A Fool's Errand & Bricks without Straw

by Albion Winegar Tourgée

  "Not at all, sir," was the reply. "I never dreamed of a lawyer consenting to a conviction for murder without proof of the fact of death.

  "Sh — " said the attorney; then, putting his hand to his mouth, and leaning forward close to the ear of his interlocutor, he said in a whisper, —

  "Don't you see this, Colonel? What would have become of the poor devils if they had been turned loose on this charge before your testimony?" He glanced around, and then said aloud very significantly, —

  "'There needs no ghost come from the dead to tell us that, my lord.' Eh?"

  Then the squire wanted them all to take a little brandy with him. A decanter with glasses, and a sugar-bowl with a half-dozen spoons bristling from its mouth, were set on the table, and the whole crowd were invited to partake. A bucket of water and a gourd were brought, and each one helped himself to the apple-jack, sugar, and water. The late prisoners were not forgotten. When they had been unbound, the justice himself poured out a stiff dram for each, and congratulated them on their escape. The change from seemingly savage cruelty to sympathy and good will was instantaneous, and to Servosse inexplicable.

  The sullen stoical apathy which had marked the defendants during the previous proceedings had been changed into profound astonishment by the introduction of "dat ar Yankee kunnel." They had listened with dilated eyes to his brief testimony, and when their cords were cut they had no memory of previous ill treatment in the joy of unexpected deliverance. So when the squire offered them a dram, and congratulated them in kind words on their release, each one tossed off his glass of apple-brandy with a grin and a shuffle, and a hearty, "Here's luck to ye, Mars'!"

  The only unpleasant thing about it was that the wife of one of them who came rushing upon the ground at this time with loud cries of grief, upon being hastily informed of the facts, would persist in throwing herself upon her knees before the Fool, and thanking him in the name of her helpless babes for saving their father from being hanged without law or justice, "jes' because he was a nigger."

  "The pore critter don't know any better," as the squire informed the Fool apologetically.

  To which remark the Fool replied, —

  "Evidently not." A reply which left the good justice in grave doubt as to what was intended by it.

  Mr. Thomas Savage remained at Warrington until his bruises were healed. A great many of his friends came to see him, and were very anxious as to the cause of his injuries. He said but little while under the roof of his new neighbor, but after he left made no secret of the matter, and strangely enough was thenceforward the stanchest of friends to Servosse and his family.

  CHAPTER XV

  "WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"

  Table of Contents

  ONE day their neighbor, shortly after the events narrated in the last chapter, Squire Hyman, came over, ostensibly to see Mr. Savage, but really, as Mrs. Servosse thought, to renew his intimacy with them, which he broke off in a miff the year before, because they would invite the teachers of the colored schools to visit them. He seemed rather shy at first; and Mr. Savage was absent, so that his excuse did not hold good. As Colonel Servosse was away, Metta thought she should have a hard time to bridge over his discomfiture. He evidently remembered the last time he was there, and knew that she had not forgotten it. However, as it happened, she had one of the new novels of Victor Hugo upon her worktable; and knowing him to be a somewhat bookish man in his queer, rough way, having heard her husband say that he had read a great deal, and had quaint and original views in regard to what he read, she called the book to his attention, and soon had him sitting vis à vis with her; his great stick and hat lying by him on the floor, and his long-stemmed pipe in his mouth, but hardly ever burning, though he lighted it every few minutes. Of course he did not smoke in her sitting-room without her leave, nor even did he presume to ask such leave; but, knowing what the old man's pipe must be to him by the pertinacity with which he carried it about, she insisted on his lighting it. It was but a short time before he was discoursing familiarly on books and events in a manner so quaint that she was well repaid.

