Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Clayton perused this with a quiet smile, which was usual with him.

  “The hand of Joab is in that thing,” said Frank Russel.

  “I’m sure I said very little,” said Clayton. “I was only showing the advantage to our agriculture of a higher tone of moral feeling among our laborers, which, of course, led me to speak of the state of the law regulating them. I said nothing but what everybody knows.”

  “But, don’t you know, Clayton,” said Russel, “that if a fellow has an enemy, — anybody bearing him the least ill will, — that he puts a tremendous power in his hands by making such remarks? Why, our common people are so ignorant that they are in the hands of anybody who wants to use them. They are just like a swarm of bees: you can manage them by beating on a tin pan. And Tom Gordon has got the tin pan now, I fancy. Tom intends to be a swell. He is a born bully, and he’ll lead a rabble. And so you must take care. Your family is considerable for you; but, after all, it won’t stand you in stead for everything. Who have you got to back you? Who have you talked with?”

  “Well,” said Clayton, “I have talked with some of the ministry” —

  “And, of course,” said Frank, “you found that the leadings of Providence didn’t indicate that they are to be martyrs! You have their prayers in secret, I presume; and if you ever get the cause on the upper hillside, they’ll come out and preach a sermon for you. Now, Clayton, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If Tom Gordon attacks you, I’ll pick a quarrel with him, and shoot him right off the reel. My stomach isn’t nice about those matters, and that sort of thing won’t compromise me with my party.”

  “Thank you,” said Clayton, “I shall not trouble you.”

  “My dear fellow,” said Russel, “you philosophers are very much mistaken about the use of carnal weapons. As long as you wrestle with flesh and blood, you had better use fleshly means. At any rate, a gentlemanly brace of pistols won’t hurt you; and in fact, Clayton, I am serious. You must wear pistols, — there are no two ways about it. Because, if these fellows know that a man wears pistols and will use them, it keeps them off. They, have an objection to being shot, as this is all the world they are likely to have. And I think, Clayton, you can fire off a pistol in as edifying and dignified a manner as you can say a grace on proper occasions. The fact is, before long there will be a row kicked up. I’m pretty sure of it. Tom Gordon is a deeper fellow than you’d think, and he has booked himself for Congress; and he means to go in on the thunder-and-blazes principle, which will give him the vote of all the rabble. He’ll go into Congress to do the fighting and slashing. There always must be a bully or two there, you know, to knock down fellows that you can’t settle any other way. And nothing would suit him better, to get his name up, than heading a crusade against an abolitionist.”

  “Well,” said Clayton, “if it’s come to that, that we can’t speak and discuss freely in our own State, where are we?”

  “Where are we, my dear fellow? Why, I know where we are; and if you don’t, it’s time you did. Discuss freely? Certainly we can, on one side of the question; or on both sides of any other question than this. But this you can’t discuss freely, and they can’t afford to let you, as long as they mean to keep their power. Do you suppose they are going to let these poor devils, the whites, get their bandages off their eyes, that make them so easy to lead now? There would be a pretty bill to pay if they did! Just now, these fellows are in as safe and comfortable a condition for use as a party could desire; because they have got votes, and we have the guiding of them. And they rage and swear and tear for our institutions, because they are fools, and don’t know what hurts them. Then there’s the niggers. Those fellows are deep. They have as long ears as little pitchers, and they are such a sort of fussy set that whatever is going on in the community is always in their mouths, and so comes up that old fear of insurrection. That’s the awful word, Clayton! That lies at the bottom of a good many things in our State, more than we choose to let on. These negroes are a black well, — you never know what’s at the bottom.”

  “Well,” said Clayton, “the only way, the only safeguard to prevent this, is reform. They are a patient set, and will bear a great while; and if they only see that anything is being done, it will be an effectual prevention. If you want insurrection, the only way is to shut down the escape-valve; for, will ye, nill ye, the steam must rise. You see, in this day, minds ivill grow. They are growing. There’s no help for it, and there’s no force like the force of growth.

