Part 4

The next place in this semicircle was filled by a man who has not a very good name in the neighborhood. Meeting him one day, I asked him to join us on Sundays, only because I ask all who live near enough to come easily. I did it with a little trouble, expecting to see a sneer on his face; but he thanked me quite civilly, and, though several weeks passed without his taking any further notice of my invitation, it seems he had not forgotten it. He is not an ill-looking man, when you see him fairly. His expression is melancholy rather than morose, as I used to think it. After this, I shall never take refusal for granted, when I have anything to offer which I believe worth accepting. This man's name is Winford. I assigned to him, as a stranger, one of two remaining chairs; but he declined it, taking his seat on the ground. The chairs were immediately after occupied by the wife and daughter of Rufe Hantham, a man tolerated for abilities convenient rather than useful. He is one of the class of parasites that spring up about every large plantation. He is a hanger-on of the Westlake estate, which lies just beyond Shaler's, between that and Tenpinville. The wife is a poor little woman, whose face wears an habitual expression of entreaty. It is the daughter who brings her, I think. This young girl, of fifteen or less, has a look of thought and determination, as if she held in her mind some clearly formed plan which she will carry out to the end, towards which her coming here is possibly one of the first steps. She keeps her eyes fixed on the ground, but evidently is listening intently,--committing, as it seems, everything she hears to a memory that never lets go what it has once taken hold of. They have been twice before. When the reading is over, the mother looks as if she would like to have a little chat with somebody; but the daughter holds her in check with hand and eye,--not unkindly, but effectually. They wait until some one sets the example of going, and then follow quickly and silently. We have made no attempt to invade a reserve which seems deliberate.

Harvey's plantation is on the other side of Tenpinville, more than eighteen miles from us; but it had a representative here, in young Lenox, one of the sons of the overseer. He came for the first time. He sat in the opposite semicircle, next to Harry, with whom he was already acquainted. The chairs on that side were occupied by the Segrufs and Blantys, respectable neighbors, whom you may remember.

Another new-comer was a little boy whom we met in our morning walk, and who joined himself to us at once with a confidence which was very pleasant. Harry took a great fancy to him. I asked him to come to us at ten, hardly hoping he would accept; but he did, eagerly. He does not belong to our part of the world. He is the son of a carpenter who has work here for a few months. I was glad to see him come in, and another little fellow whose father has brought him once or twice, but who has not been alone before. The father is not often well enough to come.

There are one or two persons whom I am always glad _not_ to see; and that morning my wishes were answered in those who came and in those who stayed away. Of these last is Phil Phinn, who thinks to make up for the time of mine he uses in the adjustment of his neighborly differences by devoting an hour of his own, once in two or three weeks, to the penance of listening to me. I could well spare his vacant solemnity that day. His absence was of good augury, too, for he is strict in attendance when an occasion for mediation is imminent.

At ten o'clock precisely we heard the great bell rung by Tabitha, who until then kept watch at the house. While it was ringing, a family came in of which I must speak more particularly, because I feel already that I shall speak of it often. This family has only recently arrived in the neighborhood. The father, I think, is Southern born; the mother must be from the North. They brought all their children, down to the baby, three years old, that listened with all its eyes, as the rest with all their hearts. They had been here only twice before; but the perfect unity of this little family, which seemed always influenced by one feeling, moved by one will, the anxious watchfulness of the parents, the close dependence of the children, had already greatly interested me. This man and woman have certainly known more prosperous, if not better days. The lines of their faces, their whole bearing, tell of successive reverses, worthily, though not resolutely borne,--of a down-hill path long trodden by patient, but unresisting feet. There are no signs of struggle against adverse fortune. But, in such a struggle, how often do the charm and joy of life perish, torn and trampled by their very rescuers! These people have maintained their equanimity, if not their cheerfulness. They have no reproaches for themselves or each other. The bench was for this family. The father, the mother with the baby in her lap, the daughter, and the second son filled it; the eldest sat at his mother's feet, and, when he was particularly moved or pleased by anything that was read, looked up to her to see if he was right. A great gravity held the whole group,--deepest on the elder faces, and gradually shading off into the undue tranquillity of the infantile look.

When Tabitha came, she brought the little white vase with Harry's flowers, and put it on the table, where, indeed, it ought to have been.

I seldom read the whole of a sermon. I like to keep more time for the Bible. And then I omit those passages which I foresee might provoke questions which I should not dare to assume the responsibility of answering. I do not presume to take upon myself the office of religious teacher. I only strive, in the absence of one, to keep alive in myself and those near me a constant sense of God's presence and care, and of the bond which, uniting us to Him, unites us to each other. This I do by reading the words of those who have had this sense most strongly and have expressed it most vividly.

