“Thank ye, honey, chile, but I’ll go to my own room; ‘pears like it’s more homelike,” said Milly. And Nina, with her usual energy, waited on her there, closed the blinds, and spread a shawl over her after she had lain down, and after charging her two or three times to go to sleep and be quiet, she left her. She could hardly wait to have her get through her nap, so full was she of the matter, and so interested to learn the particulars of her story.
“A pretty business, indeed!” she said to Aunt Nesbit. “We’ll prosecute those people, and make them pay dear for it.”
“That will be a great expense,” said Aunt Nesbit apprehensively, “besides the loss of her time.”
“Well,” said Nina, “I shall write to Clayton about it directly. I know he’ll feel just as I do. He understands the law, and all about those things, and he’ll know how to manage it.”
“Everything will make expense!” said Aunt Nesbit in a deplorable voice. “I’m sure misfortunes never come single! Now, if she don’t go back, I shall lose her wages! And here’s all the expenses of a lawsuit, besides! I think she ought to have been more careful.”
“Why, aunt, for pity’s sake, you don’t pretend that you wish Milly to go back?”
“Oh no, of course I don’t; but then, it’s a pity. It will be a great loss, every way.”
“Why, aunt, you really talk as if you didn’t think of anything but your loss. You don’t seem to think anything about what Milly has had to suffer!”
“Why, of course, I feel sorry for that,” said Aunt Nesbit. “I wonder if she is going to be laid up long. I wish, on the whole, I had hired out one that wasn’t quite so useful to me.”
“Now, if that isn’t just like her!” said Nina in an indignant tone, as she flung out of the room, and went to look softly in at Milly’s door. “Never can see, hear, or think of anything but herself, no matter what happens! I wonder why Milly couldn’t have belonged to me!”
After two or three hours’ sleep, Milly came out of her room, seeming much better. A perfectly vigorous physical system, and vital powers all moving in the finest order, enabled her to endure much more than ordinary; and Nina soon became satisfied that no material injury had been sustained, and that in a few days she would be quite recovered.
“And now, Milly, do pray tell me where you have been,” said Nina, “and what this is all about.”
“Why, you see, honey, I was hired to Mr. Barker, and dey said ‘he was a mighty nice man;’ and so he was, honey, most times; but den, you see, honey, dere’s some folks dere’s two men in ‘em, — one is a good one and t’oder is very bad. Well, dis yer was just dat-sort. You see, honey, I wouldn’t go for to say dat he got drunk; but he was dat sort dat if he took ever so little, it made him kind o’ ugly and cross, and so dere wa’n’t no suiting him. Well, his wife, she was pretty far; and so he was, too, ‘cept in spots. He was one of dese yer streaked men, dat has drefful ugly streaks; and some of dem times de Lord only knows what he won’t do! Well, you see, honey, I thought I was getting along right well, at first, and I was mighty pleased. But dere was one day he came home, and ‘peared like dere couldn’t nobody suit him. Well, you see, dey had a gal dere, and she had a chile, and dis yer chile was a little thing. It got playing with a little burnt stick, and it blacked one of his clean shirts, I had just hung up, — for I’d been ironing, you see. Just den he came along, and you never heerd a man go on so! I’s heerd bad talk afore, but I never heerd no sich! He swore he’d kill de chile; and I thought my soul he would! De por little thing run behind me, and I just kep him off on it, ‘cause I knowed he wa’n’t fit to touch it; and den he turned on me, and he got a cowhide, and he beat me over de head. I thought my soul he’d kill me! But I got to de door, and shut de chile out, and Hannah, she took it and run with it. But, bless you, it ‘peared like he was a tiger, — screeching, and foaming, and beating me! I broke away from him, and run. He just caught de rifle, — he always kep one loaded, — and shot at me, and de ball just struck my arm, and glanced off again. Bless de Lord, it didn’t break it. Dat ar was a mighty close run, I can tell you! But I did run, ‘cause, thinks I, dere ain’t no safety for me in dat ar house; and, you see, I run till I got to de bush, and den I got to whar dere was some free colored folks, and dey did it up, and kep me a day or two. Den I started and came home, just as you told me to.”
