AMONG THE PINES.

Alighting from the carriage, I entered, with the Colonel, the cabin of the negro-hunter. So far as external appearance went, the shanty was a slight improvement on the 'Mills House,' described in a previous chapter; but internally, it was hard to say whether it resembled more a pig-sty or a dog-kennel. The floor was of the bare earth, covered in patches with loose plank of various descriptions, and littered over with billets of 'lightwood,' unwashed cooking utensils, two or three cheap stools, a pine settee—made from the rough log and hewn smooth on the upper-side—a full-grown blood-hound, two younger canines, and nine dirt-encrusted juveniles, of the flax-head species. Over against the fire-place three low beds afforded sleeping accommodation to nearly a dozen human beings, (of assorted sizes, and dove-tailed together with heads and feet alternating,) and in the opposite corner a lower couch, whose finer furnishings told plainly it was the peculiar property of the 'wee-ones' of her family—a mother's tenderness for the youngest thus cropping out even in the midst of filth and degradation—furnished quarters for an unwashed, uncombed, unclothed, saffron-hued little fellow about fifteen months old, and—the dog 'Lady.'

The dog was of a dark hazel-color—a cross between a setter and a gray-hound—and one of the most beautiful creatures I ever saw. Her neck and breast were bound about with a coarse cotton cloth, saturated with blood, and emitting a strong odor of bad whisky; and her whole appearance showed the desperate nature of the encounter with the overseer.

The nine young democrats who were lolling about the room in various attitudes rose as we entered, and with a familiar but rather deferential 'Howdy'ge,' to the Colonel, huddled around and stared at me with open mouths and distended eyes, as if I were a strange being dropped from some other sphere. The two eldest were of the male gender, as was shown by their clothes—cast-off suits of the inevitable reddish-gray—much too large, and out at the elbows and the knees; but the sex of the others I was at a loss to determine, for they wore only a single robe, reaching, like their mother's, from the neck to the knees. Not one of the occupants of the cabin boasted a pair of stockings, but the father and mother did enjoy the luxury of shoes—coarse, stout brogans, untanned, and of the color of the legs which they encased.

'Well, Sandy, how is Lady?' asked the Colonel, as he stepped to the bed of the wounded dog.

'Reckon she's a goner, Cunnel; the d——d Yankee orter swing fur it.'

This intimation that the overseer was a 'countryman' of mine, took me by surprise, nothing I had observed in his speech or manners having indicated it, but I consoled myself with the reflection that Connecticut had reared him—as she makes wooden hams and nutmegs—expressly for the Southern market.'

'He shall swing for it, by ——. But are you sure the dog will die?'

'Not shore, Cunnel, but she can't stand, and the blood will run. I reckon a hun'red and fifty ar done for thar, sartin.'

'D—— the money—I'll make that right. Go to the house and get some ointment from Madam—she can save her—go at once,' said my host.

'I will, Cunnel,' replied the dirt-eater, taking his broad-brim from the wooden peg where it was reposing, and leisurely leaving the cabin. Making our way over the piles of rubbish and crowds of children that cumbered the apartment, the Colonel and I then returned to the carriage.

'Dogs must be rare in this region,' I remarked, as we resumed our seats.{711}

'Yes, well-trained bloodhounds are scarce every where. That dog is well worth a hundred and fifty dollars.'

'The business of nigger-catching, then, is brisk, just now?'

'No, not more brisk than usual. We always have more or less runaways.'

'Do most of them take to the swamps?'

'Yes, nine out of ten do, though now and then one gets off on a trading-vessel. It is almost impossible for a strange nigger to make his way by land from here to the free States.'

'Then why do you Carolinians make such an outcry about the violation of the Fugitive Slave Law?'

'For the same reason that dogs quarrel over a naked bone. We should be unhappy if we couldn't growl at the Yankees,' replied the Colonel, laughing heartily.

'Yes, I mean them, and the three or four millions of poor whites—the ignorant, half-starved, lazy vermin you have just seen. They are the real basis of our Southern oligarchy, as you call it,' continued the Colonel, still laughing.

'I thought the negro was the serf, in your feudal system?'

'Both the negro and the poor whites are the serfs, but the white trash are its real support. Their votes give the small minority of slave-owners all their power. You say we control the Union. We do, and we do it by the votes of these people, who are as far below our niggers as the niggers are below decent white men. Who that reflects that this country has been controlled for fifty years by such scum, would give a d—— for republican institutions?'

'It does speak very badly for your institutions. A system that reduces one half of a white population to the level of slaves can not stand in this country. The late election shows that the power of your 'white trash' is broken.'

'Well, it does, that's a fact. If the States should remain together, the West would in future control the Union. We see that, and are therefore determined on dissolution. It is our only way to keep our niggers.'

'You will have to get the consent of that same West to that project. My opinion is, your present policy will, if carried out, free every one of your slaves.'

'I don't see how. Even if we are put down—which we can not be—and are held in the Union against our will, Government can not, by the Constitution, interfere with slavery in the States.'

'I admit that, but it can confiscate the property of traitors. Every large slaveholder is to-day, at heart, a traitor. If this movement goes on, you will commit overt acts against the Government, and in self-defense it will punish treason by taking from you the means of future mischief.'

{712}'The Republicans and Abolitionists might do that if they had the power, but nearly one half of the North is on our side, and will not fight us.'

'Perhaps so; but if I had this thing to manage, I'd put you down without fighting.'

