While Whitlaw, in high spirits, and revolving numberless schemes of profit and of pleasure, is borne gaily and rapidly along towards New Orleans, we must retrograde a little, in order to trace old Juno through a few of her recent manœuvres, that we may be able to comprehend the events to which they ultimately led.
It must be remembered that the scene at Colonel Dart’s breakfast-table, though recorded only in the last chapter, occurred the morning after Juno’s first introduction to the reader, when her unexpected appearance at the door of Peggy’s hut put a stop to the outrage about to be perpetrated on the unhappy Phebe.
A few hours only before her well-timed entrance there, she had arrived on the deck of a steam-boat from New Orleans, which she had just visited on one of the wild intriguing schemes with which she perpetually amused herself, and mystified her master. But upon this occasion, however, it must be confessed that feelings of good-nature and kindness were blended with her master passion for trickery and influence.
It may be necessary to remark, that Juno’s authority among her own race was by no means confined to her five hundred comrades on Paradise Plantation. Her singular education and acquirements, together with her long residence at Orleans, and the station (the highest among slaves) that she so repeatedly held there, had made her known and reverenced throughout the whole black population. It was, moreover, well known among them that she was the progenitor of a white and beautiful free race in England; and this gave her a degree of importance in their eyes which added not a little to her extravagant assumption of dignity, while it certainly tended greatly to console her for all the sorrows and sufferings she had endured.
Besides these traditional claims to respect, Juno by some means or other was always well furnished with money: she constantly lodged herself decently during her visits to New Orleans, and said nothing to contradict the idea which appeared to prevail among her old associates, that she had at length obtained her freedom. She had never found any difficulty, therefore, in keeping up an intercourse with several of the best-informed of the coloured population, giving them to understand, that it was of great importance to the well-being of the negroes in her own neighbourhood that all intelligence in any way connected with their race should be transmitted to her.
The unchecked license for wandering where, when, and how she chose, which had long been tacitly accorded either to her supernatural pretensions or to her useless age, enabled her to go and to stay as far and as long as she liked; and perhaps no one on the estate to which she belonged was more easily persuaded to believe that these wanderings were connected with the behests of some of her aerial acquaintance than Colonel Dart himself. On this point she did in truth “fool him to the top of his bent;” often finding her way to and from New Orleans, and then delivering to him in the shape of prophecy all that she picked up that was likely afterwards to reach him concerning any riots or evasions among the wretched multitude who groaned in chains within its precincts.
It was in the good-natured hope of bringing together her young favourite Phebe and the lover whose loss she so pathetically mourned, which had induced the old woman to make this, last excursion to New Orleans. She had long ago determined to save her protegée from the hateful pursuit of Whitlaw, whenever it should appear necessary, by sending him off on a fool’s errand in pursuit of news for his patron; but before she did this, she thought fit to pay a visit to Cæsar, partly to ascertain whether he kept faith towards his early love as truly as poor Phebe to him, and partly to arrange with him the best mode of setting to work for the purpose of effecting for him a change of masters. She found the poor fellow quite as attached and as constant as Phebe described him to be, and ready on his part to do whatever his good angel Juno directed. Her orders were, that he should give gradual indications of declining health and strength, which would beyond all doubt make his master anxious to part with him, — the selling a sick slave being a favourite species of jockeyship among planters; and, meanwhile, it was her intention to inform her own master that his safety depended upon the purchase of a certain sickly slave named Cæsar, who if once in his possession and settled on the property, would, for certain reasons that she was forbidden to mention, prevent any conspiracy from ever touching his life or property.
All this was very cleverly arranged between the old woman and the young lover on the first day that she made her way into the factory where he was employed; and it is highly probable that her scheme would have answered completely, had not the unfortunate young man, on the day following this visit, been detected in the act of teaching a brother slave to read.
