A Fool's Errand & Bricks without Straw

by Albion Winegar Tourgée

  It was a bold, blunt compliment, yet it was uttered with evident sincerity; but she had turned the locket so that she could see the likeness and did not catch the double meaning of his words. So she only answered calmly and earnestly, "He was a good brother."

  A shadow passed over his face as he noticed her inattention to his compliment, but he added heartily,

  "And a gallant one. I am glad that my horse fell into his hands."

  She looked at him and said,

  "You were very fond of your horse?"

  "Yes, indeed!" he answered. "He was a great pet before we went into the service, and my constant companion for nearly three years of that struggle. But come out on the porch, and let me show you some of the tricks I taught him, and you will not only understand how I prized him, but will appreciate his sagacity more than you do now."

  He assisted her to a rocking-chair upon the porch, and, bidding a servant to bring out the horse, said:

  "You must remember that I have but one arm and have not seen him, until lately, at least, for five years.

  "Poor old fellow!" he added, as he went down the steps of the porch, and told the servant to turn him loose. He called him up with a snap of his thumb and finger as he entered the yard and patted his head which was stretched out to receive the caress. "Poor fellow! he is not so young as he was then, though he has had good care. The gray hairs are beginning to show on his muzzle, and I can detect, though no one else might notice them, the wrinkles coming about his eyes. Let me see, you are only nine years old, though, — nine past. But it's the war that tells — tells on horses just as well as men. You ought to be credited with about five years for what you went through then, old fellow. And a man — Do you know, Miss Mollie," he said, breaking suddenly off — "that a man who was in that war, even if he did not get a shot, discounted his life about ten years? It was the wear and tear of the struggle. We are different from other nations. We have no professional soldiers — at least none to speak of. To such, war is merely a business and peace an interlude. There is no mental strain in their case. But in our war we were all volunteers. Every man, on both sides, went into the army with the fate of a nation resting on his shoulders, and because he felt the burden of responsibility. It was that which killed — killed and weakened — more than shot and shell and frost and heat together. And then — what came afterward?"

  He turned towards her as he spoke, his hand still resting on the neck of the horse which was rubbing against him and playfully nipping at him with his teeth, in manifestation of his delight.

  Her face had settled into firm, hard lines. She seemed to be looking beyond him, and the gray coldness which we saw about her face when she read the telegram in the far-away Bankshire hills, settled on cheek and brow again, as she slowly repeated, as though unconscious of their meaning, the lines:

  "In the world's broad field of battle,

  In the bivouac of Life,

  Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

  Be a hero in the strife!"

  Hesden Le Moyne gazed at her a moment in confused wonder. Then he turned to the horse and made him perform various tricks at his bidding. He made him back away from him as far as he chose by the motion of his hand, and then, by reversing the gesture, brought him bounding back again. The horse lifted either foot at his instance, lay down, rolled over, stood upon his hind feet, and finally knelt upon the edge of the porch in obeisance to his mistress, who sat looking, although in a preoccupied manner, at all that was done. Hesden Le Moyne was surprised and somewhat disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm over what he thought would give her so much pleasure. She thanked him absently when it was over, and retired to her own room.

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  WHAT THE MIST HID

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  The darkness was already giving way to the gray light of a misty morning following the attack on Red Wing. The mocking birds, one after another, were responding to each other's calls, at first sleepily and unwillingly, as though the imprisoned melody compelled expression, and then, thoroughly aroused and perched upon the highest dew-laden branches swaying and tossing beneath them, they poured forth their rival orisons. Other sounds of rising day were coming through the mist that still hung over the land, shutting out the brightness which was marching from the eastward. The crowing of cocks, the neighing of horses, and the lowing of cattle resounded from hill to hill across the wide bottom-lands and up and down the river upon either hand. Nature was waking from slumber — not to the full, boisterous wakefulness which greets the broad day, but the half-consciousness with which the sluggard turns himself for the light, sweet sleep of the summer morning.

