"You shan"t die! you mustn"t die, nor think of it! I"ve come to buy you, and take you home," said George, with impetuous vehemence.
"O, Mas"r George, ye"re too late. The Lord"s bought me, and is going to take me home,--and I long to go. Heaven is better than Kintuck."
"O, don"t die! It"ll kill me!--it"ll break my heart to think what you"ve suffered,--and lying in this old shed, here! Poor, poor fellow!"
"Don"t call me poor fellow!" said Tom, solemnly, "I have been poor fellow; but that"s all past and gone, now. I"m right in the door, going into glory! O, Mas"r George! Heaven has come! I"ve got the victory!--the Lord Jesus has given it to me! Glory be to His name!"
George was awe-struck at the force, the vehemence, the power, with which these broken sentences were uttered. He sat gazing in silence.
Tom grasped his hand, and continued,--"Ye mustn"t, now, tell Chloe, poor soul! how ye found me;--"t would be so drefful to her. Only tell her ye found me going into glory; and that I couldn"t stay for no one. And tell her the Lord"s stood by me everywhere and al"ays, and made everything light and easy. And oh, the poor chil"en, and the baby;--my old heart"s been most broke for "em, time and agin! Tell "em all to follow me--follow me! Give my love to Mas"r, and dear good Missis, and everybody in the place! Ye don"t know! "Pears like I loves "em all! I loves every creature everywhar!--it"s nothing but love! O, Mas"r George! what a thing "t is to be a Christian!"
At this moment, Legree sauntered up to the door of the shed, looked in, with a dogged air of affected carelessness, and turned away.
"The old satan!" said George, in his indignation. "It"s a comfort to think the devil will pay him for this, some of these days!"
"O, don"t!--oh, ye mustn"t!" said Tom, grasping his hand; "he"s a poor mis"able critter! it"s awful to think on "t! Oh, if he only could repent, the Lord would forgive him now; but I"m "feared he never will!"
"I hope he won"t!" said George; "I never want to see him in heaven!"
"Hush, Mas"r George!--it worries me! Don"t feel so! He an"t done me no real harm,--only opened the gate of the kingdom for me; that"s all!"
At this moment, the sudden flush of strength which the joy of meeting his young master had infused into the dying man gave way. A sudden sinking fell upon him; he closed his eyes; and that mysterious and sublime change pa.s.sed over his face, that told the approach of other worlds.
He began to draw his breath with long, deep inspirations; and his broad chest rose and fell, heavily. The expression of his face was that of a conqueror.
"Who,--who,--who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" he said, in a voice that contended with mortal weakness; and, with a smile, he fell asleep.
George sat fixed with solemn awe. It seemed to him that the place was holy; and, as he closed the lifeless eyes, and rose up from the dead, only one thought possessed him,--that expressed by his simple old friend,--"What a thing it is to be a Christian!"
He turned: Legree was standing, sullenly, behind him.
Something in that dying scene had checked the natural fierceness of youthful pa.s.sion. The presence of the man was simply loathsome to George; and he felt only an impulse to get away from him, with as few words as possible.
Fixing his keen dark eyes on Legree, he simply said, pointing to the dead, "You have got all you ever can of him. What shall I pay you for the body? I will take it away, and bury it decently."
"I don"t sell dead n.i.g.g.e.rs," said Legree, doggedly. "You are welcome to bury him where and when you like."
"Boys," said George, in an authoritative tone, to two or three negroes, who were looking at the body, "help me lift him up, and carry him to my wagon; and get me a spade."
One of them ran for a spade; the other two a.s.sisted George to carry the body to the wagon.
George neither spoke to nor looked at Legree, who did not countermand his orders, but stood, whistling, with an air of forced unconcern. He sulkily followed them to where the wagon stood at the door.
George spread his cloak in the wagon, and had the body carefully disposed of in it,--moving the seat, so as to give it room. Then he turned, fixed his eyes on Legree, and said, with forced composure, "I have not, as yet, said to you what I think of this most atrocious affair;--this is not the time and place. But, sir, this innocent blood shall have justice. I will proclaim this murder. I will go to the very first magistrate, and expose you."
"Do!" said Legree, snapping his fingers, scornfully. "I"d like to see you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses?--how you going to prove it?--Come, now!"