'How would you do it—by preaching Abolition where even the niggers would mob you? There's not a slave in South-Carolina but would shoot Garrison or Greeley on sight.'

'That may be, but if so, it is because you keep them in ignorance. Build a free-school at every cross-road, and teach the poor whites, and what would become of slavery? If these people were on a par with the farmers of New-England, would it last for an hour? Would they not see that it stands in the way of their advancement, and vote it out of existence as a nuisance?'

'Yes, perhaps they would; but the school-houses are not at the cross-roads, and, thank God, they will not be there in this generation.'

'The greater the pity; but that which will not nourish alongside of a school-house, can not, in the nature of things, outlast this century. Its time must soon come.'

'Enough for the day is the evil thereof, I'll risk the future of slavery, if the South, in a body, goes out of the Union.'

'In other words, you'll shut out schools and knowledge, in order to keep slavery in existence. The Abolitionists claim it to be a relic of barbarism, and you admit it could not exist with general education among the people.'

'Of course it could not. If Sandy, for instance, knew he were as good a man as I am—and he would be if he were educated—do you suppose he would vote as I tell him, go and come at my bidding, and live on my charity? No sir! give a man knowledge, and, however poor he may be, he'll act for himself.'

'Then free-schools and general education would destroy slavery?'

'Of course they would. The few can not rule when the many know their rights. But the South, and the world, are a long, way off from general education. When it conies to that, we shall need no laws, and no slavery, for the millennium will have arrived.'

'I'm glad you think slavery will not exist during the millennium,' I replied, laughing; 'but how is it that you insist the negro is naturally inferior to the white, and still admit that the 'white trash' are far below the black slaves?'

'Education makes the difference. We educate the negro enough to make him useful to us, but the poor white man knows nothing. He can neither read nor write, and not only that, he is not trained to any useful employment. Sandy, here, who is a fair specimen of the tribe, obtains his living just like an Indian, by hunting, fishing, and stealing, interspersed with nigger-catching. His whole wealth consists of two hounds and their pups; his house—even the wooden trough his miserable children eat from—belongs to me. If he didn't catch a runaway nigger once in a while, he wouldn't see a dime from one year to another.'

'Then you have to support this man and his family?'

'Yes, what I don't give him, he steals. Half-a-dozen others poach on me in the same way.'

'Why don't you set them at work?'

'They can't be made to work. I have hired them time and again, hoping to make something of them, but I never got one to work more than half-a-day at a time. It's their nature to lounge and to steal.'

'Then why do you keep them about you?'

'Well, to be candid, their presence is of use in keeping the blacks in subordination, and they are worth all they cost me, because I control their votes.'

'I thought the blacks were said to be entirely contented?'

'No, not contented. I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been their ruin.'{713}

'I have never heard of one. It seems strange to me that a man who can support another can not support himself.'

'Oh! no, it's not at all strange. The slave has hands, and when the master gives him brains, he works well enough; but to support himself he needs both hands and brains, and he has only hands. I'll give you a case in point: At Wilmington, N.C., some years ago lived a negro by the name of Jack Campbell. He was a slave, and he was employed, before the river below the town was deepened so as to admit of the passage of large vessels, in lightering cargoes up to the city. He hired his time of his master, and carried on business on his own account. Every one knew him, and his character for honesty, sobriety, and punctuality stood so high that his word was considered among merchants as good as that of the first business-men of the place. Well, Jack's wife and children were free, and he finally took it into his head to be free himself. He arranged with his master to purchase himself within a specified time, at eight hundred dollars, and was to deposit his earnings, till they reached the required sum, in the hands of a certain merchant. He went on, and in three years had accumulated nearly seven hundred dollars, when his master failed. As the slave has no right to property, Jack's earnings belonged by law to his master, and they were attached by the creditors, and taken to pay the master's debts. Jack then 'changed hands,' received a new owner, who also consented to his buying himself, at about the price previously agreed on. Nothing discouraged, he went to work again. Night and day, he toiled, and it surprised every one to see so much energy and fixedness of purpose in a negro. At last, after four more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his free-papers. He had worked seven years—as long as Jacob toiled for Rachel—for his freedom, and like the old patriarch found himself cheated at last. I was present when he received his papers from his owner, a Mr. William H. Lippitt—who still resides at Wilmington—and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion; he sung and danced and laughed and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness. Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and then, for three days afterward, lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and children having no effect on him. He swore he was free, and would do as he 'd——d pleased.' He had previously been a class-leader in his church, but after getting free-papers, he forsook his previous associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he stink into a wretched grave. That was the effect of freedom on him, and it would be so on all his race.'

'It is clear,' I replied, 'he could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon you a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eating white man. The poor nigger has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.'

'Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color and the odor, I'd be glad to exchange places with my man Jim.'

The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way, that excited my risibilities amazingly, but before I could reply, the carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced:

'We's h'ar, massa, and de prayin' am gwine on.'{714}

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered the latter fact some time previous to our arrival at the church-door, for the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs. He evidently thought the good Lord either a long way off, or very hard of hearing. Not wishing to disturb the congregation at their devotions, we loitered near the doorway until the prayer was over, and in the mean time I glanced around the premises.