  "Victor Hugo," said he meditatively. "Do you know, Madam, it seems almost a dream to me the way that name has become familiar this side the water? He must be an old man now, smartly older than I am, ma'am; and he has been a most prolific writer, I believe, from a very early age. Yet — would you believe it? — I never saw or read, to my present remembrance at least, any thing that he had written before the war. And I don't know anybody who had either. Not that I am any scholar, ma'am: but we Southern people had a good deal of time to read in those days; and, as I had not much education, I took to reading, so as not to feel behind my associates. I did not read every thing of course, and didn't have any particular end in view, I'm sorry to say; but I read what other folks read of novels and politics and religious controversies, and whatever fell in my way. But I didn't read any of Hugo's works, and hardly heard on 'em, till, some time along the last year of the war, a neighbor's son came back from the hospital, where he'd been lyin' sick for a good bit, and loaned me a book he called 'Lee's Miserables.' It was a shallow sort of pun, as I found out; but I reckon it was a most earnest one to the poor fellows in the trenches. Well, it's wonderful the run that book had here in the South, in spite of the blockade; and I was not a bit surprised to see it stated the other day that he had almost as many readers in America as at home. He's the most American Frenchman I ever read after."

  Then he would dip into the new book for a while, or read aloud some little passage which struck him, until he had mastered the period treated of and the general drift of the book. He bespoke its loan as soon as she had finished it, but could not be induced to take it before.

  After a time he asked to look into the book case, and was soon engrossed in making new, and renewing old friends, as he said. There were some works which Servosse had put on an upper shelf, lest they should attract any one's attention, and be thought to have been displayed with any intent to offend. They were works upon slavery and kindred subjects.

  She noticed that the old man was peculiarly attracted to this shelf. He seemed very soon to have forgotten all about Victor Hugo, and he presently asked if he might borrow some of these volumes. She hardly knew what to tell him. She did want to ask him to wait until Comfort came; for it seemed so absurd, in what was called a free and Christian land, to hesitate as to whether it would be safe to lend a simple book. He noticed her hesitation, and said, —

  "I have a curiosity to read them. I have heard so much about them, and never saw them before. You may not be aware, madam, that they were regarded as 'seditious publications' before the war; so that one could only get to read them at considerable risk and trouble. This I never cared to take; but now that it is all over, and the doctrines of these books have come to prevail, I would like to read the books just to see what hurt us."

  She remarked that her husband had put them on the top shelf in order that he might not seem either to obtrude them upon his neighbors' notice, or to deny their possession by concealment.

  "No, he has no cause for that now," said he; "though I remember when a man was tried and convicted, and sentence of whipping and imprisonment passed on him too, just for having one of those in his possession."

  "I did not know," she said, "that the law actually made it criminal, or, rather, I supposed it was never enforced."

  "Oh, yes! it was," he answered. "The case I allude to was Mr. Wanzer, who belonged to a very well-known family here in the county, though he had just come in from Indiana, which was the way he come to have the book about him. There was a big trial and a powerful excitement over it. He was very ably defended, and his lawyers took a heap of points on the law, which it was thought might be declared unconstitutional. But 'twasn't no manner of use. The Supreme Court stood by the law in every particular."

  "I thought it was only mobs that interfered with people for reading what they chose," said she; "at least since the good old days when they used to burn people for reading the
Bible."

  "Well," said he, "there used to be mobs about it too: at least we used to get very much excited at the idea of people bringing what were called 'abolition' books here, to stir up our slaves to insurrection; and probably did some things that had as well not have been done."

  "But how could you, Squire?" she asked. "This claimed to be a free country; and how could you think you had any right to persecute one for reading, writing, or saying what he believed? I suppose in those days you would have hung my husband for expressing his opinions?"

  "In those days," said he solemnly, "Colonel Servosse would never have expressed such opinions. I admit that he is a brave man; but no one would any more have uttered such sentiments as he puts out now than he would have carried a torch into a powder-magazine. The danger was so apparent, that no one could be found fool-hardy enough to attempt it. I think such a one would have been torn limb from limb, as by a wild beast, by any crowd in the South."

  "But you could not have thought that right, Squire," she interposed.