  I have seen a rock split in two by the growing of an elm-tree that wanted light and air, and would make its way up through it. Look at all the aristocracies of Europe. They have gone down under this force. Only one has stood, — that of England. And how came that to stand? Because it knew when to yield; because it never confined discussion; because it gave way gracefully before the growing force of the people. That’s the reason it stands to-day, while the aristocracy of France has been blown to atoms.”

  “My dear fellow,” said Russel, “this is all very true and convincing, no doubt; but you won’t make our aristocracy believe it. They have mounted the lightning, and they are going to ride it whip and spur. They are going to annex Cuba and the Sandwich Islands, and the Lord knows what, and have a great and splendid slave-holding empire. And the North is going to be what Greece was to Rome. We shall govern it, and it will attend to the arts of life for us. The South understands governing. We are trained to rule from the cradle. We have leisure to rule. We have nothing else to do. The free States have their factories, and their warehouses, and their schools, and their internal improvements, to take up their minds; and if we are careful, and don’t tell them too plain where we are taking them, they’ll never know it till they get there.”

  “Well,” said Clayton, “there’s one element of force that you’ve left out in your calculation.”

  “And what’s that?” said Russel.

  “God,” said Clayton.

  “I don’t know anything about him,” said Russel.

  “You may have occasion to learn one of these days,” said Clayton. “I believe he is alive yet.”

  CHAPTER XLVII

  TOM GORDON’S PLANS

  Tom Gordon, in the mean while, had commenced ruling his paternal plantation in a manner very different from the former indulgent system. His habits of reckless and boundless extravagance, and utter heedlessness, caused his cravings for money to be absolutely insatiable; and, within legal limits, he had as little care how it was come by as a highway robber. It is to be remarked that Tom Gordon was a worse slave-holder and master from the very facts of certain desirable qualities in his mental constitution; for, as good wine makes the strongest vinegar, so fine natures perverted make the worse vice. Tom had naturally a perfectly clear, perceptive mind, and an energetic, prompt temperament. It was impossible for him, as many do, to sophisticate and delude himself with false views. He marched up to evil boldly, and with his eyes open. He had very little regard for public opinion, particularly the opinion of conscientious and scrupulous people. So he carried his purposes, it was very little matter to him what any one thought of them or him; they might complain till they were tired.

  After Clayton had left the place, he often pondered the dying words of Nina, “that he should care for her people; that he should tell Tom to be kind to them.” There was such an impassable gulf between the two characters that it seemed impossible that any peaceable communication should pass between them. Clayton thought within himself that it was utterly hopeless to expect any good arising from the sending of Nina’s last message. But the subject haunted him. Had he any right to withhold it? Was it not his duty to try every measure, however apparently hopeless?

  Under the impulse of this feeling, he one day sat down and wrote to Tom Gordon an account, worded with the utmost simplicity, of the last hours of his sister’s life, hoping that he might read it, and thus, if nothing more, his own conscience be absolved. Death and the grave, it is true, have sacred prerogatives, and it is often in their p
ower to awaken a love which did not appear in life. There are few so hard as not to be touched by the record of the last hours of those with whom they have stood in intimate relations. A great moralist says, “There are few things not purely evil of which we can say, without emotion, this is the last.”

  The letter was brought to Tom Gordon one evening when, for a wonder, he was by himself; his associates being off on an excursion, while he was detained at home by a temporary illness. He read it over, therefore, with some attention. He was of too positive a character, however, too keenly percipient, not to feel immediate pain in view of it. A man of another nature might have melted in tears over it, indulged in the luxury of sentimental grief, and derived some comfort, from the exercise, to go on in ways of sin. Not so with Tom Gordon. He could not afford to indulge in anything that roused his moral nature. He was doing wrong of set purpose, with defiant energy; and his only way of keeping his conscience quiet was to maintain about him such a constant tumult of excitement as should drown reflection. He could not afford a tete-a-tete conversation with his conscience; having resolved, once for all, to go on in his own wicked way, serving the flesh and the devil, he had to watch against anything that might occasion uncomfortable conflict in his mind. He knew very well, lost man as he was, that there was something sweet and pure, high and noble, against which he was contending; and the letter was only like a torch, which a fair angel might hold up, shining into the filthy lair of a demon. He could not bear the light; and he had no sooner read the note than he cast it into the fire, and rang violently for a hot brandy toddy and a fresh case of cigars. The devil’s last, best artifice to rivet the fetters of his captives is the opportunity which these stimulants give them to command insanity at will.