The 'meeting-house,' of large unhewed logs, was a story and a half in hight, and about large enough to seat comfortably a congregation of two hundred persons. It was covered with shingles, with a roof projecting some four feet over the wall, and was surmounted at the front gable by a tower, about twelve feet square. This also was built of logs, and contained a bell 'to call the erring to the house of prayer,' though, unfortunately, all of that character thereabouts dwelt beyond the sound of its voice. The building was located at a cross-roads about equally distant from two little hamlets, (the nearest nine miles off,) neither of which was populous enough to singly support a church and a preacher. The trees in the vicinity had been thinned out, so that carriages could drive into the woods, and find under the branches shelter from the rain and the sun, and at the time of my visit, about twenty vehicles of all sorts and descriptions, from the Colonel's magnificent barouche to the rude cart drawn by a single two-horned quadruped, filled the openings. There was a rustic simplicity about the whole scene that charmed me. The low, rude church, the grand old pines that towered in leafy magnificence around it, and the soft, low wind, that sung a morning hymn in the green, wavy woods, seemed to lift the soul up to Him who inhabiteth eternity, but who also visits the erring children of men.

The preacher was about to 'line out' one of Watts' psalms, when we entered the church, but he stopped short on perceiving us, and, bowing low, waited till we had taken our seats. This action, and the sycophantic air which accompanied it, disgusted me, and turning to the Colonel, I asked jocosely:

'Do the chivalry exact so much obsequiousness from the country clergy'? Do you require to be bowed up to heaven?'

In a low voice, but high enough, I thought, for the preacher to hear, for we sat very near, the Colonel replied:

'He's a renegade Yankee—the meanest thing on earth.'

I said no more, but entered into the services as seriously as the strange gymnastic performances of the preacher would allow me to do, for the truth is, he was quite as amusing as a circus clown.

With the exception of the Colonel's and a few other pews in the vicinity of the pulpit, all of the seats were mere rough benches, without backs, and placed so closely together as to interfere uncomfortably with the knees of the sitters. The house was full, and the congregation as attentive as any I ever saw. All classes were there; the black serving-man away off by the doorway, the poor white a little higher up, the small turpentine-farmer a little higher still, and the wealthy planter, of the class to which the Colonel belonged, on 'the highest seats of the synagogue,' and in close proximity to the preacher.

The 'man of prayer' was a tall, lean, raw-boned, angular-built individual, with a thin, sharp, hatchet-face, a small sunken eye, and long, loose hair, brushed back and falling over the collar of a seedy black coat. He looked like nothing in the world I have ever seen, and his pale, sallow face, and cracked, wheezy voice, were in comic keeping with his discourse. His text was: 'Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward.' And addressing the motley gathering of poor whites and small-planters before him as the 'chosen people of God,' he urged them to press on in the mad course their State had chosen. It was a political harangue, a genuine stump-speech, but its frequent allu{715}sion to the auditory as the legitimate children of the old patriarch, and the rightful heirs of all the promises, struck me as out of place in a rural district of South-Carolina, however appropriate it might have been in one of the large towns, before an audience of merchants and traders, who are, almost to a man, Jews.

The services over, the congregation slowly left the church. Gathered in groups in front of the 'meeting-house,' they were engaging in a general discussion of the affairs of the day, when the Colonel and I emerged from the doorway. The better class greeted my host with considerable cordiality, but I noticed that the well-to-do, small planters, who composed the greater part of the assemblage, received him with decided coolness. These people were the 'North county folks' on whom the overseer had invoked a hanging. Except that their clothing was more uncouth and ill-fashioned, and their faces generally less 'cute' of expression, they did not differ materially in appearance from the rustic citizens who may be seen on any pleasant Sunday gathered around the door-ways of the rural meeting-houses of New-England.

One of them, who was leaning against a tree, quietly lighting a pipe, was a fair type of the whole, and as he took a part in the scene which followed, I will describe him. He was tall and spare, with a swinging, awkward gait, and a wiry, athletic frame. His hair, which he wore almost as long as a woman's, was coarse and black, and his face strongly marked, and of the precise color of two small rivulets of tobacco-juice that escaped from the corners of his mouth. He had an easy, self-possessed manner, and a careless, devil-may-care way about him, that showed he had measured his powers, and was accustomed to 'rough it' with the world. He wore a broadcloth coat of the fashion of some years ago, but his waistcoat and nether garments of the common, reddish homespun, were loose and ill-shaped, as if their owner did not waste thought on such trifles. His hat, as shockingly bad as Horace Greeley's, had the inevitable broad brim, and fell over his face like a calash-awning over a shop-window. As I approached him he extended his hand with a pleasant 'How are ye, stranger?.'

'Very well,' I replied, returning his grasp with equal warmth, 'how are you?'

'Right smart, right smart, thank ye. You're—' the rest of the sentence was cut short by a gleeful exclamation from Jim, who, mounted on the box of the carriage, which was drawn up on the cleared plot in front of the meeting-house, waved an open newspaper over his head, and called out, as he caught sight of the Colonel:

'Great news, massa, great news from Charls'on!'

(The darky, while we were in church, had gone to the post-office, some four miles away, and got the Colonel's mail, consisting of letters from his New-York and Charleston factors, the Charleston Courier and Mercury and the New-York Journal of Commerce. The latter sheet, at the date of which I am writing, was in wide circulation at the South, its piety (!) and its politics being then calculated with mathematical precision for secession latitudes.)

"What is it, Jim?' shouted his master. 'Give it to us.'