  There was a tap at the open window that stood at the head of Hesden Le Moyne's bed. His room was across the hall from his mother's, and upon the same floor. It had been his room from childhood. The window opened upon the wide, low porch which ran along three sides of the great rambling house. Hesden heard the tap, but it only served to send his half-awakened fancy on a fantastic trip through dreamland. Again came the low, inquiring tap, this time upon the headboard of the old mahogany bedstead. He thought it was one of the servants coming for orders about the day's labors. He wondered, vaguely and dully, what could be wanted. Perhaps they would go away if he did not move. Again it came, cautious and low, but firm and imperative, made by the nail of one finger struck sharply and regularly against the polished headboard. It was a summons and a command for silence at once. Hesden raised himself quickly and looked toward the window. The outline of a human figure showed dimly against the gray darkness beyond.

  "Who's there?" — in a low, quiet voice, as though caution had been distinctly enjoined.

  "Marse Hesden!" — a low whisper, full of suppressed excitement.

  "You, Nimbus?" said Le Moyne, as he stepped quickly out of bed and approached the window. "What's the matter?"

  "Marse Hesden," whispered the colored man, laying a hand trembling with excitement on his shoulder as he came near, "is yer a friend ter 'Liab Hill?"

  "Of course I am; you know that" — in an impatient undertone.

  "Sh — sh! Marse Hesden, don't make no noise, please," whispered Nimbus. "I don't mean ter ax ef yer's jes got nothin' agin' him, but is yer that kind ob a friend ez 'll stan' by him in trouble?"

  "What do you mean, Nimbus?" asked Hesden in surprise.

  "Will yer come wid me, Marse Hesden — slip on yer clo'es an' come wid me, jist a minnit?" Hesden did not think of denying this request. It was evident that something of grave importance had occurred. Hardly a moment had elapsed before he stepped cautiously out upon the porch and followed Nimbus. The latter led the way quickly toward a spring which burst out of the hillside fifty yards away from the house, at the foot of a giant oak. Lying in the shadow of this tree and reclining against its base, lay Eliab Hill, his pallid face showing through the darkness like the face of the dead.

  A few words served to tell Hesden Le Moyne what the reader already knows.

  "I brought him here, Marse Hesden, kase ther ain't no place else dat he'd be safe whar he could be tuk keer on. Dem ar Kluckers is bound ter kill him ef dey kin. He's got ter be hid an' tuk keer on till he's well — ef he ever gits well at all."

  "Why, you don't think he's hurt — not seriously, do you?"

  "Hurt, man!" said Nimbus, impatiently. "Dar ain't much difference atwixt him an' a dead man, now.

  "Good God! Nimbus, you don't mean that. He seems to sleep well," said Hesden, bending over the prostrate form.

  "Sleep! Marse Hesden, I'se kerried him tree miles sence he's been a-sleepin' like dat; an' de blood's been a runnin' down on my hans an' a-breakin' my holt ebbery now an' den, tu!"

  "Why, Nimbus, what is this you tell me? Was any one else hurt?"

  "Wal, dar's a couple o' white men a-layin' mighty quiet dar, afo'

  'Liab's house."

  Hesden shuddered. The time he had dreaded had come! The smouldering passion of the South had burst forth at last! For years — ever since the war-prejud
ice and passion, the sense of insult and oppression had been growing thicker and blacker all over the South. Thunders had rolled over the land. Lightnings had fringed its edges. The country had heard, but had not heeded. The nation had looked on with smiling face, and declared the sunshine undimmed. It had taken no note of exasperation and prejudice. It had unconsciously trampled under foot the passionate pride of a conquered people. It had scorned and despised a sentiment more deeply inwrought than that of caste in the Hindoo breast.