  "Well, now, I don't think you ought to say that, madam. You see, you are blaming a whole people whom we are bound to admit were, in the main, honest in what they did. If any one believed slavery to be a divinely appointed and ordained institution, I can not see how he could do otherwise."

  "If!" she said hotly. "Do you suppose there were any such?"

  "Undoubtedly," he answered seriously, — "many thousands of them, and are to-day. In fact, you may say that the bulk of the Southern people believed it then, and believe it now. They regard the abolition of slavery only as a temporary triumph of fanaticism over divine truth. They do not believe the negro intended or designed for any other sphere in life. They may think the relation was abused by bad masters and speculators and all that, and consequently God permitted its overthrow; they have no idea that he will permit the permanent establishment of any system which does not retain the African in a subordinate and servile relation."

  "But you do not believe any such horrible doctrine, Squire?" she could not help asking quickly.

  "I beg your pardon, ma'am," he answered politely enough: "I don't know what I believe. I have been a slaveholder from my youth, and ever since I could remember have heard the institution of slavery referred to in the pulpit and in religious conversations, not so much as a thing that might be proved to be holy, but which was incontestably divine in its origin and character, just as much as marriage, or any other Christian institution. I don't think a minister who had a doubt upon that subject could have found any market for his religion here. Until the war was over, I think, if there was any one thing that I believed stronger and clearer and firmer than another, it was that niggers were made for slaves; and cotton, terbacker, sugar-cane, an' rice, were made for them to raise, and could not be raised in any other way. Now I'm most ready to say that I'll be dog-goned if I know what I do believe. I know the niggers are free, and, for all I can see, they are likely to stay so; but what's to come on't I don't know."

  "My husband," said she, "thinks they will remain so, and become valuable citizens, and that the Southern people have actually gained by the war more than emancipation cost them"

  "Yes, yes, I know," said he: "I've heard the colonel talk, and what he says looks mighty plausible too. I think it's that has had a heap to do with unsettlin' my faith. However, I do wish he would be more keerful. He don't seem to realize that he's among a people who ain't used to his free and easy ways of talking about every thing. I'm afraid he'll get into trouble. I know he means well, but he is so inconsiderate."

  "He's not used to hiding his opinions," she said with something of pride.

  "No," he answered; "nor are those he is among used to having their pet notions assailed in that manner. I'm afraid there'll be trouble. I was anxious to see him to-day, an' talk with him about it; but I shall have to come again. Meantime, if you'll let me take these books, I'll read 'em carefully an' perhaps find some way out of my dilemma."

  "Certainly," she said. "We have no books that our neighbors are not welcome to read, believe or disbelieve, accept or refute, as they may see fit. We practice what we preach, Squire."

  "I believe that, madam," said he, as he stooped for his hat and stick; "an' I believe you're very much in earnest, both in preachin' an' practicin'. Oh! did I tell you?" he added suddenly, "my son Jesse, he's heard the colonel speak once or twice, an' he's clean carried away with him. Says he's got more sense than anybody he ever heard talk about such matters. He's quite took up that notion you spoke of a while ago, — that freein' the slaves is the best thing that's ever happened for the white folks of the South. Maybe he's right, but it sounds right queer to hear him talk so. He's like you say, though, — practicin' what he preaches, an' is going in to work as if he'd been raised to it all his life. It looks hard, and sounds queer; but maybe he's right. Good-evening, ma'am! Tell the colonel I'm right sorry he was not at home. I'll come again when I've read these through," — touching the books with his pipe, — "an' hope I may catch him then."

  Servosse was not quite pleased when his wife told him that night of what she had done. He had been very careful not to give any just ground of offense, as he thought, to their neighbors. While he did not hesitate to avow his opinions upon any question of present interest, he did not think it well to open the controversies of the past, and had studiously avoided all reference to them, unless it became necessary in considering the present. He did not say much, however; and when, a few nights afterwards, the Squire came over to return the books, the Fool was rather glad she had loaned them.