The darky had somehow learned to read, but holding the paper at arm's length, and throwing himself into a theatrical attitude, he belched out, with any amount of gesticulation, the following:

'De news am, massa, and gemmen and ladies, dat de ole fort fore Charls'on hab hen devacuated by Major Andersin and de sogers, and dat dey hab stole 'way in de dark night and gone to Sumter, whar dey can't be took; and dat de ole Gubner hab got out a procdemation dat all dat don't lub de Aberlishen Yankees shill cum up dar and clar 'em out; and de paper say dat lots ob sogers hab cum from Gorgia and Al'bama and 'way down Souf, to help 'em. Dis am w'at de Currer say,' he continued, hold{716}ing the paper up to his eyes and reading: 'Major Andersin, ob United States army hab 'chieved de 'stinction ob op'ning de cibil war 'tween American citizens; he hab desarted Moulfrie, and by false fretexts hab took de ole Garrison and all his millinery stores to Fort Sumter.'

'Get down, you d——d nigger,' said the Colonel, laughing, and mounting the carriage-box beside him. 'You can't read. Old Garrison isn't there—he's the d——d Northern Abolitionist.'

'I knows dat, Cunnel, but see dar,' holding the paper out to his master, 'don't dat say he'm dar? It'm him dat make all de trubble. P'raps dis nig' can't read, but ef dat ain't readin' I'd like to know it!'

'Clear out,' said the Colonel, now actually roaring with laughter; 'it's the soldiers that the Courier speaks of, not the Abolitionist.'

'Read it yoursef, den, massa, I don't seed it dat way.'

Jim was altogether wiser than he appeared, and while he was equally as well pleased with the news as the Colonel, he was so for an entirely different reason. In the crisis which these tidings announced, he saw hope for his race.

The Colonel then read the paper to the assemblage. The news was received with a variety of manifestations by the auditory, the larger portion, I thought, hearing it, as I did, with sincere regret.

'Now is the time to stand by the State, my friends,' said my host as he finished the reading. 'I hope every man here is ready to do his duty by old South-Carolina.'

'Yes, sar! if she does har duty by the Union. We'll go to the death for har just so long as she's in the right, but not a d——d step if she arn't,' said the long-legged native I have introduced to the reader.

'And what have you to say about South-Carolina? What does, she owe to you?' asked the Colonel, turning on the speaker with a proud and angry look.

'More, a darned sight than she'll pay, if ye cursed 'ristocrats run her to h—— as ye'r doing. She owes me, and 'bout ten as likely niggers as ye ever seed, a living, and we've d——d hard work to get it out on her now, let alone what's comin'.

'Don't talk to me, you ill-mannered cur,' said my host, turning his back on his neighbor, and directing his attention to the remainder of the assemblage.

'Look har, Cunnel,' replied the native, 'if ye'll jest come down from thar and throw 'way yer shootin'-irons, I'll give ye the all-firedest thrashing ye ever did get.'

The Colonel gave no further heed to him, but the speaker mounted the steps of the meeting-house and harangued the natives in a strain of rude and passionate declamation, in which my host, the aristocrats, and the Secessionists came in for about equal shares of abuse. Seeing that the native (who, it appeared, was quite popular as a stump-speaker) was drawing away his audience, the Colonel descended from the driver's seat, and motioning for me to follow, entered the carriage. Turning the horses homeward, we rode off at a brisk pace.

'Not much Secession about that fellow, Colonel,' I remarked, after a while.

'No,' he replied, 'he's a North-Carolina 'corn-cracker,' one of the meanest specimens of humanity extant. They're as thick as fleas in this part of the State, and about all of them are traitors.'

'Traitors to the State, but true to the Union. As far as I've seen, that is the case with the middling class throughout the South.'

'Well, it may be, but they generally go with us, and I reckon they will now, when it comes to the rub. Those in the towns—the traders and mechanics—will, certain; it's only these half-way independent planters that ever kick the traces. By the way,' continued my host, in a jocose way, 'what did you think of the preaching?'

'I thought it very poor. I'd rather have heard the stump-speech, had it not been a little too personal on you.'

'Well, it was the better of the two,'{717} he replied, laughing, 'but the old devil can't afford any thing good, he don't get enough pay.'

'Why, how much does he get?'

'Only a hundred dollars.'

'That is small. How does the man live?'

'Well, he teaches the daughter of my neighbor, Captain Randall, who believes in praying, and gives him his board. Randall thinks that enough. The rest of the parish can't afford to pay him, and I won't.'

'Why won't you?'

'Because he's a d——d old hypocrite. He believes in the Union with all his heart—at least, so Randall, who's a sincere Union man, says—and yet, he never sees me at meeting but he preaches a red-hot secession sermon.'

'He wants to keep you in the faith,' I replied.

A few more miles of sandy road took us to the mansion, where we found dinner in waiting. Meeting 'Massa Tommy'—who had staid at home with his mother—as we entered the doorway, the Colonel asked after the overseer.

'He seems well enough, sir; I believe he's coming the possum over mother.'

'Ill bet on it, Tommy; but he won't fool you and me, will he, my boy?' said his father, slapping him affectionately on the back.

After dinner I went with my host to the room of the wounded man. His head was still bound up, and he was groaning piteously, as if in great pain; but I thought there was too fresh a color in his face to be entirely natural in one who had lost so much blood, and been so severely wounded as he affected to be.

The Colonel mentioned our suspicions to Madam P——, and suggested that the shackles should be put on him.

'Oh! no, don't do that; it would be inhuman,' said the lady; 'the color is the effect of fever. If you fear he is plotting to get away, let him be watched.'

The Colonel consented, but with evident reluctance, to the arrangement, and retired to his room to take a siesta, while I lit a cigar, and strolled out to the negro-quarters.