“Well,” said Nina, “you did well to come home; and I tell you what, I’m going to have that man prosecuted!”
“Oh, laws, no, Miss Nina! don’t you goes doing nothing to him! His wife is a mighty nice woman, and ‘peared like he didn’t rightly know what he was ‘bout.”
“Yes, but, Milly, you ought to be willing, because it may make him more careful with other people.”
“Laws, Miss Nina, why, dere is some sense in dat; but I wouldn’t do it as bearing malice.”
“Not at all,” said Nina. “I shall write to Mr. Clayton, and take his advice about it.”
“He’s a good man,” said Milly. “He won’t say nothing dat ain’t right. I spect dat will do very well, dat ar way.”
“Yes,” said Nina, “such people must be taught that the law will take hold of them. That will bring them to their bearings!”
Nina went immediately to her room, and dispatched a long letter to Clayton, full of all the particulars, and begging his immediate assistance.
Our readers, those who have been in similar circumstances, will not wonder that Clayton saw in this letter an immediate call of duty to go to Canema. In fact, as soon as the letter could go to him, and he could perform a rapid horseback journey, he was once more a member of the domestic circle. He entered upon the case with great confidence and enthusiasm.
“It is a debt which we owe,” he said, “to the character of our state, and to the purity of our institutions, to prove the efficiency of the law in behalf of that class of our population whose helplessness places them more particularly under our protection. They are to us in the condition of children under age; and any violation of their rights should be more particularly attended to.”
He went immediately to the neighboring town, where Milly had been employed, and found, fortunately, that the principal facts had been subject to the inspection of white witnesses. A woman, who had been hired to do some sewing, had been in the next room during the whole time; and Milly’s flight from the house, and the man’s firing after her, had been observed by some workmen in the neighborhood. Everything, therefore, promised well, and the suit was entered forthwith.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TRIAL
“WELL, now,” said Frank Russel to one or two lawyers with whom he was sitting, in a side room of the court house at E — , “look out for breakers! Clayton has mounted his war-horse, and is coming upon us, now, like leviathan from the rushes.”
“Clayton is a good fellow,” said one of them. “I like him, though he doesn’t talk much.”
“Good?” said Russel, taking his cigar from his mouth; “why, as the backwoodsmen say, he ain’t nothing else! He is a great seventy-four pounder, charged to the muzzle with goodness! But, if he should be once fired off, I’m afraid he’ll carry everything out of the world with him. Because, you see, abstract goodness doesn’t suit our present mortal condition. But it is a perfect godsend that he has such a case as this to manage for his maiden plea, because it just falls in with his heroic turn. Why, when I heard of it, I assure you I bestirred myself. I went about, and got Smithers and Jones and Peters to put off suits, so as to give him fair field and full play. For, if he succeeds in this, it may give him so good a conceit of the law, that he will keep on with it.”
“Why,” said the other, “don’t he like the law? What’s the matter with the law?”
“Oh, nothing, only Clayton has got one of those ethereal stomachs that rise against almost everything in this world. Now, there isn’t more than one case in a dozen that he’ll undertake, He sticks and catches just like an old bureau drawer. Some conscientious crick in his back is always taking hi
m at a critical moment, and so he is knocked up for actual work. But this defending a slave-woman will suit him to a T.”
“She is a nice creature, isn’t she?” said one of them. “And belongs to a good old family,” said another. “Yes,” said the third, “and I understand his lady-love has something to do with the case.”
“Yes,” said Russel, “to be sure she has. The woman belongs to a family connection of hers, I’m told. Miss Gordon is a spicy little puss — one that would be apt to resent anything of that sort; and the Gordons are a very influential family. He is sure to get the case, though I’m not clear that the law is on his side, by any means.”
“Not?” said the other barrister, who went by the name of Will Jones.
