CHAPTER XIX.
THE DUSKY LEVELS.
The new son-in-law, left alone with Judge Custis, asked to be propped upin bed, and nothing was visible that would support his pillow but theaged leather hat-box that Custis, with a wry face, brought to do duty.
"My illness is unfortunate," he gasped; "not only to me, but to the newties I have formed; to the mutual interest my wife and I have in makingup your losses on Nassawongo furnace, which we are all the poorer by tothat amount; and to a suitor whose cause I have taken up. I have boughtan interest in a great lawsuit."
"Then the day of reckoning of your enemies has come, Milburn."
"Not yet," said the sick man, with a proud flash of his eyes, "unless Iam no merchant and you are no lawyer, and the first I will not concede."
"Nor I the second," exclaimed the Judge, with some pride and temper.
"You were once a good lawyer, if visionary," resumed the money-lender,with scant ceremony. "Had we been able to respect each other we mighthave been confederated in things valuable to ourselves and to our timeand place. But that is past, and you do not possess my confidence as mylegal agent, my attorney. I wish you to get another advocate for me."
"I am willing to be useful, even without your compliments," the Judgesaid, remembering his Christian resolution. "We will not quarrel, if Ican serve you."
"I do not wish to hurt your feelings, but my strength is not greatenough for unmeaning flattery. This marriage was so dear to my heartthat I have put it before a very large interest about which I have notime to lose, and still am helpless upon this bed. I will trust you todo my errand. Go to that chest, Judge Custis, and you will find apackage of papers in the cedar till at the end. Bring them here."
As the Judge opened the old chest a musty smell, as of mummies wrappedin herbs, ascended into his nose, and he saw some faded clothes, asthose of poor people deceased, male and female, lying within. Themocking-bird piped a noisy warning as he raised the lid of the till andsaw the desired papers among a parcel of spotted and striped bird-eggs:
"Come see! come see! Meshach! he! he! sweet!"
"Now open the window yonder," said Meshach, taking the papers, "and letTom fly out. He starts my nerves. Wh-oo-t, whi-it, Tom!"
The mocking-bird, spreading its wings and tail, and striking obstinatelytowards its master a minute, as he whistled, flew out of the window andsettled in the old willow below, and had a Sunday-afternoon concert,calling the passing dogs by name, whistling to them, and deceiving catsand chickens with invitations they familiarly heard, to eat, to shoo, toscat, and to roost.
"If he regulates his wife like that bird," the Judge spoke to himself,"she will fly to heaven soon."
Milburn opened the papers, counted them, and handed them to hisfather-in-law.
"The papers will be plain to you, Judge Custis, after I have made a fewwords of explanation. You well know that the canal between the Delawareand Chesapeake is finished, and vessels are now passing through it frombay to bay. It is taking one hundred dollars a day tolls, and twentyvessels already go past between sun and sun, though the size of theshipping of the cities it connects has not yet been adapted to itsproportions. It has been a cheap and quick work, costing something abovetwo millions of dollars, taking only five years of time; and yet it hasbegun its mercantile life by a cheat upon a man to whom it is indebtedas a promoter and contractor, and to whom I have advanced the means tocompel justice and damages."
"Well, well, Milburn; I must pay tribute to your enterprise. The era ofthese great carrying corporations has barely begun, and you stake yourlittle fortune against one of them that is backed by the great city ofPhiladelphia!"
"The canal passes through the state of Delaware, in which is threequarters of its little length of only fourteen miles, and there a suitwill be free, to some extent, from the corruptions they might exercisein Pennsylvania; and, if successful there, we can more easily attach thetolls of the canal. I have no more faith in the Legislature of Delawarethan of any other state; kidnappers sit in its responsible seats, and itlicenses lotteries to make prizes of its own honor. But we shall try ourcase before a simple jury, which will be flax in the hands of one lawyerin that state, if we can secure him; but hitherto he has refused mycontractor, and will not take the case."
"Why," said the Judge, "you must mean Clayton, the new senator."