Making my way through the woods to the scene of the morning's jollification, I found about a hundred darkies gathered around Jim, on the little plot in front of Old Lucy's cabin. Jim had evidently been giving them the news. Pausing when I came near, he exclaimed:

'Har's Massa K——, he'll say dat I tells you de trufh;' then turning to me, he said: 'Massa K——, dese darkies say dat Massa Andersin am an ab'lisherner, and dat none but de ab'lisherners will fight for de Union; am dat so, sar?'

'No, I reckon not, Jim; I think the whole North would fight for it if it were necessary.'

'Am dat so, massa? am dat so?' eagerly inquired a dozen of the darkies; 'and am dar great many folks at de Norf—more dan dar am down har?'

'Yas, you fools, didn't I tell you dat?' said Jim, as I, not exactly relishing the idea of preaching treason, in the Colonel's absence, to his slaves, hesitated to reply. 'Hain't I tole you,' he continued, 'dat in de big city ob New-York dar'm more folks dan dar am in all Car'lina? I'se been dar, and I knows; and Massa K——'ll tell you dat dey—'most on 'em—feel mighty sorry for de brack man.'

'No he won't,' I replied, 'and besides, Jim, you should not talk in this way before me; I might tell your master.'

'No! you won't do dat; I knows you won't, massa. Scipio tole us he'd trust his bery life wid you.'

'Well, perhaps he might; it's true I would not injure you.' Saying that, I turned away, though my curiosity was greatly excited to hear more.

I wandered farther into the woods, and a half-hour found me near one of the turpentine distilleries. Seating myself on a rosin barrel, I quietly finished my cigar, and was about lighting another, when Jim made his appearance.

'Beg pardon, Massa K——,' said the{718} negro, bowing very low, 'but I wants to ax you one or two tings, ef you please, sar.'

'Well,' I replied, 'I'll answer any thing that I ought to.'

'Der yer tink, den, massa, dat dey'll git to fightin' at Charls'on?'

'Yes, judging by the tone of the Charleston papers you've read to-day, I think they will.'

'And der yer tink dat de rest ob de Souf will jine wid Souf Car'lina, if she go at it fust?'

'Yes, Jim, I'm inclined to think so.'

'I hard you say to massa, dat ef dey goes to war,'twill free all de niggers—der you raily b'lieve dat, sar?'

'You heard me say that; how did you hear it?' I exclaimed, in surprise.

'Why, sar, de front winder ob de carriage war down jess a crack, and I hard all you said.'

'Did you let it down on purpose?'

'P'r'aps so, massa. Whot's de use ob habin' ears, ef you don't h'ar?'

'Well, I suppose not much; and you tell all you hear to the other negroes?'

'I reckon so, massa,' said the darky, looking very demure.

'That's the use of having a tongue, eh?' I replied, laughing.

'Dat's it 'zaxly, massa.'

'Well, Jim, I do think the slaves will be finally freed; but it will cost more white blood to do it than all the niggers in creation are worth. Do you think the darkies would fight for their freedom?'

'Fight, sar!' exclaimed the negro, straightening up his fine form, while his usual good-natured look—passed from his face and gave way to an expression that made him seem more like an incarnate fiend than a human being; 'FIGHT, sar; gib dem de chance, and den see.'

'Why are you discontented? You have been at the North, and you know the blacks are as well off as the majority of the poor laboring men there.'

'You say dat to me, Massa K——; you don't say it to de Cunnel. We are not so well off as de pore man at de Norf! You knows dat, sar. He hab his wife and children, and his own home; what hab we, sar? No wife, no children, no home; all am de white man's. Der yer tink we wouldn't fight to be free?' and he pressed his teeth together, and there passed again over his face the same look it wore the moment before.

'Come, come, Jim, this may be true of your race; but it don't apply to yourself. Your master is kind and indulgent to you.'

'He am kind to me, sar; he orter be,' said the negro, the savage expression coming again into his eyes. For a moment he hesitated; then, taking a step toward me, he placed his face down to mine, and hissed out these words, every syllable seeming to come from the very bottom of his being. 'I tell you he orter be, sar, FUR I AM HIS OWN FATHER'S SON!'

'Your brother!' I exclaimed, springing to my feet, and looking at him in blank amazement. 'It can't be true.'

'It am true, sar—as true as there's a hell! His father had my mother: when he got tired of her, he sold her Souf. I was too young den eben to know her!'

'This is horrible, too horrible!' I said.

'It am slavery, sar! Shouldn't we be contented?' replied the negro with a grim smile. Drawing, then, a large spring-knife from his pocket, he waved it above his head, adding: 'Ef I had all de white race dar—right dar under dat knife, don't yer tink I'd take all dar lives—all at one blow—to be FREE!'

'And yet you refused to run away when the Abolitionists tempted you, at the North. Why didn't you go then?'

''Cause I had promised, massa.'

'Promised the Colonel before you went?'

'No, sar, he neber axed me; but I can't tell you no more. P'raps Scipio will, ef you ax him.'

'Oh! I see; you're in that league, of which Scip is a leader. You'll get into trouble, sure,' I replied, in a quick, decided tone, which startled him.

'You tole Scipio dat, sar, and what did he tell you?'{719}

'That he didn't care for his life.'

'No more do I, sar,' said the negro, as he turned on his heel with a proud, almost defiant gesture, and started to go.

'A moment, Jim. You are very imprudent; never say these things to any other mortal; promise me that.'

'You'se bery good, massa, bery good. Scipio say you's true, and he'm allers right. I ortent to hab said what I hab; but sumhow, sar, dat news brought it all up har,' (laying his hand on his breast,) 'and it wud come out.'