It was but for one short instant after this detection, and that a very dangerous one, that Juno found means of speaking to him. She had then uttered the words “Run! — Natchez way:” — a piece of advice which he speedily followed. His actual arrival in the forest, however, was for some time unknown to her, or she would probably have been able to afford him a shelter both more to his taste and more perfectly secure than the loft of Frederick Steinmark. Though thus sadly defeated in her project of bringing the lovers together as the property of one owner, she persevered in her resolution of sending Whitlaw off, little doubting that a short residence at New Orleans would cause him to forget the black beauty of Paradise Plantation. How well she succeeded in bringing this about we have already seen.
No sooner had his confidential clerk left him, than Colonel Dart, more than ever terrified by the predictions of his sable prophetess, summoned three of the white overseers, in whom he thought he could most confide, and promised to give each of them a dollar a night provided they would undertake in turn to patrol the negro villages and the forest adjoining during the hours of darkness, and bring him tidings in the morning if any movement appeared among the black people.
No sooner had Juno returned from the wharf at Natchez, which she had visited for the satisfaction of knowing with certainty that the confidential clerk had departed, than she heard of this precaution taken by the nervous colonel. It would, for very excellent reasons, have been extremely inconvenient to her, had it been attended to in the manner he expected: but Juno, who knew the character and conscience of every man and woman on the estate considerably better than they did themselves, felt tolerably well assured that those trusted and chosen for the watch would content themselves with spreading the alarm, and draw but little upon their downy slumbers for the protection of the much less certain repose of Colonel Dart.
The old woman, amongst many other general conclusions to which her keen observation had brought her, always took it for granted that a man’s tenderness towards himself was in exact proportion to his indifference towards others. When she remarked an overseer more careless than ordinary about the accommodation of the gang under his charge, she felt sure that he was particularly well surrounded with snug comforts at home. If he lightly ordered punishment, or looked on with apathy while it was inflicted, she was convinced that he was well-furnished with precautions and consolations for all the aches and pains that flesh is heir to. But if it happened that she marked a fiendish pleasure gleam from the eye while watching the writhing of the victim under torture, then no shadow of doubt was left upon her mind that a species of self-worship, which guarded every avenue to pain, and abandoned every sense to gratification, would be found the only religion — but that carried to fanaticism — which possessed the soul.
It was in consequence of these observations, and the convictions which resulted from them, that Juno felt persuaded there would be little to dread from the watchfulness of the persons selected by Colonel Dart. Nevertheless, in case either of the trio might commission a wife or child to keep watch while he slept, she thought fit to use her influence with the poor Christian people who attended Edward Bligh’s Sabbath night’s prayer, to prevent their assembling round him on the following Sunday.
Having taken this precaution, and lain in wait at the place of meeting in order to announce it to the young preacher, she returned to the lone hut she had been permitted to fabricate for
her own especial use, and having carefully secured herself within it, raised a trapdoor concealed beneath her bed, and gave liberty to Phebe, who, for the greater part of every day since Whitlaw left her in the charge of Juno, had remained a prisoner in a subterraneous retreat, which, though wonderful both in size and accommodation — considering how and by whom it was made, nevertheless afforded but a sorry habitation for so long a period. Joyfully and gratefully, however, had Phebe submitted to it; and when Juno announced that her imprisonment was at an end, her first impulse was not to rejoice in her recovered freedom, but to ask if there were no danger that it might throw her again into the power of Whitlaw.
“No, no, deary — no, no,” replied the old woman, laughing heartily: “the pretty youth is steaming away towards New Orleans, where, if my prayers are heard, he will be fleeced at a gaming-table and shot in a brawl. But, at any rate, my little Phebe, you are clear of him: and if, when he comes back, he should take the same fancy into his head again, why then old Juno will send him scudding off farther and wider still — or never believe her more.”
“And Cæsar, Juno?” said Phebe mournfully; “what can your skill do for him? Do you believe that he has taken your terrible advice and run away?”
“I hope so — I hope so, girl. Terrible advice! — pretty gratitude that, isn’t it now? Are you not ashamed, Phebe, to speak to me so?”