"That is the man," Milburn continued, stopping for strength and breath."He is finely educated, I hear, at the colleges and law schools, andpossesses a remarkable power over the agricultural and mixed races ofthat small state, whom he thoroughly understands by sympathy andacquaintance. I heard him once in court, at Georgetown, wither andconfound the confederated kidnapping influences of the whole peninsula,and, against the will and intention of the jury, prevail upon theirfears and sensibilities to find a bold rogue guilty of stealing freemen; of color--a rogue who was in this room, unless it is a delusion ofmy fever, this very day, and with whom I fancied I had been in collisionsomewhere."
"You only knocked him down with a brick, after Samson had done it withhis fist, and then the fellow came to me for shelter, afraid you wouldpursue him at law, and I suppose he did an errand for my servants tothis abode."
The Judge looked around upon the abode as if he had used the mostrespectable word he could possibly apply to it.
"I will compromise with such scoundrels as that one," Milburn spoke,"only when I am afraid of them. But, to conclude my statement; forreasons of timidity, or doubts of success, or politicalambition--something I cannot fathom--Mr. Clayton will not hearken to mydebtor, and I have not disclosed my own interest in the suit. He is athome from Washington, and an appointment has been made with him at hisoffice in Dover to-morrow. You see I am unable to keep it, and I have noone else to send, and information reaches me that the canal company,discovering my money in the contractor's bank account, intends to retainClayton forthwith. If you set out this afternoon, you can reachLaureltown for bedtime. It is at least forty miles thence to Dover, andyou might ride it to-morrow by noon, with push, and in that case youhave a chance to beat the Philadelphia emissary several hours. I havefive thousand dollars at stake already; I believe I shall get damages offorty times five if I can retain that man."
"I am ready to start at once," said the Judge, rising up; "I can readthese papers on the way. The saddle was my cradle, and I have a goodhorse. My valise can follow me on the stage to-morrow."
"Unless you see the best reasons for it, my name is not to be mentionedto any one as a party to this suit; I am not popular with juries."
"Then good-bye, Milburn," said the Judge, but did not extend his hand."As you treat my daughter, may God treat you!"
"Amen," exclaimed the money-lender, as the Judge's feet passed over thedoor-sill below, and he sank back to the bed, exhausted again.
* * * * *
While the proceedings described occupied the white people, the servants,Roxy and Virgie, in their clean Sunday suits, loitered around the bridgebehind the store, or strayed a little way up the Manokin brook, hearingthe mocking-bird rend his breast in all the ventriloquy of genius.
"Virgie," said Samson Hat, meeting them under the willow-tree, "when Icarries you off and marries you, I s'pect you'll be climbin' up in myloft, too, makin' it comf'able fo' me."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you old, black, impertinentservant of darkness!" Virgie said. "Indeed, when I look at a man, hemust be almost white--not all white, though, like Roxy's beau."
"Who's he, Roxy?" Samson asked.
Roxie blushed, and said she had no beau, and never wanted one.
"Roxy's beau," says Virgie, "is that poor, helpless Mr. Jack Wonnell. Hecomes to see her every day. He's devotion itself. Indeed, Samson, if youare going to marry me, and Roxy marry all those bell-crown hats, weshall cure the town of its two greatest afflictions."
"Bad ole hats?" asks Samson.
"Roxy'll burn all the bell-crowns for her beau, and I'll bury thesteeple-hat and you th
at cleans it, and the people will be so gladthey'll set me free and I can go North."
"Look out, Virgie; I'll put dat high-crown hat on you like MarsterMilburn put de bell on de buzzard. He went up to dat buzzard one daywid a little tea-bell in his hand an' says, 'Buzzard, how do ye likemusic?' Says de buzzard, tickled wid de compliment, 'I'm so larnid indat music, I disdains to sing; I criticises de birds dat does.' 'Den,'says Mars Milburn, 'I needn't say to ye, P'ofessor Buzzard, dat dislittle bell will be very pleasin' to yo' refine taste.' Wid dat he takesa little piece o' wire an' fastens de tea-bell to de bird's foot an'says, 'Buzzard, let me hear ye play!' De buzzard flew and de belltinkled, an' all de other buzzards hear some'in' like de cowbell on dedead cow dey picked yisterday, an' dey says, 'Who's dat a flyin' heah?Maybe it's a cow's ghose!' So dey up, all scart, an' cross'd de bay; an'de buzzard wid a bell haint had no company sence, becoz he stole atalent he didn't have, and it made everybody oncomfitable."
