deep gratitude towards those who befriended him in the hour of his need.

For many days and nights he wandered among the hills of Tennessee, looking in vain for work, and begging his bread. Sometimes he almost wished himself a slave-boy, for then he would have had a home at least, if only a wretched cabin, and friends, if only negroes,--those oppressed, beaten, bought-and-sold, yet patient and cheerful people, whose lot seemed, after all, so much happier than his own. Carl had a large, warm heart, and he longed with infinite longing for somebody to love him and treat him kindly.

At last, as he was sitting one cold evening by the road-side, weary, hungry, despondent, not knowing where he was to find his supper, and seeing nothing else for him to do but to lie down under some bush, there to shiver and starve till morning, a voice of unwonted kindness accosted him.

"My poor boy, you seem to be in trouble; can I help you?"

Poor Carl burst into tears. It was the voice of Penn Hapgood; and in its tones were sympathy, comfort, hope. Penn took him by the arm, and lifted him up, and carried his bundle for him, talking to him all the time so like a gentle and loving brother, that Carl said in the depths of his soul that he would some day repay him, if he lived; and he prayed God secretly that he might live, and be able some day to repay him for those sweet and gracious words.

Penn never quitted him until he had found him a home; neither after that did he forget him. He took him into his school, gave him his tuition, and befriended him in a hundred little ways beside.

And now the time had arrived when Penn himself stood in need of friends. The evening came, and Carl was missing from his new home.

"Whar's dat ar boy took hisself to, I'd like to know!" scolded old Toby. "I'll clar away de table, and he'll lose his supper, if he stays anoder minute! Debil take me, if I don't!"

He had made the same threat a dozen times, and still he kept Carl's potatoes hot for him, and the table waiting. For the old negro, though he loved dearly to show his importance by making a good deal of bluster about his work, had really one of the kindest hearts in the world, and was as devoted to the boy he scolded as any indulgent old grandmother.

"The 'debil' will take you, sure enough, I'm afraid, Toby, if you appeal to him so often," said a mildly reproving voice.

It was Mr. Villars, the old worn-out clergyman; a man of seventy winters, pale, white-haired, blind, feeble of body, yet strong and serene of soul. He came softly, groping his way into the kitchen, in order to put his feet to Toby's fire.

"Laws, massa," said old Toby, grinning, "debil knows I ain't in 'arnest! he knows better'n to take me at my word, for I speaks his name widout no kind o' respec', allus, I does. Hyar's yer ol' easy char fur ye, Mass' Villars. Now you jes' make yerself comf'table." And he cleared a place on the stove-hearth for the old man's feet.

"Thank you, Toby." With his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his hands folded thoughtfully before his breast, and his beautiful old face smiling the kindness which his blind eyes could not _look_, Mr. Villars sat by the fire. "Where is Carl to-night, Toby?"

"Dat ar's de question; dat's de pint, massa. Mos' I can say is, he ain't whar he ought to be, a eatin' ob his supper. Chocolate's all a bilin' away to nuffin! ketch dis chile tryin' to keep tings hot for his supper anoder time!" And Toby added, in a whisper expressive of great astonishment at himself, "What I eber took dat ar boy to keep fur's one ob de mysteries!"

For Toby, though only a servant (indeed, he had formerly been a slave in the family), had had his own way so long in every thing that concerned the management of the household, that he had come to believe himself the proprietor, not only of the house and land, and poultry and pigs, but of the family itself. He owned "ol' Mass Villars," and an exceedingly precious piece of property he considered him, especially since he had become blind. He was likewise (in his own exalted imagination) sole inheritor and guardian-in-chief of "Miss Jinny," Mr. Villars's youngest daughter, child of his old age, of whom Mrs. Villars said, on her death-bed, "Take always good care of my darling, dear Toby!"--an injunction which the negro regarded as a sort of last will and testament bequeathing the girl to him beyond mortal question.

