Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  One night, after all in Tom's cabin were sunk in sleep, he was suddenly aroused by seeing her face at the hole between the logs, that served for a window. She made a silent gesture for him to come out.

  Tom came out the door. It was between one and two o'clock at night,-broad, calm, still moonlight. Tom remarked, as the light of the moon fell upon Cassy's large, black eyes, that there was a wild and peculiar glare in them, unlike their wonted fixed despair.

  "Come here, Father Tom," she said, laying her small hand on his wrist, and drawing him forward with a force as if the hand were of steel; "come here,-I've news for you."

  "What, Misse Cassy?" said Tom, anxiously.

  "Tom, wouldn't you like your liberty?"

  "I shall have it, Misse, in God's time," said Tom. "Ay, but you may have it tonight," said Cassy, with a flash of sudden energy. "Come on."

  Tom hesitated.

  "Come!" said she, in a whisper, fixing her black eyes on him. "Come along! He's asleep-sound. I put enough into his brandy to keep him so. I wish I'd had more,-I shouldn't have wanted you. But come, the back door is unlocked; there's an axe there, I put it there,-his room door is open; I'll show you the way. I'd a done it myself, only my arms are so weak. Come along!"

  "Not for ten thousand worlds, Misse!" said Tom, firmly, stopping and holding her back, as she was pressing forward.

  "But think of all these poor creatures," said Cassy. "We might set them all free, and go somewhere in the swamps, and find an island, and live by ourselves; I've heard of its being done. Any life is better than this."

  "No!" said Tom, firmly. "No! good never comes of wickedness. I'd sooner chop my right hand off!"

  "Then I shall do it," said Cassy, turning.

  "O, Misse Cassy!" said Tom, throwing himself before her, "for the dear Lord's sake that died for ye, don't sell your precious soul to the devil, that way! Nothing but evil will come of it. The Lord hasn't called us to wrath. We must suffer, and wait his time."

  "Wait!" said Cassy. "Haven't I waited?-waited till my head is dizzy and my heart sick? What has he made me suffer? What has he made hundreds of poor creatures suffer? Isn't he wringing the life-blood out of you? I'm called on; they call me! His time's come, and I'll have his heart's blood!"

  "No, no, no!" said Tom, holding her small hands, which were clenched with spasmodic violence. "No, ye poor, lost soul, that ye mustn't do. The dear, blessed Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he poured out for us when we was enemies. Lord, help us to follow his steps, and love our enemies."

  "Love!" said Cassy, with a fierce glare; "love such enemies! It isn't in flesh and blood."

  "No, Misse, it isn't," said Tom, looking up; "but He gives it to us, and that's the victory. When we can love and pray over all and through all, the battle's past, and the victory's come,-glory be to God!" And, with streaming eyes and choking voice, the black man looked up to heaven.

  And this, oh Africa! latest called of nations,-called to the crown of thorns, the scourge, the bloody sweat, the cross of agony,-this is to be thy victory; by this shalt thou reign with Christ when his kingdom shall come on earth.

  The deep fervor of Tom's feelings, the softness of his voice, his tears, fell like dew on the wild, unsettled spirit of the poor woman. A softness gathered over the lurid fires of her eye; she looked down, and Tom could feel the relaxing muscles of her hands, as she said,

  "Didn't I tell you that evil spirits followed me? O! Father Tom, I can't pray,-I wish I could. I never have prayed since my children were sold! What you say must be right, I know it must; but when I try to pray, I can only hate and curse. I can't pray!"

  "Poor soul!" said Tom, compassionately. "Satan desires to have ye, and sift ye as wheat. I pray the Lord for ye. O! Misse Cassy, turn to the dear Lord Jesus. He came to bind up the broken-hearted, and comfort all that mourn."

  Cassy stood silent, while large, heavy tears dropped from her downcast eyes.

  "Misse Cassy," said Tom, in a hesitating tone, after surveying her in silence, "if ye only could get away from here,-if the thing was possible,-I'd 'vise ye and Emmeline to do it; that is, if ye could go without blood-guiltiness,-not otherwise."