  The old man had evidently come for a chat. One could see that as he laid down his hat and stick, filled his pipe, and drew up his chair to the corner of the wide fireplace, in which the dry hickory and black-jack was blazing brightly, and coaxed their little golden-haired pet to sit beside him.

  "Well, Colonel," he said, after he had chatted a while with the child, "I've brought back the books I borrowed of the madam the other day."

  "So I see," laughed Servosse. "Well, I hope you enjoyed reading them?"

  "That I did, Colonel," he answered, — "more, I suppose than you would ever imagine that I could."

  "Indeed!" said Servosse. "I was half afraid they would make you so angry that you would feel like visiting your displeasure on me."

  "No, indeed!" said the old man with a sort of chuckle. "I had no notion of being angry; though, now I come to think on't, I can't imagine why I am not. There's certainly hard things enough in those books about me and my people to make any man mad. But the truth is, Colonel, it seems to be all about the past, — what is all over and done with now, — so that I seem to be reading of somebody else, and some other time than my own. Do you know, Colonel, that I never read any 'abolition' books before, only some of the milder sort? and I am of the notion now, that our folks made a mistake in keeping them out of the South. I was a little surprised when the madam here," — waving his hand gallantly towards Metta, — "asked me if any one really believed in slavery. If it had been you, I should have asked if any one really believed in 'abolitionism.' But I am satisfied that the people who wrote those books believed what they were writing; and it does seem as if they had good reason to do so. It's a thousand pities we couldn't have talked these things over, and have come to the right understanding of them without this terrible war."

  "That was quite impossible, Squire," said Servosse. "We could never have agreed. I have learned enough of the former state of affairs here already to see that. Each party distrusted the other's sincerity, and despised the other's knowledge. War was inevitable: sooner or later it must have come. Why, even now we can not agree in regard to the incidents flowing from emancipation, — the mere corollaries of the problem God has wrought out for us in the blood of our best."

  "That's true, too true," sighed the old man. "And it's curious too. It's all common sense at the last. Why can't we agree to hunt together until we find it?"

  "It seems to be human nature, Squire."

  "Th
at's it, Colonel; an' when you've said that you've said all We can't go no further, nor learn any more. It's human nature, and there's no more use of asking questions of human nature than of an owl. 'What' and 'why' are things that don't concern human nature. It don't care no more for reason than a mule does for persuasion. Human nature is a sullen, obstinate, unreasonable brute; but it always has its own way with all on us. Ain't that so, Colonel?" he asked with a self-appreciative chuckle.

  "Just so, Squire," replied Servosse. "And almost always disappointing too. Now, I can not see why the South should not have seen its own interest to have lain in the way of gradual emancipation long ago."

  "The very idea I was going to advance as to the North," laughed the old man. "I never could make out what interest they had in the matter at all. Now, the people who wrote those books I can understand. With them it was a principle, a religious idea. They thought it was a wrong and a sin which they would do God's service to exterminate. They are what we call 'fanatics.' No one can blame them, only for not crediting us with like sincerity. They might have done that, I should suppose. They made too much, too, out of the abuses of slavery. It was abused, — no doubt of that, — and many bad things done by bad men under cover of it; but they might have credited us with honesty, at least. We were not all bad, nor all cruel and unjust. Some of us thought the master's relation one of divine duty; and others, who weren't quite so clear upon that point, or didn't care so much whether it was true or not, felt that the institution was on our hands, had come to be there lawfully, and we didn't see how we were to get rid of it without immense loss and sacrifice. So we just let it float along. But we were not hard masters, nor cruel owners. We did feel bound to protect the institution. Not only your interests, but the safety of society as we honestly thought, depended on its continuance, unimpaired and perfect, until something else should take its place, at least. As long as the nigger was here, we were all satisfied that he must be a slave. A good many of us thought it would not be any injury if they could all be removed somewhere else."