There was, in fact, but one member of the household he did not exclusively claim. This was the married daughter, Salina, whose life had been embittered by a truant husband,--no other, in fact, than the erring son of the worthy Mrs. Sprowl. The day when the infatuated girl made a marriage so much beneath the family dignity, Toby, in great grief and indignation, gave her up. "I washes my hands ob her! she ain't no more a chile ob mine!" said the old servant, passionately weeping, as if the washing of his hands was to be literal, and no other fluid would serve his dark purpose but tears. And when, after Sprowl's desertion of her, she returned, humiliated and disgraced, to her father's house,--that is to say, Toby's house,--Toby had compassion on her, and took her in, but never set up any claim to her again.

"Where is Carl? Hasn't Carl come yet?" asked a sweet but very anxious voice. And Virginia, the youngest daughter, stood in the kitchen door.

"He hain't come yet, Miss Jinny; dat ar a fact!" said Toby. "'Pears like somefin's hap'en'd to dat ar boy. I neber knowed him stay out so, when dar's any eatin' gwine on,--for he's a master hand for his supper, dat boy ar! Laws, I hain't forgot how he laid in de vittles de fust night Massa Penn fetched him hyar! He was right hungry, he was, and he took holt powerful! 'I neber can keep dat ar boy in de world,' says I; 'he'll eat me clar out o' house an' home!' says I. But, arter all, it done my ol' heart good to see him put in, ebery ting 'peared to taste so d'effle good to him!" And Toby chuckled at the reminiscence.

"My daughter," said Mr. Villars, softly.

She was already standing behind his chair, and her trembling little hands were smoothing his brow, and her earnest face was looking pale and abstracted over him. He could not see her face, but he knew by her touch that the tender act was done some how mechanically to-night, and that she was thinking of other things. She started as he spoke, and, bending over him, kissed his white forehead.

"I suspect," he went on, "that you know more of Carl than we do. Has he gone on some errand of yours?"

"I will tell you, father!" It seemed as if her feelings had been long repressed, and it was a relief for her to speak at last. "Carl came to me, and said there was some mischief intended towards Penn. This was long before dark. And he asked permission to go and see what it was. I said, 'Go, but come right back, if there is no danger.' He went, and I have not seen him since."

"Is this so? Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Because, father, I did not wish to make you anxious. But now, if you will let Toby go----"

"I'll go myself!" said the old man, starting up. "My staff, Toby! When I was out, I heard voices in the direction of the school-house,--I felt then a presentiment that something was happening to Penn. I can control the mob,--I can save him, if it is not too late." He grasped the staff Toby put into his hand.

"O, father!" said the agitated girl; "are you able?"

"Able, child? You shall see how strong I am when our friend is in danger."

"Let me go, then, and guide you!" she exclaimed, glad he was so resolved, yet unwilling to trust him out of her sight.

"No, daughter. Toby will be eyes for me. Yet I scarcely need even him. I can find my way as well as he can in the dark."

The negro opened the door, and was leading out the blind old minister, when the light from within fell upon a singular object approaching the house. It started back again, like some guilty thing; but Toby had seen it. Toby uttered a shriek.

"De debil! de debil hisself, massa!" and he pulled the old man back hurriedly into the house.

"The devil, Toby? What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Villars.

"O, laws, bress ye, massa, ye hain't got no eyes, and ye can't see!" said Toby, shutting the door in his fright, and rolling his eyes wildly. "It's de bery debil! he's come for dis niggah dis time, sartin'. Cos I, cos I 'pealed to him, as you said, massa! cos I's got de habit ob speakin' his name widout no kind o' respec'!"

And he stood bracing himself, with his back against the door, as if determined that not even that powerful individual himself should get in.

"You poor old simpleton!" said Mr. Villars, "there is no fiend except in your own imagination. Open the door!"

"No, no, massa! He's dar! he's dar! He'll cotch old Toby, shore!" And the terrified black held the latch and pushed with all his might.

"What did he see, Virginia?"