"I've heard about Meshach belling a buzzard," said Roxy, "but they sayhe's got something on his foot, too, like a hoof--a clove foot. Did youever see it, Samson?"
"He never tuk his foot off," said the negro, warily, "to let me see it.Dat bell on de buzzard, gals, is like white beauty in a colored skin; itdraws white men and black men, like quare music in de air, but it makesde pale gal lonesome. She can't marry ary white man; she despises blackones."
The shrewd lover had touched a chord of young pain in the hearts of boththose delicate quadroons. Both were so nearly white that the slightcorruption increased their beauty, rounded their graceful limbs,plumpened their willowy figures, gave a softness like mild night totheir expressive eyes, and blackened the silken tassels of their elegantlong hair. No tutor had taught them how to walk,--they who moved onhealth like skylarks on the air. Faithful, pure-minded, modest, natural,they were still slaves, and their place in matrimony, which naturewould have set among the worthiest--superior in love, superior inmaternity, superior in length of days and enjoyment--was, by the freakof man's _caste_, as doubtful as the mermaid's.
Roxy was a little the shorter and fuller of shape, the milder and morepathetic; in Virgie the white race had left its leaner lines and greaterunrelenting. She said to Samson, with the pique her reflectionsinspired,
"I never thought the first man to make love to me would be as black asyou."
"De white corn years," says Samson, "de rale sugar-corn, de blackbirdgits. None of dem white gulls and pigeons gits dat corn. A white fellerwouldn't suit you, Virgie."
"Why?" says Roxy, "Virgie was raised among white children; so was I. Wedidn't know any difference till we grew up."
"Dat was what spiled ye," Samson said; "de colored man is de besthusban'. He ain't thinkin' 'bout business while he makin' love, likeMarster Milburn. The black man thinks his sweetheart is business enough,long as she likes him. He works fur her, to love her, not to be makin' afool of her, and put his own head full of hambition, as dey calls it.You couldn't git along wid one o' dem pale, mutterin' white men, Virgie.Now, Roxy's white man, he's most as keerless as a nigger; he kin't donothin' but make love, nohow. Dat's what she likes him fur."
"He's as kind a hearted man as there is in Princess Anne," Roxy spokeup. "I never thought about him except as a friend. I know I sha'n't lookdown on him because he likes a yellow girl, for then I would be lookingdown on myself."
"Virgie," said Samson, "I reckon I'm a little ole, but you kin't fineout whar it is. Ye ought to seen me fetch dat white hickory of a fellerin de eye yisterday, and he jest outen his teens. I know it's a kine ofimpedent to be a courtin' of you, Virgie, dat's purtier dan Miss Vestyherself--"
"Nobody can be as pretty as Miss Vesta," Virgie cried, delighted withthe compliment; "she's perfection."
"As I was gwyn to say," dryly added Samson, "I never just knowed what Iwas a lettin' Marster Milburn keep my wages fur, till he married MissVesty, and then I sot my eyes on Miss Vesty's friend an' maid, and Isays, 'Gracious goodness! dat's de loveliest gal in de world. I'll gitmy money and buy her and set her free, and maybe she'll hab me, ole as Iam.'"
"She will, too, Samson, if you do that, I believe," Roxy cried; "see howshe's a-smiling and coloring about it."
Virgie's throat was sending up its tremors to her long-lashed eyes, anda wild, speculative something throbbed in her slender wrists and beat inthe little jacket that was moulded to her swelling form: the first sightof freedom in the wild doe--freedom, and a mate.
"My soul!" Roxy added, "if poor Mr. Wonnell could set me free, I think Imight pity him enough to be his wife."
Samson used his opportunity to stretch out his hand and take Virgie's,while she indulged the wild dream.
"Dis han' is too purty," he said, "to be worn by a slave. Let me make itfree."
She turned away, but the negro had been a wise lover, and his pleapierced home, and it struck the Caucasian fatherhood of the brightquadroon.
"Freedom is mos' all I got," the negro continued; "it's wuth everythingbut love, Virgie. Dat you got. Maybe we can swap' em and let me be yo'slave."
"Don't, don't!" pleaded Virgie, pulling her hand very gently. "I'mafeard of you; you clean the Bad Man's hat."