  The South believed, honestly believed, in its innate superiority over all other races and peoples. It did not doubt, has never doubted, that, man for man, it was braver, stronger, better than the North. Its men were "gentlemen" — grander, nobler beings than the North ever knew. Their women were "ladies" — gentle, refined, ethereal beings, passion and devotion wrapped in forms of ethereal mould, and surrounded by an impalpable effulgence which distinguished them from all others of the sex throughout the world. Whatever was of the South was superlative. To be Southern-born was to be prima facie better than other men. So the self-love of every man was enlisted in this sentiment. To praise the South was to praise himself; to boast of its valor was to advertise his own intrepidity; to extol its women was to enhance the glory of his own achievements in the lists of love; to vaunt its chivalry was to avouch his own honor; to laud its greatness was to extol himself. He measured himself with his Northern compeer, and decided without hesitation in his own favor.

  The South, he felt, was unquestionably greater than the North in all those things which were most excellent, and was only overtopped by it in those things which were the mere result of numbers. Outnumbered on the field of battle, the South had been degraded and insulted by a sordid and low-minded conqueror, in the very hour of victory. Outnumbered at the ballot-box, it had still dictated the policy of the Nation. The Southern white man naturally compared himself with his Northern brother. For comparison between himself and the African — the recent slave, the scarcely human anthropoid — he found no ground. Only contrast was possible there. To have these made co-equal rulers with him, seated beside him on the throne of popular sovereignty, merely, as he honestly thought, for the gratification of an unmanly spite against a fallen foe, aroused every feeling of exasperation and revenge which a people always restive of restraint could feel.

  It was not from hatred to the negro, but to destroy his political power and restore again their own insulted and debased supremacy that such things were done as have been related. It was to show the conqueror that the bonds in which the sleeping Samson had been bound were green withes which he scornfully snapped asunder in his first waking moment. Pride the most overweening, and a prejudice of caste the most intense and ineradicable, stimulated by the chagrin of defeat and inflamed by the sense of injustice and oppression — both these lay at the bottom of the acts by which the rule of the majorities established by reconstructionary legislation were overthrown. It was these things that so blinded the eyes of a whole people that they called this bloody masquerading, this midnight warfare upon the weak, this era of unutterable horror, "redeeming the South!"

  There was no good man, no honest man, no Christian man of the South who for an instant claimed that it was right to kill, maim, beat, wound and ill-treat the black man, either in his old or his new estate. He did not regard these acts as done to another man, a compeer, but only as acts of cruelty to an inferior so infinitely removed from himself as to forbid any comparison of rights or feelings. It was not right to do evil to a "nigger;" but it was infinitely less wrong than to do it unto one of their own color. These men did not consider such acts as right in themselves, but only as right in view of their comparative importance and necessity, and the unspeakable inferiority of their victims.

  For generations the South had regarded the uprising of the black, the assertion of his manhood and autonomy, as the ultima thule of possible evil. San Domingo and hell were twin horrors in their minds, with the odds, however, in favor of San Domingo. To prevent negro domination anything was justifiable. It was a choice of evils, where on one side was placed an evil which they had been taught to believe, and did believe, infinitely outweighed and overmatched all other evils in enormity. Anything, said these men in their hearts; anything, they said to each other; anything, they cried aloud to the world, was better, is better, must be better, than negro rule, than African domination.

  Now, by negro rule they meant the exercise of authority by a majority of citizens of African descent, or a majority of which they constituted any considerable factor. The white man who acted with the negro in any relation of political co-ordination was deemed even worse than the African himself. If he became a leader, he was anathematized for self-seeking. If he only co-operated with his ballot, he was denounced as a coward. In any event he was certain to be deemed a betrayer of his race, a renegade and an outcast. Hesden Le Moyne was a Southern white man. All that has just been written was essential truth to him. It was a part of his nature. He was as proud as the proudest of his fellows. The sting of defeat still rankled in his heart. The sense of infinite distance between his race and that unfortunate race whom he pitied so sincerely, to whose future he looked forward with so much apprehension, was as distinct and palpable to him as to any one of his compeers. The thousandth part of a drop of the blood of the despised race degraded, in his mind, the unfortunate possessor.