  "Would you try it with us, Father Tom?"

  "No," said Tom; "time was when I would; but the Lord's given me a work among these yer poor souls, and I'll stay with 'em and bear my cross with 'em till the end. It's different with you; it's a snare to you,-it's more'n you can stand,-and you'd better go, if you can."

  "I know no way but through the grave," said Cassy. "There's no beast or bird but can find a home some where; even the snakes and the alligators have their places to lie down and be quiet; but there's no place for us. Down in the darkest swamps, their dogs will hunt us out, and find us. Everybody and everything is against us; even the very beasts side against us,-and where shall we go?"

  Tom stood silent; at length he said,

  "Him that saved Daniel in the den of lions,-that saved the children in the fiery furnace,-Him that walked on the sea, and bade the winds be still,-He's alive yet; and I've faith to believe he can deliver you. Try it, and I'll pray, with all my might, for you."

  By what strange law of mind is it that an idea long overlooked, and trodden under foot as a useless stone, suddenly sparkles out in new light, as a discovered diamond?

  Cassy had often revolved, for hours, all possible or probable schemes of escape, and dismissed them all, as hopeless and impracticable; but at this moment there flashed through her mind a plan, so simple and feasible in all its details, as to awaken an instant hope.

  "Father Tom, I'll try it!" she said, suddenly.

  "Amen!" said Tom; "the Lord help ye!"

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  The Stratagem

  "The way of the wicked is as darkness; he knoweth not at what he stumbleth." [27]

  The garret of the house that Legree occupied, like most other garrets, was a great, desolate space, dusty, hung with cobwebs, and littered with cast-off lumber. The opulent family that had inhabited the house in the days of its splendor had imported a great deal of splendid furniture, some of which they had taken away with them, while some remained standing desolate in mouldering, unoccupied rooms, or stored away in this place. One or two immense packing-boxes, in which this furniture was brought, stood against the sides of the garret. There was a small window there, which let in, through its dingy, dusty panes, a scanty, uncertain light on the tall, high-backed chairs and dusty tables, that had once seen better days. Altogether, it was a weird and ghostly place; but, ghostly as it was, it wanted not in legends among the superstitious negroes, to increase its terrors. Some few years before, a negro woman, who had incurred Legree's displeasure, was confined there for several weeks. What passed there, we do not say; the negroes used to whisper darkly to each other; but it was known that the body of the unfortunate creature was one day taken down from there, and buried; and, after that, it was said that oaths and cursings, and the sound of violent blows, used to ring through that old garret, and mingled with wailings and groans of despair. Once, when Legree chanced to overhear something of this kind, he flew into a violent passion, and swore that the next one that told stories about that garret should have an opportunity of knowing what was there, for he would chain them up there for a week. This hint was enough to repress talking, though, of course, it did not disturb the credit of the story in the least.

  Gradually, the staircase that led to the garret, and even the passage-way to the staircase, were avoided by every one in the house, from every one fearing to speak of it, and the legend was gradually falling into desuetude. It had suddenly occurred to Cassy to make use of the superstitious excitability, which was so great in Legree, for the purpose of her liberation, and that of her fellow-sufferer.

  The sleeping-room of Cassy was directly under the garret. One day, without consulting Legree, she suddenly took it upon her, with some considerable ostentation, to change all the furniture and appurtenances of the room to one at some considerable distance. The u
nder-servants, who were called on to effect this movement, were running and bustling about with great zeal and confusion, when Legree returned from a ride.

  "Hallo! you Cass!" said Legree, "what's in the wind now?"

  "Nothing; only I choose to have another room," said Cassy, doggedly.

  "And what for, pray?" said Legree.

  "I choose to," said Cassy.

  "The devil you do! and what for?"

  "I'd like to get some sleep, now and then."

  "Sleep! well, what hinders your sleeping?"

  "I could tell, I suppose, if you want to hear," said Cassy, dryly.

  "Speak out, you minx!" said Legree.