“My dear Juno! do not be mad with me for that. Day and night, night and day, since you told me, what can I have been about, think you, but fancying how it was with him?”
“Like enough, dear; I know what that means — I have had something of the sort myself maybe in the days that are gone. But look you, Phebe, you must have trust in me. I won’t tell you, as I do those idiot cowards at the house, that I and the dicky-birds sit in council together as to what will next come to pass — ha! ha! ha! — Isn’t that glorious? Isn’t it worth while to live a slave for threescore years and ten, for the joy of seeing the little colonel’s face pucker, and his bits of eyes stare, and his black teeth chatter, when I hold up my old bamboo and talk gibberish? ha! ha! ha! ha! — Oh, Phebe, that’s something!”
“No, Juno, no,” replied Phebe, “you will not talk such stuff to me: but if you know alas! you cannot know anything about him.”
“Know?” said the old woman, musing: “in real truth, Phebe, I sometimes can hardly tell what I know and what I do not. I don’t want to bamboozle you, my dear child, God is my witness, any more than I would want to bamboozle my own brain; but I do think now and then that I know things that others don’t.”
“And no wonder, Juno,” replied the girl with great simplicity; “for while other folks work, you look about and listen, — and that’s the reason, I expect, that you know so much.”
“Partly, partly, Phebe — but that’s not quite all neither. I don’t justly know myself how it is; but often and often when I see a thing or hear a thing, I don’t stop short at knowing just what that tells me, but, almost without thinking of it, on I go judging what must be after, as if the spirits I tell of to scare the colonel were in honest truth teaching me something that nobody else knows.”
“That is very strange,” replied Phebe gravely. “Did you ever tell ‘Master Edward that you had got such a fancy as that, Juno?”
“Master Edward?” — Juno shook her head, “Master Edward is too good for this wicked world, Phebe, and very, very fit for a better. But he is not the man for explaining the meaning of fancies and wild thoughts; for, you need not tell his pretty sister, you know — but I expect, Phebe, that he has over many wild thoughts and fancies himself.”
“Oh, Juno! it is a sin to say so!” exclaimed Phebe indignantly. “If saints did come on earth in these days, for certain sure he would be known for one of them. Why do you speak so, Juno?”
“For no ill will, or misdoubting the goodness of him; but his eye is sometimes over-bright, Phebe, — and then he is a trifle jealous, I guess, when he fancies that other folks know something he does not. But he is a good and a holy man, my child,” added Juno in a conciliatory tone, for Phebe looked vexed and almost angry; “and don’t think that I love you the less, girl, for being ready to quarrel with a new friend out of tender love and duty to an old one. — And now as to Cæsar, and what I know of him. I know this much — and I’ll just tell you as it comes, Phebe, to show you how it is that my old brain works. I know he loves black Phebe, for I looked in his eyes and all round about his mouth when he said it. I know that he listened to me as to a friend that could advise him in his need, for he never moved nor spoke; but when I had finished my short say, he bowed his head in a way that told me he would obey me. So Cæsar has run away, and is now somewhere in the forest round Natchez, hiding by day, and crawling out by night, to find out, if he can, Paradise Plantation and his Phebe.”
“Do you really believe that he is so near us?” cried Phebe, clasping her hands in ecstasy. “Oh, Juno! dear Juno! how can we manage to meet him?”
“You have got some faith, then, in the old woman?” said the sibyl, laughing. “If you were white, now, and a slave-holder, my girl, I would say to you —
Let me to the forest go,
And listen to the winds that blow;
What seems an idle breeze to thee
Would utter precious truth to me!