The tears filled his eyes as he said this, and turning away without another word, he passed from my sight behind the trees.

I was almost stunned by this strange revelation, but the more I reflected on it, the more probable it appeared. Now, too, that my thoughts were turned in that direction, I called to mind a certain resemblance between the Colonel and the negro that I had not heeded before. Though one was a high-bred Southern gentleman, claiming an old and proud descent, and the other a poor African slave, they had some striking peculiarities which might indicate a common origin. The likeness was not in their features, for Jim's face was of the unmistakable negro type, and his skin of a hue so dark that it seemed impossible he could be the son of a white man, (I afterward learned that his mother was a black of the deepest dye,) but it was in their form and general bearing. They had the same closely-knit and sinewy frame, the same erect, elastic step, the same rare blending of good-natured ease and dignity—to which I have already alluded as characteristic of the Colonel—and in the wild burst of passion that accompanied the negro's disclosure of their relationship, I saw the same fierce, unbridled temper, whose outbreaks I had witnessed in my host.

What a strange fate was theirs! Two brothers—the one the owner of three hundred slaves, and the first man of his district—the other, a bonded menial, and so poor that the very bread he ate, the clothes he wore, were another's! How terribly on him had fallen the curse pronounced on his race!

I passed the remainder of the afternoon in my room, and did not again meet my host until the family assembled at the tea-table. Jim then occupied his accustomed seat behind the Colonel's chair, and my host was in more than his usual spirits, though Madam P——, I thought, wore a sad and absent look.

The conversation rambled over a wide range of subjects, and was carried on mainly by the Colonel and myself; but toward the close of the meal the lady said to me:

'Mr. K——, Sam and young Junius are to be buried this evening. If you have never seen a negro funeral, perhaps you'd like to attend.'

'I will be happy to accompany you, Madam, if you go,' I replied.

'Thank you,' said the lady.

'Pshaw! Alice, you'll not go into the woods on so cold a night as this!'

'Yes, I think I ought to. Our people will expect me.'

It was about an hour after nightfall when we took our way to the burial-ground. The moon had risen, but the clouds which gathered when the sun went down, covered its face, and were fast spreading their thick, black shadows over the little collection of negro-houses. Near two new-made graves were gathered some two hundred men and women, as dark as the night that was setting around them. As we entered the circle the old preacher pointed to the seats reserved for us, and the sable crowd fell back a few paces, as if, even in the presence of death, they did not forget the difference between their race and ours.

Scattered here and there among the trees, torches of lightwood threw a wild and fitful light over the little cluster of graves, and revealed the long, straight boxes of rough pine that held the remains of the two negroes, and lit up the score of russet mounds beneath which slept the dusky kinsmen who had gone before them.

The simple head-boards that marked{720} these humble graves chronicled no bad biography or senseless rhyme, and told no false tales of lives that had better not have been, but 'SAM, AGE 22;' 'POMPEY;' 'JAKE'S ELIZA;; 'AUNT SUE;' 'AUNT LUCY'S TOM;' 'JOE;' and other like inscriptions, scratched in rough characters on those unplaned boards, were all the records there. The rude tenants had passed away and 'left no sign;' their birth, their age, their deeds, were alike unknown—unknown, but not forgotten; for are they not written in the book of His remembrance—and when He counteth up his jewels, may not some of them be there?

The queer, grotesque dress, and sad, earnest looks of the black group; the red, fitful glare of the blazing pine, and the white faces of the tapped trees, gleaming through the gloom like so many sheeted-ghosts gathered to some death-carnival, made up a strange, wild scene—the strangest and the wildest I had ever witnessed.

The covers of the rude coffins were not yet nailed down, and when we arrived, the blacks were one by one passing before them, taking a last look at the faces of the dead. Soon, Junius, holding his weeping wife by the hand, approached the smaller of the two boxes, which held all that was left of their first-born. The mother kneeling by its side, kissed again and again the cold, shrunken lips, and sobbed as if her heart would break; while the strong frame of the father shook convulsively, as, choking down the great sorrow which welled up in his throat, he turned away from his boy forever. As he did so, old Pompey said:

'Don't grebe, June, he'm whar de wicked cease from trubbling, whar de weary am at rest.'

'I knows it; I knows it, Uncle. I knows de Lord am bery good to take 'im 'way; but why did he take de young chile, and leab de ole man har?'

'De little sapling dat grow in de shade may die while it'm young; de great tree dat grow in de sun must lib till de ax cut him down.'

These words were the one drop wanting to make the great grief which was swelling in the negro's heart overflow. Giving one low, wild cry, he folded his wife in his arms, and burst into a paroxysm of tears.

'Come now, my chil'ren,' said the old preacher, kneeling down, 'let us pray.'

The whole assemblage then knelt on the cold ground, while the old man prayed, and a more sincere, heart-touching prayer never went up from human lips to that God 'who hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth.' Though clothed in rags, and in feeble old age, a slave, at the mercy of a cruel task-master, that old man was richer far than his master. His simple faith, which looked through the darkness surrounding him into the clear and radiant light of the unseen land, was of far more worth than all the wealth and glory of this world. I know not why it was, but as I looked at him in the dim, red light which fell on his upturned face, and cast a strange halo around his bent form, I thought of Stephen, as he gazed upward and saw heaven open, and 'the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the throne of God.'