  "O! nothing. I suppose it wouldn't disturb you! Only groans, and people scuffing, and rolling round on the garret floor, half the night, from twelve to morning!"

  "People up garret!" said Legree, uneasily, but forcing a laugh; "who are they, Cassy?"

  Cassy raised her sharp, black eyes, and looked in the face of Legree, with an expression that went through his bones, as she said, "To be sure, Simon, who are they? I'd like to have you tell me. You don't know, I suppose!"

  With an oath, Legree struck at her with his riding-whip; but she glided to one side, and passed through the door, and looking back, said, "If you'll sleep in that room, you'll know all about it. Perhaps you'd better try it!" and then immediately she shut and locked the door.

  Legree blustered and swore, and threatened to break down the door; but apparently thought better of it, and walked uneasily into the sitting-room. Cassy perceived that her shaft had struck home; and, from that hour, with the most exquisite address, she never ceased to continue the train of influences she had begun.

  In a knot-hole of the garret, that had opened, she had inserted the neck of an old bottle, in such a manner that when there was the least wind, most doleful and lugubrious wailing sounds proceeded from it, which, in a high wind, increased to a perfect shriek, such as to credulous and superstitious ears might easily seem to be that of horror and despair.

  These sounds were, from time to time, heard by the servants, and revived in full force the memory of the old ghost legend. A superstitious creeping horror seemed to fill the house; and though no one dared to breathe it to Legree, he found himself encompassed by it, as by an atmosphere.

  No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise, all-ruling Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who has dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, "a land of darkness and the shadow of death," without any order, where the light is as darkness. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.

  Legree had had the slumbering moral elements in him roused by his encounters with Tom,-roused, only to be resisted by the determinate force of evil; but still there was a thrill and commotion of the dark, inner world, produced by every word, or prayer, or hymn, that reacted in superstitious dread.

  The influence of Cassy over him was of a strange and singular kind. He was her owner, her tyrant and tormentor. She was, as he knew, wholly, and without any possibility of help or redress, in his hands; and yet so it is, that the most brutal man cannot live in constant association with a strong female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it. When he first bought her, she was, as she said, a woman delicately bred; and then he crushed her, without scruple, beneath the foot of his brutality. But, as time, and debasing influences, and despair, hardened womanhood within her, and waked the fires of fiercer passions, she had become in a measure his mistress, and he alternately tyrannized over and dreaded her.

  This influence had become more harassing and decided, since partial insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled cast to all her words and language.

  A night or two after this, Legree was sitting in the old sitting-room, by the side of a flickering wood fire, that threw uncertain glances round the room. It was a stormy, windy night, such as raises whole squadrons of nondescript noises in rickety old houses. Windows were rattling, shutters flapping, and wind carousing, rumbling, and tumbling down the chimney, and, every once in a while, puffing out smoke and ashes, as if a legion of spirits were coming after them. Legree had been casting up accounts and reading newspapers for some hours, while Cassy sat in the corner; sullenly looking into the fire. Legree laid down his paper, and seeing an old book lying on the table, which he had noticed Cassy reading, the first part of the evening, took it up, and began to turn it over. It was one of those collections of stories of bloody murders, ghostly legends, and supernatural visitations, which, coarsely got up and illustrated, have a strange fascination for one who once begins to read them.

  Legree poohed and pished, but read, turning page after page, till, finally, after reading some way, he threw down the book, with an oath.

  "You don't believe in ghosts, do you, Cass?" said he, taking the tongs and settling the fire. "I thought you'd more sense than to let noises scare you."

  "No matter what I believe," said Cassy, sullenly.

  "Fellows used to try to frighten me with their yarns at sea," said Legree. "Never come it round me that way. I'm too tough for any such trash, tell ye."

  Cassy sat looking intensely at him in the shadow of the corner. There was that strange light in her eyes that always impressed Legree with uneasiness.

  "Them noises was nothing but rats and the wind," said Legree. "Rats will make a devil of a noise. I used to hear 'em sometimes down in the hold of the ship; and wind,-Lord's sake! ye can make anything out o' wind."