Ha! ha! ha! — Oh, Phebe, it is such glory to see how a crippled old negro slave like me can make folk’s hair stand on end by stuff like that! — But as you, deary, are a black girl, and neither wicked nor a fool, I will tell you just plainly what I will do, and why. Wherever Cæsar is, he must lie hid by day — that we know over-well, Phebe: but wherever he is, be sure he will creep out by night, — and be sure, too, it will be round and round just without our cleared grounds he’ll be hovering; for I told him the first time I spoke with him whereabouts we lay. Now he dare not come in, and you dare not go out: but I, thanks to my wrinkles and my rhymes, may go, and come too, as I will. So you shall go home to your mother, and set her poor heart at rest, my good child; and I will prowl night by night in the forest, with store of corn-cakes in my pouch, — for I guess, poor fellow, he must want food sadly; and I’ll wager my brain against the colonel’s we shall have him here in three days.”
Phebe looked very much as if, good Christian as she was, she could have fallen on her knees to do homage before the witch-like figure of Juno; but, checking the impulse, she contented herself by throwing her arms round the old woman, and giving her a most cordial hug.
“And may I go now, Juno? — broad daylight ’tis almost, — may I go now, do you think, straight away and cross the grounds, and in front of two overseers’ lodges, and away home to mother’s, without being stopped and questioned?”
“And well, deary, if you are stopped and questioned, where’s the harm? They’ll say maybe, whether black or white, ‘Where do you come from?’ and you shall tell no lie, my child, — you shall just say, ‘Those that locked me up have let me out’ — and that’s all. Now go, deary.”
“But if you find him, Juno?”
“Why then I’ll find you too, Phebe. I may send a green bird after you; ‘they are Juno’s spirits,’ you know, — ha! ha! ha! Don’t be afraid, my girl: when Cæsar and I are together, you two shall not be long asunder.”
With this assurance Phebe left her, with a heart as light as any girl’s could be who was hoping for a speedy meeting with her lover, and yet fearing that it might cost him dear, or that it might never, never be at all.
Juno’s predictions respecting what was likely to befall her on her way were as literally verified as if they had indeed been uttered under the immediate inspiration of prophecy. About a quarter of a mile from the sequestered nook in which the sibyl’s hut was sheltered, and just as she entered the first open field, she was met by Johnson, the fellow who attended Whitlaw at his last fearful visit. Her blood ran cold at the sight of him.
“Soh! Miss Lily!” he exclaimed, “here you are abroad again! Pray may I be so bold as to ask where you come fro
m?”
“Those that locked me up, have let me out,” responded Phebe. He now laughed, snapped his fingers at her, and passed on, saying with a sneer, “You were in a terrible taking, you black smut! much you had to fear, to be sure!”
Phebe pressed her clasped hands upon her heart and thanked God.
The same question and the same answer were repeated three times during her walk; but she reached her mother’s hut in perfect safety, and the meeting that followed seemed to atone for all she had suffered. Peggy and the two little girls clung to her with such rapturous fondness, that sorrow, slavery, insults, and stripes were all forgotten, and in the happiness of being reunited they forgot that they wanted any other.
CHAPTER VIII.
HAVING dismissed the guest whose concealment had cost her much anxiety for several days past, Juno laid herself upon her bed of straw, determined, after her first nap should be over, to betake herself to the forest and wander about, with the noiseless step that was so peculiar to her, in the hope of coming across the path of Cæsar. She did this for two nights in vain, but the third was more propitious; for scarcely had she got clear of the grounds, before she descried the object of her search, though she had nothing but the starlight to help her, and he too was playing bo-peep, from behind a mass of tangled bushes, with a movement as noiseless as her own. It really seemed to be an instinct that led the old woman to stop short before this identical bush, and which also made Cæsar protrude his black knob and stare at her, instead of keeping close behind the covert.
Few words sufficed to bring them to a clear understanding. Juno glided like a black ghost in and out through the thick underwood, and Cæsar followed with as little noise and bustle as a shadow makes in leaping a five-barred gate after its owner. When she had arrived within her citadel, and all access to it was duly bolted and barred, Juno asked her new guest if he were not dying of hunger, which supposition still haunted her; though the alertness of Cæsar’s motions had given such good demonstration that his powers of walking were not diminished, that she had not thought it necessary to stop and offer him the provender she carried till they were beneath the shelter of her roof.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 24