Rising from his knees, the old preacher turned slowly to the black mass that encircled him, and said:

'My dear bredderin and sisters, de Lord say dat 'de dust shill return to de earth as it war, and de spirit to Him who gabe it,' and now, 'cordin' to dat text, my friends, we'm gwine to put dis dust (pointing to the two coffins) in de groun' whar it cum from, and whar it shill lay till de blessed Lord blow de great trumpet on de resumrection mornin'. De spirits of our brudders har de Lord hab already took to hisseff. 'Our brudders,' I say, my chil'ren, 'case ebery one dat de Lord hab made am brudders to you and to me, whedder dey'm bad or good, white or brack.

'Dis young chile, who hab gone 'way and leff his pore fader and mudder suffrin' all ober wid grief, he hab gone to de Lord, shore. He neber did no wrong;{721} he allers 'bey'd his massa, and he neber said no hard word, nor found no fault, not eben w'en de cruel, bad oberseer put de load so heaby on him dat it kill him. Yes, my bredderin and sisters, he hab gone to de Lord; gone whar dey don't work in de swamps; whar de little chil'ren don't tote de big shingles fru de water up to dar knees. No swamps am dar; no shingles am cut dar; dey doan't need 'em, 'case dar hous'n haint builded wid hands, for dey'm all built by de Lord, and gib'n to de good niggers, ready-made, and for nuffin'. De Lord don't say, like as our massa do, 'Pomp, dar's de logs and de shingles,' (dey'm allers pore shingles, de kine dat woant sell; but he say, 'dey'm good 'nuff for niggers, ef de roof do leak.) De Lord doan't say: 'Now, Pomp, you go to work and build you' own house; but mine dat you does you task all de time, jess de same!' But de Lord—de bressed Lord—He say, w'en we goes up dar, 'Dar, Pomp, dar's de house dat I'se been a buildin' for you eber sence 'de foundation ob de worle.' It'm done now, and you kin cum in; your room am jess ready, and ole Sal and de chil'ren dat I tuk 'way from you eber so long ago, and dat you mourned ober and cried ober as ef you'd neber see dem agin, dar dey am, all on 'em, a waiting for you. Dey'm been fixin' up de house 'spressly for you all dese long years, and dey'be got it all nice and comfible now.' Yas, my frens, glory be to Him, dat's what our Heabenly massa say, and who ob you wouldn't hab sich a massa as dat? a massa dat don't set you no hard tasks, and dat gibs you 'nuff to eat, and time to rest and to sing and to play. A massa dat doan't keep no Yankee oberseer to foller you 'bout wid de big free-lashed whip; but dat leads you hisseff round to de green pastures and de still waters; and w'en you'm a-faint and a-tired, and can't go no furder, dat takes you up in his arms, and carries you in his bosom. What pore darky am dar dat wudn't hab sich a massa? What one ob us, eben ef we had to work so hard as we does now, wudn't tink hisseff de happiest nigger in de hull worle, ef he could hab sich hous'n to lib in as dem? dem hous'n 'not made wid hands, eternal in de heabens!'

'But glory, glory to de Lord! my chil'ren, wese all got dat massa, ef we only knowd it, and he'm buildin' dem housn up dar, now, for ebery one ob us dat am tryin' to be good and to lub one anoder. For ebery one ob us, I say, and we kin all git de fine hous'n ef we try.

'Recolember, too, my brudders, dat our great Massa am rich, bery rich, and He kin do all he promise. He won't say, w'en wese worked ober time to git some little ting to comfort de sick chile, 'I knows, Pomp, you'se done de work, and I did 'gree to gib you de pay; but de fact am, Pomp, de frost hab come so sudden dis yar, dat I'se loss de hull ob de sebenfh dippin', and I'se pore, so pore, de chile must go widout dis time.' No, no, brudders, de bressed Lord He neber talk so. He neber break, 'case de sebenfh dip am shet off, or 'case de price of turpentime gwo down at de Norf. He neber sell his niggers down Souf, 'case he lose his money on de hoss-race. No, my chil'ren, our HEABENLY Massa am rich, RICH, I say. He own all dis worle, and all de odor worles dat am shinin' up dar in de sky. He own dem all; but he tink more ob one ob you, more ob one ob you—pore, ignorant brack folks dat you am—dan ob all dem great worles! Who wouldn't belong, to sich a Massa as dat? Who wouldn't be his nigger—not his slave—He don't hab no slaves—but his chile; and 'ef his chile, den his heir, de heir ob God, and de joint heir wid Christ.' O my chil'ren! tink of dat! de heir ob de Lord ob all de earth and all de sky! What white man kin be more'n dat?

'Don't none ob you say you'm too wicked to be His chile; 'ca'se you an't. He lubs de wicked ones de best, 'ca'se dey need his lub de most. Yas, my brudders, eben de wickedest, ef dey's only sorry, and turn roun' and leab off dar bad ways, he lub de bery best ob all, 'ca'se he'm all lub and pity.

{722}'Sam, har, my children, war wicked, but don't we pity him; don't we tink he had a hard time, and don't we tink de bad oberseer, who'm layin' dar in de house jess ready to gwo and answer for it—don't we tink he gabe Sam bery great probincation?'

'Dat's so,' said a dozen of the auditors.