  Cassy knew Legree was uneasy under her eyes, and, therefore, she made no answer, but sat fixing them on him, with that strange, unearthly expression, as before.

  "Come, speak out, woman,-don't you think so?" said Legree.

  "Can rats walk down stairs, and come walking through the entry, and open a door when you've locked it and set a chair against it?" said Cassy; "and come walk, walk, walking right up to your bed, and put out their hand, so?"

  Cassy kept her glittering eyes fixed on Legree, as she spoke, and he stared at her like a man in the nightmare, till, when she finished by laying her hand, icy cold, on his, he sprung back, with an oath.

  "Woman! what do you mean? Nobody did?"

  "O, no,-of course not,-did I say they did?" said Cassy, with a smile of chilling derision.

  "But-did-have you really seen?-Come, Cass, what is it, now,-speak out!"

  "You may sleep there, yourself," said Cassy, "if you want to know."

  "Did it come from the garret, Cassy?"

  "It,-what?" said Cassy.

  "Why, what you told of-"

  "I didn't tell you anything," said Cassy, with dogged sullenness.

  Legree walked up and down the room, uneasily.

  "I'll have this yer thing examined. I'll look into it, this very night. I'll take my pistols-"

  "Do," said Cassy; "sleep in that room. I'd like to see you doing it. Fire your pistols,-do!"

  Legree stamped his foot, and swore violently.

  "Don't swear," said Cassy; "nobody knows who may be hearing you. Hark! What was that?"

  "What?" said Legree, starting.

  A heavy old Dutch clock, that stood in the corner of the room, began, and slowly struck twelve.

  For some reason or other, Legree neither spoke nor moved; a vague horror fell on him; while Cassy, with a keen, sneering glitter in her eyes, stood looking at him, counting the strokes.

  "Twelve o'clock; well now we'll see," said she, turning, and opening the door into the passage-way, and standing as if listening.

  "Hark! What's that?" said she, raising her finger.

  "It's only the wind," said Legree. "Don't you hear how cursedly it blows?"

  "Simon, come here," said Cassy, in a whisper, laying her hand on his, and leading him to the foot of the stairs: "do you know what that is? Hark!"

  A wild shriek came pealing down the stairway. It came from the garret. L
egree's knees knocked together; his face grew white with fear.

  "Hadn't you better get your pistols?" said Cassy, with a sneer that froze Legree's blood. "It's time this thing was looked into, you know. I'd like to have you go up now; they're at it."

  "I won't go!" said Legree, with an oath.

  "Why not? There an't any such thing as ghosts, you know! Come!" and Cassy flitted up the winding stairway, laughing, and looking back after him. "Come on."

  "I believe you are the devil!" said Legree. "Come back you hag,-come back, Cass! You shan't go!"

  But Cassy laughed wildly, and fled on. He heard her open the entry doors that led to the garret. A wild gust of wind swept down, extinguishing the candle he held in his hand, and with it the fearful, unearthly screams; they seemed to be shrieked in his very ear.

  Legree fled frantically into the parlor, whither, in a few moments, he was followed by Cassy, pale, calm, cold as an avenging spirit, and with that same fearful light in her eye.

  "I hope you are satisfied," said she.

  "Blast you, Cass!" said Legree.

  "What for?" said Cassy. "I only went up and shut the doors. What's the matter with that garret, Simon, do you suppose?" said she.

  "None of your business!" said Legree.

  "O, it an't? Well," said Cassy, "at any rate, I'm glad I don't sleep under it."

  Anticipating the rising of the wind, that very evening, Cassy had been up and opened the garret window. Of course, the moment the doors were opened, the wind had drafted down, and extinguished the light.

  This may serve as a specimen of the game that Cassy played with Legree, until he would sooner have put his head into a lion's mouth than to have explored that garret. Meanwhile, in the night, when everybody else was asleep, Cassy slowly and carefully accumulated there a stock of provisions sufficient to afford subsistence for some time; she transferred, article by article, a greater part of her own and Emmeline's wardrobe. All things being arranged, they only waited a fitting opportunity to put their plan in execution.