XII.
_CHIVALROUS PROCEEDINGS._
Thus the question of what should be done with his guest, which Mr.Villars knew not how to decide, had been decided for him.
Great was the mystery. There was the bed precisely as Penn had left it aminute since. There was the candle dimly burning. The medicines remainedjust where Toby had placed them, on the table under the mirror. But thepatient had vanished.
What had become of him? It was believed that he was too ill to leave hisbed without assistance. And, even though he had been strong, it was byno means probable that one so uniformly discreet in his conduct, andever so regardful of the feelings of others, would have quitted thehouse in this abrupt and inexplicable manner.
In vain the premises were searched. Not a trace of him could be anywherediscovered. Neither were there any indications of a struggle. Yet it wasToby's firm conviction that the ruffians had entered the house, andseized him; that Pepperill was in the plot, the object of whose visitwas merely a diversion, while Ropes and the rest accomplished theabduction. This could not, of course, have been done without the aid ofmagic and the devil; but Toby believed in magic and the devil. The factthat Dan had taken advantage of the confusion to escape, appeared to theEthiopian mind conclusive.
Nor was the negro alone in his bewilderment. Carl was utterlyconfounded. The old clergyman, usually so calm, was deeply troubled;while Virginia herself, pierced with the keenest solicitude, couldscarce keep her mind free from horrible and superstitious doubts. Thedoors between the sitting-room and back stairs were all wide open, andit seemed impossible that any one could have come in or gone out thatway without being observed. On the other hand, to have reached the frontstairs Penn must have passed through Salina's room. But Salina, who wasin her room at the time, averred that she had not been disturbed, evenby a sound.
"He has got out the vinder," said Carl. But the window was fifteen feetfrom the ground.
Thus all reasonable conjecture failed, and it seemed necessary to acceptToby's theory of the ruffians, magic, and the devil. Only one thing wascertain: Penn was gone. And, as if to add to the extreme and painfulperplexity of his friends, the clothes, which had been stripped from himby the lynchers, which he had brought away in his hands, and which hadbeen hung up in his room by Toby, were left hanging there still,untouched.
The family had not recovered from the dismay his disappearanceoccasioned, when they had cause to rejoice that he was gone. Ropes andhis crew returned, as Pepperill had predicted. They were intoxicated andbloodthirsty. They had brought a rope, with which to hang their victimbefore the old clergyman's door. They were furious on finding he hadeluded them, and searched the house with oaths and uproar. Virginia, onher knees, clung to her father, praying that he might not be harmed, andthat Penn, whom all had been so anxious just now to find, might be safefrom discovery.
Exasperated by their unsuccessful search, the villains hesitated aboutlaying violent hands on the blind old man, and concluded to wreak theirvengeance on Toby. That he was a freed negro, was alone a sufficientoffence in their eyes to merit a whipping. But he had done more; he hadbeen devoted to the schoolmaster, and they believed he had concealedhim. So they seized him, dragged him from the house, bared his back, andtied him to a tree.
As long as the mob had confined itself to searching the premises, Mr.Villars had held his peace. But the moment his faithful old servant wasin danger, he roused himself. He rushed to the door, bareheaded, hiswhite hair flowing, his staff in his hand. Both his children accompaniedhim,--Salina, who was really not void of affection, appearing scarcelyless anxious and indignant than her sister.
There, in the light of a wood-pile to which fire had been set, stood theold negro, naked to the waist, lashed fast to the trunk, writhing withpain and terror; his brutal tormentors grouped around him in the glareof the flames, preparing, with laughter, oaths, and much loose,leisurely swaggering, to flay his flesh with rods.
"My friends!" cried the old clergyman, with an energy that startledthem, "what are you about to do?"
"We're gwine to sarve this nigger," said the man Gad, "jest as everyfree nigger'll git sarved that's found in the state three months fromnow."
"Free niggers is a nuisance," added Ropes, now very drunk, and very muchinclined to make a speech on a barrel which his friends rolled out forhim. "A nuisance!" he repeated, with a hiccough, steadying himself onhis rostrum by holding a branch of the tree. "And let me say to you,feller-patriots, that one of the glorious fruits of secession is, thatevery free nigger in the state will either be sold for a slave, or druvout, or hung up. I tell you, gentlemen, we're a goin' to have our ownway in these matters, spite of all the ministers in creation!"
The men cheered, and one of them struck Toby a couple of preliminaryblows, just to try his hand, and to add the poor old negro's howls tothe chorus.