"I don't know, father! There was certainly somebody, or something,--I could not distinguish what."

"It's what I tell ye!" gibbered Toby. "I seed de great coarse har on his speckled legs, and de wings on his back, and a right smart bag in his hand to put dis niggah in!"

"It might have been Carl," said Virginia.

"No, no! Carl don't hab sech legs as dem ar! Carl don't hab sech great big large ears as dem ar! O good Lord! good Lord!" the negro's voice sank to a terrified whisper, "he's a-knockin' for me now!"

"It's a very gentle rap for the devil," said Mr. Villars, who could not but be amused, notwithstanding the strange interruption of his purpose, and Toby's vexatious obstinacy in holding the door. "It's some stranger; let him in!"

"No, no, no!" gasped the negro. "I won't say nuffin, and you tell him I ain't to home! Say I'se clar'd out, lef', gone you do'no' whar!"

"Toby!" was called from without.

"Dat's his voice! dat ar's his voice!" said Toby. And in his desperate pushing, he pushed his feet from under him, and fell at full length along the floor.

"It's the voice of Penn Hapgood!" exclaimed the old minister. "Arise, quick, Toby, and open!"

Toby rubbed his head and looked bewildered.

"Are ye sartin ob dat, massa? Bress me, I breeve you're right, for oncet! It _ar_ Mass' Penn's voice, shore enough!"

He opened the door, but started back again with another shriek, convinced for an instant that it was, after all, the devil, who had artfully borrowed Penn's voice to deceive him.

But no! It was Penn himself, his hat and clothes in his hand, smeared with black tar and covered with feathers from head to foot; not even his features spared, nor yet his hair; on his cheeks great clumps of gray goose plumes, suggestive of diabolical ears, and with no other covering but this to shield him from the night wind, save the emptied bed-tick, which he had drawn over his shoulders, and which Toby had mistaken for Satanic wings.

VI.

_A STRANGE COAT FOR A QUAKER._

Now, Virginia Villars was the very last person by whom Penn would have wished to be seen. He was well aware how utterly grotesque and ludicrous he must appear. But he was not in a condition to be very fastidious on this point. Stunned by blows, stripped of his clothing (which could not be put on again, for reasons), cruelly suffering from the violence done him, exposed to the cold, excluded from Mrs. Sprowl's virtuous abode, he had no choice but to seek the protection of those whom he believed to be his truest friends.

In the little sitting-room of the blind old minister he had always been gladly welcomed. Such minds as his were rare in Curryville. His purity of thought, his Christian charity, his ardent love of justice, and (quite as much as any thing) his delight in the free and friendly discussion of principles, whether moral, political, or theological, made him a great favorite with the lonely old man. His coming made the winter evenings bloom. Then the aged clergyman, deprived of sight, bereft of the companionship of books, and of the varied consolations of an active life, felt his heart warmed and his brain enlivened by the wine of conversation. He and Penn, to be sure, did not always agree. Especially on the subject of _non-resistance_ they had many warm and well-contested arguments; the young Quaker manifesting, by his zeal in the controversy, that he had an abundance of "fight" in him without knowing it.

Nor to Mr. Villars alone did Penn's visits bring pleasure. They delighted equally young Carl and old Toby. And Virginia? Why, being altogether devoted to her blind parent, for whose happiness she could never do enough, she was, of course, enchanted with the attentions she saw Penn pay _him_. That was all; at least, the dear girl thought that was all.

As for Salina, forsaken spouse of the gay Lysander Sprowl, she too, after sulkily brooding over her misfortunes all day, was glad enough to have any intelligent person come in and break the monotony of her sad life in the evening.

Such were Penn's relations with the family to whom alone he durst apply for refuge in his distress. Others might indeed have ventured to shelter him; but they, like Stackridge, were hated Unionists, and any mercy shown to him would have brought evil upon themselves. Mr. Villars, however, blind and venerated old man, had sufficient influence over the people, Penn believed, to serve as a protection to his household even with him in it.