George saw, at once, the force of this defiance. There was not a white person on the place; and, in all southern courts, the testimony of colored blood is nothing. He felt, at that moment, as if he could have rent the heavens with his heart"s indignant cry for justice; but in vain.
"After all, what a fuss, for a dead n.i.g.g.e.r!" said Legree.
The word was as a spark to a powder magazine. Prudence was never a cardinal virtue of the Kentucky boy. George turned, and, with one indignant blow, knocked Legree flat upon his face; and, as he stood over him, blazing with wrath and defiance, he would have formed no bad personification of his great namesake triumphing over the dragon.
Some men, however, are decidedly bettered by being knocked down. If a man lays them fairly flat in the dust, they seem immediately to conceive a respect for him; and Legree was one of this sort. As he rose, therefore, and brushed the dust from his clothes, he eyed the slowly-retreating wagon with some evident consideration; nor did he open his mouth till it was out of sight.
Beyond the boundaries of the plantation, George had noticed a dry, sandy knoll, shaded by a few trees; there they made the grave.
"Shall we take off the cloak, Mas"r?" said the negroes, when the grave was ready.
"No, no,--bury it with him! It"s all I can give you, now, poor Tom, and you shall have it."
They laid him in; and the men shovelled away, silently. They banked it up, and laid green turf over it.
"You may go, boys," said George, slipping a quarter into the hand of each. They lingered about, however.
"If young Mas"r would please buy us--" said one.
"We"d serve him so faithful!" said the other.
"Hard times here, Mas"r!" said the first. "Do, Mas"r, buy us, please!"
"I can"t!--I can"t!" said George, with difficulty, motioning them off; "it"s impossible!"
The poor fellows looked dejected, and walked off in silence.
"Witness, eternal G.o.d!" said George, kneeling on the grave of his poor friend; "oh, witness, that, from this hour, I will do what one man can to drive out this curse of slavery from my land!"
There is no monument to mark the last resting-place of our friend. He needs none! His Lord knows where he lies, and will raise him up, immortal, to appear with him when he shall appear in his glory.
Pity him not! Such a life and death is not for pity! Not in the riches of omnipotence is the chief glory of G.o.d; but in self-denying, suffering love! And blessed are the men whom he calls to fellowship with him, bearing their cross after him with patience. Of such it is written, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."
CHAPTER XLII.
An Authentic Ghost Story.
For some remarkable reason, ghostly legends were uncommonly rife, about this time, among the servants on Legree"s place.
It was whisperingly a.s.serted that footsteps, in the dead of night, had been heard descending the garret stairs, and patrolling the house. In vain the doors of the upper entry had been locked; the ghost either carried a duplicate key in its pocket, or availed itself of a ghost"s immemorial privilege of coming through the keyhole, and promenaded as before, with a freedom that was alarming.
Authorities were somewhat divided, as to the outward form of the spirit, owing to a custom quite prevalent among negroes,--and, for aught we know, among whites, too,--of invariably shutting the eyes, and covering up heads under blankets, petticoats, or whatever else might come in use for a shelter, on these occasions. Of course, as everybody knows, when the bodily eyes are thus out of the lists, the spiritual eyes are uncommonly vivacious and perspicuous; and, therefore, there were abundance of full-length portraits of the ghost, abundantly sworn and testified to, which, as if often the case with portraits, agreed with each other in no particular, except the common family peculiarity of the ghost tribe,--the wearing of a white sheet. The poor souls were not versed in ancient history, and did not know that Shakspeare had authenticated this costume, by telling how "The sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome."*
* Hamlet, Act I, scene 1, lines 115-116.
And, therefore, their all hitting upon this is a striking fact in pneumatology, which we recommend to the attention of spiritual media generally.
Be it as it may, we have private reasons for knowing that a tall figure in a white sheet did walk, at the most approved ghostly hours, around the Legree premises,--pa.s.s out the doors, glide about the house,--disappear at intervals, and, reappearing, pa.s.s up the silent stairway, into that fatal garret; and that, in the morning, the entry doors were all found shut and locked as firm as ever.
Legree could not help overhearing this whispering; and it was all the more exciting to him, from the pains that were taken to conceal it from him. He drank more brandy than usual; held up his head briskly, and swore louder than ever in the daytime; but he had bad dreams, and the visions of his head on his bed were anything but agreeable. The night after Tom"s body had been carried away, he rode to the next town for a carouse, and had a high one. Got home late and tired; locked his door, took out the key, and went to bed.
