"But she"s going back into yo" hands?"
"My "an"s," said madame.
"And you"ll never sell her?"
"Can"t!" laughed Ramsey, with eyes ahead.
"You can hire her."
"Yes," said Ramsey, turning. "Oh, yes."
"Well, what"ll you take, from the right bidder, for that girl"s free papers dated ahead to when you come of age, bidder takin" all the resks?"
"You said down-stairs you wasn"t an abolitionist!"
He twinkled. "Well, down-stairs I wa"n"t, and in general I ain"t.
I"m a Kentuckian. But I"ve got an offer to make." He turned to the Courteneys: "I allowed to make it to this young gentleman first, alone, an" get his advice--an" the commodo"s if he"d give it; but the" ain"t anybody in this small crowd but what"s welcome to hear it, even this young lady, considerin" that she"s jest heard so much worse again"
me--insinuated--down-stairs."
There was a pause. Old Joy murmured and Madame spoke the daughter"s name, adding something in French.
"_Moi_," replied Ramsey, planting herself and gazing up the river, "_je prefere_ to stay right here."
The mother"s smile to the Kentuckian bade him proceed, but he still addressed Hugh and the grandfather:
"You see, that girl down-stairs, "Harriet," "Phyllis," has been free--Lawdy, free"s nothin", she"s been white!--fo" ten years. Now, if she goes back home, there may be no place like it, but she"s got to be black again. Well, think what that is. I"ve been weighin" that fact while I looked into her eyes and listened to her voice, an" thinks I to myself: "If I was this girl, this goin" back to be black would mean one of two things: I"d either die myself, aw I"d kill some one, maybe sev"l." True, I"m pyo" white an" she ain"t, quite, but I don"t believe her po" little drop o" low blood makes her any mo" bridlewise "n what I"d be."
While the speaker"s smile drew smiles from madame and the commodore, Ramsey turned to him a severe face and in the same glance managed to see Hugh"s, but Hugh"s might as well have been, to her mind, the face of a Chickasaw bluff.
"Well, what then?" she asked the gold hunter.
"Same time," said "California," still to the Courteneys, while madame promptly discerned his covert argument and Ramsey suddenly busied herself talking up to the pilot-house, "I noticed, more"n eveh, how much she, Phyllis, favoh"d somebody I was once "pon a time pow"ful soft on, but whose image"--his smile won smiles again--"I to"e out o" my heart--aw buried in thah--aw both--it bein" too ridiculous fo" me to aspiah that high. An" so here looked to me like a subst.i.tute, gentlemen, that ought to satisfy all concerned." His eye turned to madame but lost courage and escaped back to Hugh.
"Now, Mr. Hugh, I"ve got money a-plenty. It"s all I have got excep"
maybe a good tempeh, an" I"m goin" back to the diggin"s anyhow; one man to the squa" mile is too crowded fo" me. Meantime, madam"--he turned again and this time he was invincible, although madame straightened and sparkled and Ramsey gave a staring attention, having throughout all her pilot-house talk heard everything----"Meantime, madam, with a priest right here on boa"d, if I can buy, at any price, Phyllis"s free papehs----"
"You can"t!" chanted Ramsey. "She can have "em for nothing but n.o.body can buy "em."
"Pries"?" asked madame, "an" free pape"! W"at you pro-ose do with those pries" an" free pape"?"
"I"ll marry her; marry her an" take her to whah a woman"s a woman fo" a"
that an" can clean house aw cook dinneh whilst I gatheh the honeycomb bright as gold and drive the wolf to his secret hold." He cast around the group a glance of bright inquiry, but except old Joy every one silently looked at every one else. The old woman softly closed her eyes and shook her head.
"Vote!" cried Ramsey, remembering Sunday"s victory. "Let"s vote on it!"
LV
LOVE MAKES A CUT-OFF
But the grandfather addressed the adventurer. "You"d rather not, I fancy."
"Rather not; looks too unanimous the wrong way."
"Would you still like to have Hugh"s advice?"
"I would! I"d like to hear yo"-all"s argument."
Ramsey dropped into her chair with a tired sigh and up-stream gaze though with an inner ear of keenest attention.
Hugh glanced toward his father"s door, whence at any moment, as every one realized, the actor might beckon.
"I have no argument," he began.
"You have," breathed a voice, unmistakably Ramsey"s; "you always have."
"You know," he continued to the Kentuckian, "there"s something in all of us, I don"t say what, or whether wise or foolish, that says: "Don"t do it." You feel it, don"t you?"
Madame interrupted: "_Mais_ don"t do w"at?"
Ramsey faced the group as if to answer just that question. "Now we pa.s.s between Cedar Point and Pecan Point and head for the Second Chickasaw Bluffs!"
"Ah bah, _les_ bloff"," murmured madame and repeated to Hugh: "Something say, "Don" do it"? _Mais_ w"at it say don" do?"
"Don"t mix the great races we know apart by their color."
"Umph! An" w"at is thad something w"at tell uz that?"
"Grandfather calls it race conscience."
"Grandfather!" whimpered Ramsey, while madame asked:
"Of w"at race has Phylliz the conscien"? An" you would know Phylliz"
race--ad sight--by the color?"
"I"d know it!" put in the Kentuckian. "She"s white, to all intents and purposes."
"No," said Hugh, "not quite to all. Not to all as organized society, in its----"
Ramsey, with eyes up the river, sighed: "Mrs. Grundy?"
"Yes, but Mrs. Grundy in her best intents and purposes."
"In her race conscience," wailed Ramsey to the breeze.