'Den don't you 'spose dat de blessed Lord know all dat, and dat He pity Sam too? If we pore sinners feel sorry for him, an't de Lord's heart bigger'n our'n, and an't he more sorry for him? Don't you tink dat ef He lub and pity de bery worse whites, dat He lub and pity pore Sam, who warn't so bery bad, arter all? Don't you think He'll gib Sam a house? P'r'aps 'twon't be one ob de fine hous'n, but won't it be a comfible house, dat hain't no cracks, and one dat'll keep out de wind and de rain? And don't you s'pose, my chil'ren, dat it'll be big 'nuff for Jule, too—dat pore, repentin' chile, whose heart am clean broke, 'ca'se she hab broughten dis on Sam—and won't de Lord—de good Lord—de tender-hearted Lord—won't He touch Sam's heart, and coax him to forgib Jule, and to take her inter his house up dar? I knows he will, my chil'ren. I knows——'

Here the old negro paused abruptly; for there was a quick swaying in the crowd—a hasty rush—a wild cry—and Sam's wife burst into the open space around the preacher, and fell at the old man's feet. Throwing her arms wildly around him, she shrieked out:

'Say dat agin, Uncle Pomp! for de lub ob de good Lord, oh! say dat agin!'

Bending down, the old man raised her gently in his arms, and folding her there, as he would have folded a child, he said, in a voice thick with emotion:

'It am so, Juley. I knows dat Sam will forgib you, and take you wid him up dar.'

Fastening her arms frantically around Pompey's neck, the poor woman burst into a paroxysm of grief, while the old man's tears fell in great drops on her upturned face, and many a dark cheek near was wet, as with rain.

The scene had lasted a few minutes, and I was turning away to hide the emotion that was fast filling my eyes, and creeping up, with a choking feeling, to my throat, when the Colonel, from the farther edge of the group, called out:

'Take that d——d —— away—take her away, Pomp!'

The old negro turned toward his master with a sad, grieved look, but gave no heed to the words.

'Take her away, some of you, I say,' again cried the Colonel. 'Pomp, you mustn't keep these niggers all night in the cold.'

At the sound of her master's voice the metif woman fell to the ground as if struck by a Minie-ball. Soon several negroes lifted her up to bear her away; but she struggled violently, and rent the woods with her wild cries for 'one more look at Sam.'

'Look at him, you d——d ——, then go, and don't let me see you again.'

She threw herself on the face of the dead, and covered the cold lips with her kisses; then rose, and with a weak, uncertain step, staggered out into the darkness.

'The system' that had so seared and hardened that man's heart, must have been begotten in the lowest hell.

The old preacher said no more, but four stout negro men stepped forward, nailed down the lids, and lowered the rough boxes into the ground. Turning to Madam P——, I saw her face was red with weeping. She rose to go just as the first earth fell, with a dull, heavy sound, on the rude coffins; and giving her my arm, I led her from the scene.

As we walked slowly back to the house, a low wail—half a chant, half a dirge—rose from the black crowd, and floated off on the still night air, till it died away amid the far woods, in a strange, wild moan. With that sad, wild music in our ears, we entered the mansion.

As we seated ourselves by the bright{723} wood-fire on the library hearth, obeying a sudden impulse which I could not restrain, I said to Madam P——:

'The Colonel's treatment of that poor woman is inexplicable to me. Why is he so hard with her? It is not in keeping with what I have seen of his character.'

'The Colonel is a peculiar man,' replied the lady. 'Noble, generous, and a true friend, he is also a bitter, implacable enemy. When he once conceives a dislike, his feelings become even vindictive; and never having had an ungratified wish, he does not know how to feel for the sorrows of those beneath him. Sam, though a proud, headstrong, unruly character, was a great favorite with him; he felt his death much; and as he attributes it to Jule, he feels terribly bitter toward her. She will have to be sold to get her out of his way, for he will never forgive her.'

It was some time before the Colonel joined us, and when he at last made his appearance, he seemed in no mood for conversation. The lady soon retired; but feeling unlike sleep, I took down a book from the shelves, drew my chair near the fire, and fell to reading. The Colonel, too, was deep in the newspapers, till, after a while, Jim entered the room:

'I'se cum to ax ef you've nuffin more to-night, Cunnel?' said the negro.

'No, nothing, Jim,' replied his master; 'but, stay—hadn't you better sleep in front of Moye's door?'

'Dunno, sar; jess as you say.'

'I think you'd better,' returned the Colonel.

With a 'Yas, massa,' the darky left the apartment.

The Colonel shortly rose, and bade me 'good night.' I continued reading till the clock struck eleven, when I laid the book aside and went to my room.

I slept, as I have said before, on the lower floor, and was obliged to pass by the door of the overseer's apartment as I went to mine. Wrapped in his blanket, and stretched at full length on the ground, Jim lay there, fast asleep. I passed on, thinking of the wisdom of placing a tired negro on guard over an acute and desperate Yankee.

I rose in the morning with the sun, and had partly donned my clothing, when I heard a loud uproar in the hall. Opening my door, I saw Jim pounding vehemently at the Colonel's room, and looking as pale as is possible with a person of his completion.

'What the d—-l is the matter?' asked his master, who now, partly dressed, stepped into the hall.

'Moye hab gone, sar; he'm gone and took Firefly (my host's five-thousand-dollar thorough-bred) wid him.'

For a moment the Colonel stood stupified; then, his face turning to a cold, clayey white, he seized the black by the throat, and hurled him to the floor. Planting his thick boot on the man's face, he seemed about to dash out his brains with its ironed heel, when, at that instant, the octoroon woman rushed, in her night-clothes, from his room, and with desperate energy pushed him aside, exclaiming: 'What would you do? remember WHO HE IS!'

The negro rose, and the Colonel, without a word, passed into his apartment. What followed will be the subject of another chapter.