So hither he came--how unwillingly let the proud and sensitive judge. For Penn, though belonging to the meekest of sects, was of a soul by nature aspiring and proud. He had the good sense to know that the outrage committed on him was in reality no disgrace, except to those guilty of perpetrating it. Yet no one likes to appear ridiculous. And the man of elevated spirit instinctively shrinks from making known his misfortunes even to his best friends; he is ashamed of that for which he is in no sense to blame, and he would rather suffer heroically in secret, than become an object of pity.

Most of all, as I have said, Penn dreaded the pure Virginia's eyes. Mr. Villars could not see him, and for Salina he did not care much--singularly enough, for she alone was of an acrid and sarcastic temper. What he devoutly desired was, to creep quietly to the kitchen door, call out Carl if he was there, or secretly make known his condition to old Toby, and thus obtain admission to the house, seclusion, and assistance, without letting Virginia, or her father even, know of his presence.

How this honest wish was thwarted we have seen. When the door was first opened, he had turned to fly. But that was cowardly; so he returned, and knocked, and called the negro by name, to reassure him. And the door was once more opened, and Virginia saw him--recognized him--knew in an instant what brutal deed had been done, and covered her eyes instinctively to shut out the hideous sight.

But it was no time to indulge in feelings of false modesty, if she felt any. It was no time to be weak, or foolish, or frightened, or ashamed.

"It is Penn!" she exclaimed in a burst of indignation and grief. "Toby! Toby! you great stupid----! what are you staring for? Take him in! why don't you? O, father!" And she threw herself on the old man's bosom, and hid her face.

"What has happened to Penn?" asked the old man.

"I have been tarred-and-feathered," answered Penn, entering, and closing the door behind him. "And I have been shut out of Mrs. Sprowl's house. This is my excuse for coming here. I must go somewhere, you know!"

"And where but here?" answered the old man. He had suppressed an outburst of feeling, and now stood calm, compassionating, extending his hands,--his staff fallen upon the floor. "I feared it might come to this! Terrible times are upon us, and you are only one of the first to suffer. You did well to come to us. Are you hurt?"

"I hardly know," replied Penn. "I beg of you, don't be alarmed or troubled. I hope you will excuse me. I know I am a fearful object to look at, and did not intend to be seen."

He stood holding the bed-tick over him, and his clothes before him, to conceal as much as possible his hideous guise, suffering, in that moment of pause, unutterable things. Was ever a hero of romance in such a dismal plight? Surely no writer of fiction would venture to show his hero in so ridiculous and damaging an aspect. But this is not altogether a romance, and I must relate facts as they occurred.

"Do not be sorry that I have seen you," said Virginia, lifting her face again, flashing with tears. "I see in this shameful disguise only the shame of those who have so cruelly treated you! Toby will help you. And there is Carl at last!"

She retreated from the room by one door just as Carl and Stackridge entered by the other.

Poor Penn! gentle and shrinking Penn! it was painful enough for him to meet even these coarser eyes, friendly though they were. The shock upon his system had been terrible; and now, his strength and resolution giving way, his bewildered senses began to reel, and he swooned in the farmer's arms.

VII.

_THE TWO GUESTS._

Virginia entered the sitting-room--the same where so many happy evenings had been enjoyed by the little family, in the society of him who now lay bruised, disfigured, and insensible in Toby's kitchen.

She walked to and fro, she gazed from the windows out into the darkness, she threw herself on the lounge, scarce able to control the feelings of pity and indignation that agitated her. For almost the first time in her life she was fired with vindictiveness; she burned to see some swift and terrible retribution overtake the perpetrators of this atrocious deed.

Mr. Villars soon came out to her. She hastened to lead him to a seat.

"How is he?--much injured?" she asked.

"He has been brutally used," said the old man. "But he is now in good hands. Where is Salina?"

"I don't know. I had been to look for her, when I came and found you in the kitchen. I think she must have gone out."