After all, let a man take what pains he may to hush it down, a human soul is an awful ghostly, unquiet possession, for a bad man to have. Who knows the metes and bounds of it? Who knows all its awful perhapses,--those shudderings and tremblings, which it can no more live down than it can outlive its own eternity! What a fool is he who locks his door to keep out spirits, who has in his own bosom a spirit he dares not meet alone,--whose voice, smothered far down, and piled over with mountains of earthliness, is yet like the forewarning trumpet of doom!
But Legree locked his door and set a chair against it; he set a night-lamp at the head of his bed; and put his pistols there. He examined the catches and fastenings of the windows, and then swore he "didn"t care for the devil and all his angels," and went to sleep.
Well, he slept, for he was tired,--slept soundly. But, finally, there came over his sleep a shadow, a horror, an apprehension of something dreadful hanging over him. It was his mother"s shroud, he thought; but Ca.s.sy had it, holding it up, and showing it to him. He heard a confused noise of screams and groanings; and, with it all, he knew he was asleep, and he struggled to wake himself. He was half awake. He was sure something was coming into his room. He knew the door was opening, but he could not stir hand or foot. At last he turned, with a start; the door was open, and he saw a hand putting out his light.
It was a cloudy, misty moonlight, and there he saw it!--something white, gliding in! He heard the still rustle of its ghostly garments. It stood still by his bed;--a cold hand touched his; a voice said, three times, in a low, fearful whisper, "Come! come! come!" And, while he lay sweating with terror, he knew not when or how, the thing was gone. He sprang out of bed, and pulled at the door. It was shut and locked, and the man fell down in a swoon.
After this, Legree became a harder drinker than ever before. He no longer drank cautiously, prudently, but imprudently and recklessly.
There were reports around the country, soon after that he was sick and dying. Excess had brought on that frightful disease that seems to throw the lurid shadows of a coming retribution back into the present life. None could bear the horrors of that sick room, when he raved and screamed, and spoke of sights which almost stopped the blood of those who heard him; and, at his dying bed, stood a stern, white, inexorable figure, saying, "Come! come! come!"
By a singular coincidence, on the very night that this vision appeared to Legree, the house-door was found open in the morning, and some of the negroes had seen two white figures gliding down the avenue towards the high-road.
It was near sunrise when Ca.s.sy and Emmeline paused, for a moment, in a little knot of trees near the town.
Ca.s.sy was dressed after the manner of the Creole Spanish ladies,--wholly in black. A small black bonnet on her head, covered by a veil thick with embroidery, concealed her face. It had been agreed that, in their escape, she was to personate the character of a Creole lady, and Emmeline that of her servant.
Brought up, from early life, in connection with the highest society, the language, movements and air of Ca.s.sy, were all in agreement with this idea; and she had still enough remaining with her, of a once splendid wardrobe, and sets of jewels, to enable her to personate the thing to advantage.
She stopped in the outskirts of the town, where she had noticed trunks for sale, and purchased a handsome one. This she requested the man to send along with her. And, accordingly, thus escorted by a boy wheeling her trunk, and Emmeline behind her, carrying her carpet-bag and sundry bundles, she made her appearance at the small tavern, like a lady of consideration.
The first person that struck her, after her arrival, was George Shelby, who was staying there, awaiting the next boat.
Ca.s.sy had remarked the young man from her loophole in the garret, and seen him bear away the body of Tom, and observed with secret exultation, his rencontre with Legree. Subsequently she had gathered, from the conversations she had overheard among the negroes, as she glided about in her ghostly disguise, after nightfall, who he was, and in what relation he stood to Tom. She, therefore, felt an immediate accession of confidence, when she found that he was, like herself, awaiting the next boat.
Ca.s.sy"s air and manner, address, and evident command of money, prevented any rising disposition to suspicion in the hotel. People never inquire too closely into those who are fair on the main point, of paying well,--a thing which Ca.s.sy had foreseen when she provided herself with money.
In the edge of the evening, a boat was heard coming along, and George Shelby handed Ca.s.sy aboard, with the politeness which comes naturally to every Kentuckian, and exerted himself to provide her with a good state-room.