“No,” said Russel. “In fact, I’m pretty clear it isn’t. But that will make no odds. When Clayton is thoroughly waked up, he is a whole team, I can tell you. He’ll take jury and judge along with him, fast enough.”
“I wonder,” said one, “that Barker didn’t compound the matter.”
“Oh, Barker is one of the stubbed sort. You know these middling kind of people always have a spite against old families. He makes fight because it is the Gordons, that’s all. And there comes in his republicanism. He isn’t going to be whipped in by the Gordons. Barker has got Scotch blood in him, and he’ll hang on to the case like death.”
“Clayton will make a good speech,” said Jones. “Speech? that he will!” said Russel. “Bless me, I could lay off a good speech on it, myself. Because, you see, it really was quite an outrage; and the woman is a presentable creature. And then, there’s the humane dodge; that can be taken, beside all the chivalry part of defending the helpless, and all that sort of thing. I wouldn’t ask for a better thing to work up into a speech. But Clayton will do it better yet, because he is actually sincere in it. And after all’s said and done, there’s a good deal in that. When a fellow speaks in solemn earnest, he gives a kind of weight that you can’t easily get at any other way.”
“Well, but,” said one, “I don’t understand you, Russel, why you think the law isn’t on Clayton’s side. I’m sure it’s a very clear case of terrible abuse.”
“Oh, certainly it is,” said Russel, “and the man is a dolt, and a brute beast, and ought to be shot, and so forth; but then, he hasn’t really exceeded his legal limits, because, you see, the law gives to the hirer all the rights of the master. There’s no getting away from that, in my opinion. Now, any master might have done all that, and nobody could have done anything about it. They do do it, for that matter, if they ‘re bad enough, and nobody thinks of touching them.”
“Well, I say,” said Jones, “Russel, don’t you think that’s too bad?”
“Laws, yes, man; but the world is full of things that are too bad. It’s a bad kind of a place,” said Russel, as he lit another cigar.
“Well, how do you think Clayton is going to succeed,” said Jones, “if the law is so clearly against him?”
“Oh, bless you, you don’t know Clayton. He is a glorious mystifier. In the first place, he mystifies himself. And now, you mark me. When a powerful fellow mystifies himself, so that he really gets himself thoroughly on to his own side, there’s nobody he can’t mystify. I speak it in sober sadness, Jones, that the want of this faculty is a great hindrance to me in a certain class of cases. You see I can put on the pathetic and heroic, after a sort; but I don’t take myself along with me — I don’t really believe myself. There’s the trouble. It’s this power of self-mystification that makes what you call earnest men. If men saw the real bread and butter and green cheese of life, as I see it, — the hard, dry, primitive facts, — they couldn’t raise such commotions as they do.”
“Russel, it always makes me uncomfortable to hear you talk. It seems as if you didn’t believe in anything!”
“Oh yes, I do,” said Russel; “I believe in the multiplication table, and several other things of that nature at the beginning of the arithmetic; and also, that the wicked will do wickedly. But as to Clayton’s splendid abstractions, I only wish him joy of them. But then, I shall believe him while I hear him talk; so will you; so will all the rest of us. That’s the fun of it. But the thing will be just where it was before, and I shall find it so when I wake up to-morrow morning. It’s a pity such fellows as Clayton couldn’t be used as we use big guns. He is death on anything he fires at; and if he only would let me load and point him, he and I together would make a firm that would sweep the land. But here he comes, upon my word.
“Hallo, Clayton, all ready?”
“Yes,” said Clayton, “I believe so. When will the case be called?”
“To-day, I’m pretty sure,” said Russel.
Clayton was destined to have something of an audience in his first plea; for the Gordons being an influential and a largely connected family, there was quite an interest excited among them in the affair. Clayton also had many warm personal friends, and his father, mother, and sister were to be present; for though residing in a different part of the state, they were at this time on a visit in the vicinity of the town of E — .