Of the sermon I had chosen I read the first paragraph, and then, turning over nine pages, began with the Privileges of Friendship. I do not know whether this discourse of South's is to others what it is to me. Perhaps there is something in it particularly adapted to my needs,--or perhaps it is because it came to me first at a time when I was very eager for the assurances it gives; but I never read it without feeling a new inflow of peace and security. At least some of those who heard it with me that day felt with me. Harry I was sure of beforehand. When we broke up, and I went forward to speak to the strangers on the bench, it seemed to me that their anxieties were soothed by something softer than patience. An indefinable change had passed over the whole family. They all seemed lightened of a part of the habitual burden. I took them up to my mother. She asked them to be sure and come on Easter Sunday; they accepted in earnest; but with their poor little wagon and poor old mule they will hardly encounter the rain and the mud to-day.

I was so intent on my letter, that I forgot the weather, until, writing the word _rain_, I looked towards the window. It does not rain, and has apparently held up for some time. And now I hear a racket in the road, and a stumping, that can come only from the poor little wagon and the poor old mule.

AFTERNOON, 3 O'CLOCK.

It is raining again; but I think our friends had time to reach their homes before it began. We have had a happy day, notwithstanding its dull promise. I read an Easter sermon,--"_Because it was not possible that he should be holden of it_." The text itself is more than a thousand sermons.

* * * * *

The name of the family that was arriving this morning when I left off writing is Linton. They are from Western Virginia. They stayed with us for an hour after the reading was over. Our interest in them is still increased. Winford came again. I asked him to stay; he declined; but I think he was pleased at being invited. The Hanthams came, mother and daughter. They arrived at the last moment, and went at the closing of the book. The corner in which the table stood was curtained off, so that there was no visible sign of unusual hospitality; but they had perhaps heard of the custom of the day. Mrs. Hantham would not have been inexorable; but she was summoned away by a gesture a little too imperative, perhaps, from a daughter to her mother. Davis Barton came on horseback, without his father. I set him off again at one o'clock; for the sky threatened, and his road home was a difficult one at best.

But let me go back to last Sunday. I was just at the breaking-up of our little assembly by the pine.

The Lintons--they had no name then--were the first to go. The Hanthams were the next. Then the others dropped off, one by one and two by two: some taking leave as if they felt themselves guests; others withdrawing silently, as considering themselves only part of a congregation. Barton went round shaking hands with one and another. I was surprised to see him show this attention to Winford. Barton likes to be well with the world,--that is, with as much of it as he respects; but he respects himself, and does not seek popularity at the expense of sincerity. I am confirmed in my belief that there is good in Winford.

When all the rest were gone, Barton came up to have a talk with the Doctor, for whom he evidently has a great admiration. Harry remained with Karl and Fritz, who were holding him in conversation, apparently on some important matter,--old Hans, a critical listener, completing the group.

Barton inquired after the success of the Doctor's late excursions, and complimented him warmly on his powers of endurance, which seemed almost miraculous in a city man. This Doctor Borrow freely admitted, declaring that he had hardly ever undertaken an expedition with a party of people which had not turned out a disappointment,--that he seldom, indeed, found even a single companion who could walk with him, or who could rough it as he could.

"You've got one now, though," said Barton.

"Oh, for that," the Doctor answered, laughing, "Harry is a degree beyond me. I can bear as much as any man, but I know that I'm bearing, and like to give myself credit for it. Harry never feels either heat or cold or damp or dust. Nothing disagreeable is able to get at him. There is no such thing as hard fare for him; and if he knows what fatigue is, he has never confessed to it."

"And yet I suppose he's something of a scholar, too?" asked Barton; and he looked thoughtfully down at his son, who always kept close to him, and who had been drinking all this in eagerly.

As the Doctor hesitated to reply, Barton added,--"I asked him, that day you were at Quickster, if he had read a book that I had seen a good deal of talk about in the newspapers, and he said, No, that he had hardly read anything yet."

"Of course, of course, at his age! Still, you need not precisely take him at his own estimate. His modesty misleads, as much as some people's conceit does the other way. He is not always up to the fashion of the moment in literature; does not try to read everything that is talked about; but he has read the best of the best."

"Is that the best way, do you think?" asked Barton, anxiously.

"What do you think yourself?" asked the Doctor.

"I should think it must be a good one."

"It depends altogether on what you want to have," said the Doctor, following the track of Barton's thought, and fixing a searching look on Davis, as if to ascertain what material was there. "The queen-bee is fed on special and choice food from the first; if you want a king-man, you must follow the same course."

"You've seen some fine countries abroad, Sir?" said Barton, presently. "Any finer than ours?"