"No doubt,"--the old clergyman's voice rose above the tumult,--"you willhave your way for a season. You will commit injustice with a high hand.You will glut your cruelty upon the defenceless and oppressed. But, asthere is a God in heaven,"--he lifted up his blind white face, and withhis trembling hands shook his staff on high, like a prophet foretellingwoe,--"as there is a God of justice and mercy who beholds thiswickedness,--just so sure the hour of your retribution will come! sosure the treason you are breathing, and the despotism you areinaugurating, will prove a snare and a destruction to yourselves! Unbindthat man! leave my house in peace! go home, and learn to practise alittle of the mercy of which you will yourselves soon stand in need."His venerable aspect, and the power and authority of his words, awedeven that drunken crew. But Silas, vain of his oratorical powers, wasenraged that anybody should dispute his influence with the crowd.Holding the branch with one hand, and gesticulating violently with theother, he exclaimed,--
"Who is boss here? Who ye goin' to mind? that old traitor, or me? I say,lick the nigger! We're a goin' to have our way now, and we're a goin' tohave our way to the end of the 'arth, sure as I am a gentleman standingon this yer barrel!"
To emphasize his declaration, he stamped with his foot; the head of thecask flew in, and down went orator, cask, and all, in a fashion renderedall the more ridiculous by the climax of oratory it illustrated.
"Just so sure will your hollow and inhuman schemes fail from under yourfeet!" exclaimed Mr. Villars, as soon as he learned what had happened."So surely and so suddenly will you fall."
This incident occurred as Toby's flogging was about to begin in earnest.Virginia had instinctively covered her eyes to shut out the terriblesight, her ears to shut out the sounds of the beating and the poor oldfellow's groans. Luckily, Silas had fallen partly in the barrel, andpartly across the sharp edge of it, and being too tipsy to help himself,had been seriously hurt, and was now helpless. The ruffians hastened toextricate him, and raise him up. Carl, who, with an open knife concealedin his sleeve, had been waiting for an opportunity, darted at the tree,cut the negro's bonds in a twinkling, and set him free.
Both took to their heels without an instant's delay. But the trick wasdiscovered. They were pursued immediately. Carl was lively on his legs,as we know; but poor old Toby, never a good runner, and now stiff anddecrepit with age, was no match even for the slowest of their pursuers.
They ran straight into the orchard, hoping to lose themselves among theshadows. The glare of the burning wood-pile flickered but faintly andunsteadily among the trees. Carl might easily have escaped; but hethought only of Toby, and kept faithfully at his side, assisting him,urging him. A fence was near--if they could only reach that! But Tobywas wheezing terribly, and the hand of the foremost ruffian was alreadyextended to seize him.
"Jump the vence over!" was Carl's parting injunction to the old negro,who made a last desperate effort to accomplish the feat; while Carl,turning sharp about, tripped the foot of him of the extended hand, andsent him headlong. The second pursuer he grappled, and both rolled uponthe ground together.
Favored by this diversion, Toby reached the fence, climbed it, and
without looking how, he leaped, jumped down upon--a human figure,stretched there upon the ground!
Notwithstanding his own danger, Toby thought of his patient, andstopped.
"Is it you, massa?"
The man rose slowly to his feet. It was not Penn; it was, on thecontrary, the worst of Penn's enemies, who had stationed himself here,in order to observe, unseen, and from a safe distance, the operations ofSilas Ropes and his band of patriots.
"O, Massa Bythewood!" ejaculated Toby, inspired with sudden joy andhope; "help a poor old niggah! Help! De Villarses will remember it ob yede longest day you live, if you on'y will."
"Why, what's the matter, Toby?" said Augustus, full of rage at havingbeen thus discovered, yet assuming a gracious and patronizing manner.
Toby did not make a very coherent reply; but probably the younggentleman was already sufficiently aware of what was going on. He had noespecial regard for Toby, yet his credit with Virginia and her fatherwas to be sustained. And so Toby was saved.
Augustus met and rebuked his pursuers, released Carl, who was sufferingat the hands of his antagonist, and led the way back to the house. Therehe expressed to Mr. Villars and his daughters the utmost regret andindignation for what had occurred, and took Mr. Ropes aside toremonstrate with him for such violent proceedings. His influence overthat fallen orator was extraordinary. Ropes excused himself on the pleaof his patriotic zeal, and called off his men.
"How fortunate," said Augustus, conducting the old man, with anexcessive show of deference and politeness, back into thesitting-room,--"how extremely fortunate that I happened to be walkingthis way! I trust no serious harm has been done, my dear Virginia?"
Bythewood no doubt thought himself entitled to use this affectionateterm, after the service he had rendered the family.
After he was gone, Toby, having recovered from his fright and thefatigue of running, and got his clothes on again, rushed into thepresence of his master and the young ladies.
"I've seed Mass' Penn!" he said. "Arter Bythewood done got up from underde fence whar I jumped on him, I seed anoder man a crawlin' away on hishands and knees jest a little ways off. 'Twas Mass' Penn! I know 'twasMass' Penn."
But Toby was mistaken. The second figure he had seen was Mr. LysanderSprowl, now the confidential adviser and secret companion of Augustus.