There is something in the first essay of a young man, in any profession, like the first launching of a ship, which has a never-ceasing hold on human sympathies. Clayton’s father, mother, and sister, with Nina, at the time of the dialogue we have given, were sitting together in the parlor of a friend’s house in E — , discussing the same event.
“I am sure that he will get the case,” said Anne Clayton, with the confidence of a generous woman and warmhearted sister. “He has been showing me the course of his argument, and it is perfectly irresistible. Has he said anything to you about it, father?”
Judge Clayton had been walking up and down the room, with his hands behind him, with his usual air of considerate gravity. Stopping short at Anne’s question, he said, “Edward’s mind and mine work so differently, that I have not thought best to embarrass him by any conference on the subject. I consider the case an unfortunate one, and would rather he could have had some other.”
“Why,” said Anne eagerly, “don’t you think he’ll gain it?”
“Not if the case goes according to law,” said Judge Clayton. “But then, Edward has a great deal of power of eloquence, and a good deal of skill in making a diversion from the main point; so that, perhaps, he may get the case.”
“Why,” said Nina, “I thought cases were always decided according to law! What else do they make laws for?”
“You are very innocent, my child,” said Judge Clayton. “But, father, the proof of the outrage is most abundant. Nobody could pretend to justify it.”
“Nobody will, child. But that’s nothing to the case. The simple point is, did the man exceed his legal power? It’s my impression he did not.”
“Father, what a horrible doctrine!” said Anne.
“I simply speak of what is,” said Judge Clayton. “I don’t pretend to justify it. But Edward has great power of exciting the feelings, and under the influence of his eloquence the case may go the other way, and humanity triumph at the expense of law.”
Clayton’s plea came on in the afternoon, and justified the expectations of his friends. His personal presence was good, his voice melodious, and his elocution fine. But what impressed his auditors, perhaps, more than these, was a certain elevation and clearness in the moral atmosphere around him, — a gravity and earnestness of conviction which gave a secret power to all he said. He took up the doctrine of the dependent relations of life, and of those rules by which they should be guided and restrained; and showed that while absolute power seems to be a necessary condition of many relations of life, both reason and common sense dictate certain limits to it. “The law guarantees to the parent, the guardian, and the master, the right of enforcing obedience by chastisement; and the reason for it is, that the subject being supposed to be imperfectly developed, his good will, on the whole, be better consulted by allowing to his lawful guardian this power.
“The good of the subject,” he said, “i
s understood to be the foundation of the right; but when chastisement is inflicted without just cause, and in a manner so inconsiderate and brutal as to endanger the safety and well-being of the subject, the great foundation principle of the law is violated. The act becomes perfectly lawless, and as incapable of legal defense as it is abhorrent to every sentiment of humanity and justice.
“He should endeavor to show,” he said, “by full testimony, that the case in question was one of this sort.”
In examining witnesses Clayton showed great dignity and acuteness, and as the feeling of the court was already prepossessed in his favor, the cause evidently gathered strength as it went on. The testimony showed, in the most conclusive manner, the general excellence of Milly’s character, and the utter brutality of the outrage which had been committed upon her. In his concluding remarks, Clayton addressed the jury in a tone of great elevation and solemnity, on the duty of those to whom is intrusted the guardianship of the helpless.
“No obligation,” he said, “can be stronger to an honorable mind than the obligation of entire dependence. The fact that a human being has no refuge from our power, no appeal from our decisions, so far from leading to careless security, is one of the strongest possible motives to caution and to most exact care. The African race,” he said, “had been bitter sufferers. Their history had been one of wrong and cruelty, painful to every honorable mind. We of the present day, who sustain the relation of slaveholder,” he said, “receive from the hands of our fathers an awful trust. Irresponsible power is the greatest trial of humanity, and if we do not strictly guard our own moral purity in the use of it, we shall degenerate into despots and tyrants. No consideration can justify us in holding this people in slavery an hour, unless we make this slavery a guardian relation, in which our superior strength and intelligence are made the protector and educator of their simplicity and weakness.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 97