"Finer than yours? No. You've a fine country here, Mr. Barton, and a fresh country: Nature stands on her own merits, as yet. No 'associations' here; no 'scenes of historical interest' for sightseers to gape at and enthusiasts to dream over. You have your Indian mounds, to be sure; but these are simple objects of curiosity, and don't exact any tribute of feeling: you've no 'glorious traditions,' and I assure you, it is reposing to be out of their reach."

"We've only what we bring with us," answered Barton, a little touched; "we don't leave our country when we come here."

"Colvil looks now as if he had something in reserve. But I'm not alarmed. If there had been anything about here that had a tinge of poetry, I should have heard of it long ago from Harry. Most people think this sort of folly is in good taste only in Europe. But Harry brought it home with him in full force. Before he'd been on land a week, he'd seen Concord and Lexington."

"Had he, though?" cried Barton. "I am an Acton boy, you know," he added, in a subdued tone, a little abashed by his own vivacity.

"Upon my word, Dudley has waked up the old-fashioned patriot in you already."--Harry had now come up, and made one of the Doctor's listeners.--"I saw he was getting hold of you that morning at Quickster, when you were talking up your State to us. You were beginning to feel that you had something to do about it. It isn't the country that belongs to her sons, according to him, but her sons that belong to the country. Take care! give him time, and he'll make a convert of you."

"I will give him time," answered Barton, laughing.

"Don't be too confident of yourself. I have to stand on my guard, myself, sometimes. And don't be misled into supposing that his notions are the fashion in the part of the world we come from, or in any other civilized part of it. Harry, you were born some hundreds of years too late or too early. Fervor in anything, but above all in public service, is out of place in the world of our day.

"'Love your country; wish it well; Not with too intense a care: Let it suffice, that, when it fell, Thou its ruin didst not share.'

"That's modern patriotism, the patriotism of Europe. Ours is of the same strain, only modified by our circumstances. Our Mother-land is a good housekeeper. She spreads a plentiful table, and her sons appreciate it. She wants no sentimental affection, and receives none. She is not obliged to ask for painful sacrifice; and lucky for her that she is not!"

Harry's cheek flushed, and his eye kindled:--

"Let her only have need of them, and it will be seen whether her sons love her!"

Davis Barton was in more danger of conversion than his father; his eyes were fixed ardently on Harry; his face glowed in sympathy.

"The nearest thing we have to a place with 'associations,'" I began quickly, preventing whatever sarcastic answer may have been ready on the Doctor's lips, "is the Shaler plantation."

"Yes," said Barton, "the Colonel was an old Revolutioner."

"The father?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes."

"To be sure. The son's title is an inherited one, like my friend Harvey's, who, now he is beginning to get a little gray, is 'the Judge,' I find, with everybody."

"And he looks it very well," said Barton. "I don't know whether it will go down farther."

"And the present Colonel is a _new_ Revolutioner, probably," said the Doctor, inquiringly.

"I suppose some people might think he only followed after his father," Barton answered.

We were getting on delicate ground. Barton is no trimmer, but he is landlord of the Rapid Run. He made a diversion by inquiring after Orphy, and the Doctor gave him the account of their journey as he had given it to me,--yet not forgetting that he had given it to me. The same in substantial facts, his story was amplified and varied in details and in ornament, so that I heard it with as much interest as if it had been the first time.

"Is musical genius of the force of Orphy's common among the negroes of your plantations?" The Doctor addressed this question to me.

"Not common, certainly,--nor yet entirely singular. Almost all our large plantations have their minstrel, of greater or less talent. Your friend, Mr. Frank Harvey, has a boy on his place, who, if not equal to Orphy, has yet a remarkable gift. Did not Mr. Harvey speak to you of him?"

"I dare say. He had several prodigies of different kinds to exhibit to us. But we were there so short a time! He introduced us to a blacksmith of genius; to a specimen of ugliness supposed to be the most superior extant,--out of Guinea; and to a few other notabilities. But we had hardly time to see even the place itself, which really offers a great deal to admire. I could have given a few more days to it, but I saw that Harry was in a hurry to be off."

"I am sorry you did not see that boy. He would have taken hold of your imagination, I think, and certainly of Harry's. Airy has seen only the sunny side of life. He has all the _espièglerie_ of the African child."

"Orphy has not much of that," said the Doctor.

You ought to have seen little Airy, too, Keith. He was already famous when you were here. He is rightly named; a very Ariel for grace and sportiveness. With the African light-heartedness, he has also something of African pathos. In his silent smile there is a delicate sadness,--not the trace of any pain he has known, but like the lingering of an inherited regret. His transitions are more rapid than belong to our race: while you are still laughing at his drollery, you see that he has suddenly passed far away from you; his soft, shadowy eyes are looking out from under their drooping lashes into a land where your sight cannot follow them.