  He had inherited a dread of the ultimate results of slavery. He wished — it had been accounted sensible in his family to wish — that slavery had never existed. Having existed, they never thought of favoring its extinction. They thought it corrupting and demoralizing to the white race. They felt that it was separating them, year by year, farther and farther from that independent self-relying manhood, which had built up American institutions and American prosperity. They feared the fruit of this demoralization. For the sake of the white man, they wished that the black had never been enslaved. As to the blacks — they did not question the righteousness of their enslavement. They did not care whether it were right or wrong. They simply did not consider them at all. When the war left them free, they simply said, "Poor fellows!" as they would of a dog without a master. When the blacks were entrusted with the ballot, they said again, "Poor fellows!" regarding them as the blameless instrument by which a bigoted and revengeful North sought to degrade and humiliate a foe overwhelmed only by the accident of numbers; the colored race being to these Northern people like the cat with whose paw the monkey dragged his chestnuts from the fire. Hesden had only wondered what the effect of these things would be upon "the South;" meaning by "the South" that regnant class to which his family belonged — a part of which, by a queer synecdoche, stood for the whole.

  His love for his old battle-steed, and his curious interest in its new possessor, had led him to consider the experiment at Red Wing with some care. His pride and interest in Eliab as a former slave of his family had still further fixed his attention and awakened his thought. And, finally, his acquaintance with Mollie Ainslie had led him unconsciously to sympathize with the object of her constant care and devotion.

  So, while he stood there beside the stricken man, whose breath came stertorous and slow, he was in that condition of mind of all others most perilous to the Southern man — he had begun to doubt: to doubt the infallibility of his hereditary notions; to doubt the super-excellence of Southern manhood, and the infinite superiority of Southern womanhood; to doubt the incapacity of the negro for self-maintenance and civilization; to doubt, in short, all those dogmas which constitute the differential characteristics of "the Southern man." He had gone so far — a terrible distance to one of his origin — as to admit the possibility of error. He had begun to question — God forgive him, if it seemed like sacrilege — he had begun to question whether the South might not have been wrong — might not still be wrong — wrong in the principle and practice of slavery, wrong in the theory and fact of secession and rebellion, wrong in the hypothesis of hate on the part of the conquerors, wrong in the assumption
of exceptional and unapproachable excellence.

  The future was as misty as the gray morning.

  CHAPTER XL

  DAWNING

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  Hesden Le Moyne stood with Nimbus under the great low-branching oak, in the chill morning, and listened to the labored breathing of the man for the sake of whose humanity his father had braved public opinion in the old slave-era, which already seemed centuries away in the dim past. The training of his life, the conditions of his growth, bore fruit in that moment. He pitied the outraged victim, he was shocked at the barbarity of his fellows; but there was no sense of injustice, no feeling of sacred rights trampled on and ignored in the person of the sufferer. He remembered when he had played with Eliab beside his mother's hearth; when he had varied the monotony of study by teaching the crippled slave-boy the tasks he himself was required to perform. The tenderness of old associations sprang up in his mind and he felt himself affronted in the person of the protege of his family. He disliked cruelty; he hated cowardice; and he felt that Eliab Hill had been the victim of a cruel and cowardly assault. He remembered how faithfully this man's mother had nursed his own. Above all, the sentiment of comradeship awoke. This man who had been his playfellow had been brutally treated because of his weakness. He would not see him bullied. He would stand by him to the death.

  "The cowards!" he hissed through his teeth. "Bring him in, Nimbus, quick! They needn't expect me to countenance such brutality as this!"

  "Marse Hesden," said the black Samson who had stood, silently watching the white playmate of his boyhood, while the latter recovered himself from the sort of stupor into which the revelation he had heard had thrown him, "God bress yer fer dem words! I 'llowed yer'd stan' by 'Liab. Dat's why I fotched him h'yer."

  "Of course I would, and by you too, Nimbus."

  "No, Marse Hesden, dat wouldn't do no sort o' good. Nimbus hez jes got ter cut an' run fer it. I 'specs them ar dat's a lyin' dar in front ob 'Liab's do' ain't like ter do no mo' troublin'; an' yer knows, Marse Hesden, 'twouldn't nebber be safe fer a cullu'd man dat's done dat ar ter try an' lib h'yerabouts no mo'!"