  Tom Gordon was taken to bed drunk; and, if a sorrowful guardian spirit hovered over him as he read the letter, he did not hear the dejected rustle of its retreating wings. The next day nothing was left, only a more decided antipathy to Clayton, for having occasioned him so disagreeable a sensation.

  Tom Gordon, on the whole, was not unpopular in his vicinity. He determined to rule them all, and he did. All that uncertain, uninstructed, vagrant population which abound in slave States were at his nod and beck. They were his tools — prompt to aid him in any of his purposes, and convenient to execute vengeance on his adversaries. Tom was a determined slave-holder. He had ability enough to see the whole bearings of that subject, from the beginning to the end; and he was determined that, while he lived, the first stone should never be pulled from the edifice in his State. He was a formidable adversary, because what he wanted in cultivation he made up in unscrupulous energy; and, where he might have failed in argument, he could conquer by the cudgel and the bludgeon. He was, as Frank Russel had supposed, the author of the paragraph which had appeared in the “Trumpet of Freedom,” which had already had its effect in awakening public suspicion.

  But what stung him to frenzy, when he thought of it, was, that every effort which he had hitherto made to recover possession of Harry had failed. In vain he had sent out hunters and dogs. The swamp had been tracked in vain. He boiled and burned with fierce tides of passion as he thought of him in his security defying his power. Some vague rumors had fallen upon his ear of the existence, in the swamp, of a negro conspirator, of great energy and power, whose lair had never yet been discovered; and he determined that he would raise heaven and earth to find him. He began to suspect that there was, somehow, understanding and communication between Harry and those who were left on the plantation, and he determined to detect it. This led to the scene of cruelty and tyranny to which we made allusion in a former chapter. The mangled body was buried, and Tom felt neither remorse nor shame. Why should he, protected by the express words of legal decision? He had only met with an accident in the exercise of his lawful power on a slave in the act of rebellion.

  “The fact is, Kite,” he said to his boon companion, Theophilus Kite, as they were one day sitting together, “I’m bound to have that fellow. I’m going to publish a proclamation of outlawry and offer a reward for his head. That will bring it in, I’m thinking. I’ll put it up to a handsome figure, for that will be better than nothing.”

  “Pity you couldn’t catch him alive,” said Kite, “and make an example of him!”

  “I know it,” said Tom. “I’d take him the long way round, that I would! That fellow has been an eyesore to me ever since I was a boy. I believe all the devils that are in me are up about him.”

  “Tom,” said Kite, “you’ve got the devil in you, — no mistake!”

  “To be sure I have,” said Tom. “I only want a chance to express him. I wish I could get hold of the fellow’s wife! I could make him wince there, I guess. I’ll get her, too, one of these days! But now, Kite, I’ll tell you, the fact is, somebody round here is in league with him. They know about him, I know they do. There’s that squeaky, leathery, long-nosed Skinflint, trades with the niggers in the swamp — I know he does! But he is a double and twisted liar, and you can’t get anything out of him. One of these days I’ll burn up that old den of his, and shoot him, if he don’t look out. Jim Stokes told me that he slept down there one night, when he was tracking, and that he heard Skinflint talking with somebody between twelve and one o’clock; and he looked out, and saw him selling powder to a nigger.”

  “Oh, that couldn’t be Harry,” said Kite.

  “No, but it’s one of the gang that he is in with. And then there’s that Hark. Jim says that he saw him talking — giving a letter, that he got out of the post-office, to a man that rode off towards the woods. I thought we’d have the truth out of his old hide! But he didn’t hold out as I thought he would.”