"If you were to go there again, it would be worth while to ask for him," I said to the Doctor. "Airy Harvey is one of the wonders of our world."

"Airy Harvey!" cried the Doctor; "does Harvey allow his servants to bear his name? Westlake strictly forbids the use of his to his people. But then he supplies them with magnificent substitutes. He doesn't think any name but his own too good for them."

"Does he forbid them to take it?" asked Barton. "I heard so, but thought it was a joke. Why, there isn't a living thing on his place but goes by his name, down to that handsome hound that follows him, who's known everywhere about as Nero Westlake."

Barton seemed to enjoy Westlake's failure, and so, I am afraid, did the Doctor. He laughed heartily.

"He's rather unlucky," he said, "considering it's almost the only thing he is particular about."

"I don't believe Mr. Harvey could change the custom either, if he wished," I said; "but I do not think he does wish it. A name is a strong bond."

"That's true," said the Doctor. "Harvey's a wise man; it's a means of government."

"If I had to live under one of them," said Barton, "Westlake's haphazard fashions would suit me better than Harvey's regular system: a life in which everything is known beforehand tells on the nerves. But, strangely enough, Mr. Harvey never loses one of his people, and Westlake's are always slipping off."

"If Harvey carried on his plantation himself, as Westlake does," replied the Doctor, "he would be adored where now he is only loved. His rule would abound in that element of uncertainty whose charm you appreciate so justly. But he is wisely content to reign and not to govern."

"Mr. Harvey has a good overseer, I understand," said Barton,--"supervisor, though, I believe it is."

"Lenox; yes. He is able, perfectly temperate, cool, inflexible, and just."

"You have learned his character from Mr. Harvey?"

"And from what I have myself seen. The estate is really well ordered,--all things considered; Harvey tells me it is rare that a complaint is heard from his negroes."

"Lenox takes care of that," said Harry.

"And he ought. I walked round among the cabins with Harvey. Not a creature but had his petition; not one but would have had his grievance, if he had dared."

"Do you suppose they have no real grievances, then?"

"I suppose no such thing. I never saw the man yet--the grown man--without one; and as I did not expect to meet with him here, I didn't look for him. Harvey allows no unnecessary severity; his plantation is governed by fixed laws, to which the overseer is amenable as well as the slaves. Every deviation from them has to be accounted for. He sees that his people have justice done them,--that is to say, as far as justice ever is done on this earth. He has wrought no miracles, and probably did not expect to work any. He has run into no extravagances of benevolence; and I respect him for it all the more that I know he is by nature an impetuous man. I cannot but think our friend Shaler would have done better to follow his example than to abandon his negroes as he has."

"He gave them something to begin their new life with," said Harry.

"So much thrown away. Just a sop to his conscience, like the rest; a mode of excusing himself to himself for shifting off his own responsibilities upon other people. Two thirds of his rabble are paupers by this time."

Harry looked to me for the answer.

"They have been free four years. Two of them have fallen back on his hands,--two out of one hundred and seventy-three. He has not abandoned them. They still apply to him when they need advice or aid."

"I was not so much arguing about this particular case, which I don't pretend to have much knowledge of, as reasoning upon general grounds. I still think he would have done better to keep his slaves and try to make something of them here."

"The law would not let him make men of them here," Harry answered.

"A great deal may be done, still keeping within the law," replied the Doctor, "by a man more intent on doing good than on doing it precisely in his own way."

"Even in what it allowed, the law did not protect him. Where injustice is made law, law loses respect,--most of all with those who have perverted it to their service. You know Mr. Westlake's maxim,--'Those who make the laws can judge what they are made for.'"

"The power of opinion in what are called free countries," replied the Doctor, "is indeed excessive. It has long been a question with me, whether a single hand to hold the sceptre is not preferable to this Briareus. But we have chosen. I am not disposed to deliver myself up, bound hand and foot, to this fetich of public opinion. Still, a man owes some respect to the feelings and principles of the community in which he lives. I may think the best way of disposing of old houses is to burn them down; but my neighbors will have something to say, and justly."

Harry did not reply; nor did I at that time.

Tabitha appeared and bore off three chairs,--one on her head and one in each hand. We understood the signal. Harry and I took up my mother's couch; Barton and his son loaded themselves with two chairs each; the Doctor lifted the arm-chair with both hands, and, holding it out before him, led the way, somewhat impeded by his burden; and so we moved in slow procession to the house.

In the afternoon, when Barton and his son were gone, the Doctor, Harry, and I took a walk to the site of the old forest. We found a few more flowers like those Harry had brought to my mother in the morning, but nothing else that the Doctor cared for. On our way back, I told him the story of Shaler's attempt and failure. I wonder I did not tell it to you when you were here. But we had so much to ask and to say, and the time was so short! I will tell it to you now.