Ca.s.sy kept her room and bed, on pretext of illness, during the whole time they were on Red river; and was waited on, with obsequious devotion, by her attendant.
When they arrived at the Mississippi river, George, having learned that the course of the strange lady was upward, like his own, proposed to take a state-room for her on the same boat with himself,--good-naturedly compa.s.sionating her feeble health, and desirous to do what he could to a.s.sist her.
Behold, therefore, the whole party safely transferred to the good steamer Cincinnati, and sweeping up the river under a powerful head of steam.
Ca.s.sy"s health was much better. She sat upon the guards, came to the table, and was remarked upon in the boat as a lady that must have been very handsome.
From the moment that George got the first glimpse of her face, he was troubled with one of those fleeting and indefinite likenesses, which almost every body can remember, and has been, at times, perplexed with. He could not keep himself from looking at her, and watchin her perpetually. At table, or sitting at her state-room door, still she would encounter the young man"s eyes fixed on her, and politely withdrawn, when she showed, by her countenance, that she was sensible to the observation.
Ca.s.sy became uneasy. She began to think that he suspected something; and finally resolved to throw herself entirely on his generosity, and intrusted him with her whole history.
George was heartily disposed to sympathize with any one who had escaped from Legree"s plantation,--a place that he could not remember or speak of with patience,--and, with the courageous disregard of consequences which is characteristic of his age and state, he a.s.sured her that he would do all in his power to protect and bring them through.
The next state-room to Ca.s.sy"s was occupied by a French lady, named De Thoux, who was accompanied by a fine little daughter, a child of some twelve summers.
This lady, having gathered, from George"s conversation, that he was from Kentucky, seemed evidently disposed to cultivate his acquaintance; in which design she was seconded by the graces of her little girl, who was about as pretty a plaything as ever diverted the weariness of a fortnight"s trip on a steamboat.
George"s chair was often placed at her state-room door; and Ca.s.sy, as she sat upon the guards, could hear their conversation.
Madame de Thoux was very minute in her inquiries as to Kentucky, where she said she had resided in a former period of her life. George discovered, to his surprise, that her former residence must have been in his own vicinity; and her inquiries showed a knowledge of people and things in his vicinity, that was perfectly surprising to him.
"Do you know," said Madame de Thoux to him, one day, "of any man, in your neighborhood, of the name of Harris?"
"There is an old fellow, of that name, lives not far from my father"s place," said George. "We never have had much intercourse with him, though."
"He is a large slave-owner, I believe," said Madame de Thoux, with a manner which seemed to betray more interest than she was exactly willing to show.
"He is," said George, looking rather surprised at her manner.
"Did you ever know of his having--perhaps, you may have heard of his having a mulatto boy, named George?"
"O, certainly,--George Harris,--I know him well; he married a servant of my mother"s, but has escaped, now, to Canada."
"He has?" said Madame de Thoux, quickly. "Thank G.o.d!"
George looked a surprised inquiry, but said nothing.
Madame de Thoux leaned her head on her hand, and burst into tears.
"He is my brother," she said.
"Madame!" said George, with a strong accent of surprise.
"Yes," said Madame de Thoux, lifting her head, proudly, and wiping her tears, "Mr. Shelby, George Harris is my brother!"
"I am perfectly astonished," said George, pushing back his chair a pace or two, and looking at Madame de Thoux.
"I was sold to the South when he was a boy," said she. "I was bought by a good and generous man. He took me with him to the West Indies, set me free, and married me. It is but lately that he died; and I was going up to Kentucky, to see if I could find and redeem my brother."
"I heard him speak of a sister Emily, that was sold South," said George.
"Yes, indeed! I am the one," said Madame de Thoux;--"tell me what sort of a--"
"A very fine young man," said George, "notwithstanding the curse of slavery that lay on him. He sustained a first rate character, both for intelligence and principle. I know, you see," he said; "because he married in our family."
"What sort of a girl?" said Madame de Thoux, eagerly.
"A treasure," said George; "a beautiful, intelligent, amiable girl. Very pious. My mother had brought her up, and trained her as carefully, almost, as a daughter. She could read and write, embroider and sew, beautifully; and was a beautiful singer."
"Was she born in your house?" said Madame de Thoux.