  “Hokum don’t understand his business,” said Kite. “He shouldn’t have used him up so fast.”

  “Hokum is a bother,” said Tom, “like all the rest of those fellows! Hark was a desperately resolute fellow, and it’s well enough he is dead, because he was getting sullen, and making the others rebellious. Hokum, you see, had taken a fancy to his wife, and Hark was jealous.”

  “Quite a romance!” said Kite, laughing.

  “And now I’ll tell you another thing,” said Tom, “that I’m bound to reform. There’s a canting, sneaking, dribbling, whining old priest, that’s ravaging these parts and getting up a muss among people about the abuses of the slaves; and I’m not going to have it. I’m going to shut up his mouth. I shall inform him, pretty succinctly, that, if he does much more in this region, he’ll be illustrated with a coat of tar and feathers.”

  “Good for you!” said Kite.

  “Now,” said Tom, “I understand that to-night he is going to have a general sniveling season in the old log church out on the cross-run, and they are going to form a church on anti-slavery principles. Contemptible whelps! Not a copper to bless themselves with! Dirty, sweaty, greasy mechanics, with their spawn of children! Think of the impudence of their getting together and passing antislavery resolutions, and resolving they won’t admit slaveholders to the communion! I have a great mind to let them try the dodge once! By George, if I wouldn’t walk up and take their bread and wine and pitch it to thunder!”

  “Are they really going to form such a church?”

  “That’s the talk,” said Tom. “But they’ll find they have reckoned without their host, I fancy! You see, I just tipped Jim Stokes the wink. Says I, ‘Jim, don’t you think they’ll want you to help the music there to-night?’ Jim took at once; and he said he would be on the ground with a dog or two, and some old tin pans. Oh, we shall get them up an orchestra, I promise you! And some of our set are going over to see the fun. There’s Bill Akers and Bob Story and Sim Dexter will be over here to dinner, and towards evening we’ll ride over.”

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  LYNCH LAW

  THE rays of the afternoon sun were shining through the fringy needles of the pines. The sound of the woodpecker reverberated through the stillness of the forest, answering to thousand woodland notes. Suddenly, along the distant path, a
voice is heard singing, and the sound comes strangely on the ear through the dreamy stillness: —

  “Jesus Christ has lived and died —

  What is all the world beside?

  This to know is all I need,

  This to know is life indeed.

  “Other wisdom seek I none —

  Teach me this, and this alone:

  Christ for me has lived and died,

  Christ for me was crucified.”

  And, as the last lines fall upon the ear, a figure, riding slowly on horseback, comes round the bend of the forest path. It is father Dickson. It was the habit of this good man, much of whose life was spent in solitary journeyings, to use the forest arches for that purpose for which they seemed so well designed, as a great cathedral of prayer and praise. He was riding with the reins loose over the horse’s neck, and a pocket Bible in his hand. Occasionally he broke out into snatches of song, like the one which we heard him singing a few moments ago. As he rides along now, he seems absorbed in mental prayer. Father Dickson, in truth, had cause to pray. The plainness of speech which he felt bound to use had drawn down upon him opposition and opprobrium, and alienated some of his best friends. The support which many had been willing to contribute to his poverty was entirely withdrawn. His wife, in feeble health, was toiling daily beyond her strength; and hunger had looked in at the door, but each day prayer had driven it away. The petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” had not yet failed to bring an answer, but there was no bread for to-morrow. Many friendly advisers had told him that, if he would relinquish a futile and useless undertaking, he should have enough and to spare. He had been conferred with by the elders in a vacant church in the town of E., who said to him, “We enjoy your preaching when you let alone controverted topics; and if you’ll agree to confine yourself solely to the gospel, and say nothing on any of the delicate and exciting subjects of the day, we shall rejoice in your ministrations.” They pleaded with him his poverty, and the poor health of his wife, and the necessities of his children; but he answered, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,’ God is able to feed me, and he will do it.” They went away, saying that he was a fool, that he was crazy. He was not the first whose brethren had said, “He is beside himself.”